Pain Warriors: Civil Rights for Our Time

Pain Warriors: ‘A Civil Rights Movement for Our Time’ — Pain News Network – By Pat Anson, PNN Editor – May 25, 2020

A long-awaited documentary about chronic pain in North America is shining a light on the other side of the opioid crisis – how chronic pain patients and their doctors have been marginalized and persecuted in the name of fighting opioid addiction.

“Pain Warriors” is being released by Gravitas Ventures. It is available for streaming on Vimeo, iTunes and Amazon Prime or on DVD.

The 80-minute film takes an intimate look at the lives of four chronic pain patients and their loved ones, including an 11-year old boy living with cancer pain and a doctor who nearly lost his medical license due to allegations he overprescribed opioids.

About Wearing a Mask…

I was blogging about an article, Does Wearing a Mask Protect Me?, and found myself getting angrier and angrier about all the propaganda (deliberate lies) we’ve been fed about how to protect ourselves from COVID.

“It’s been a real deficiency in the messaging about masking to say that it only protects the other,” said Charles Haas, an environmental engineer and expert in risk assessment at Drexel University.

“From the get-go, that never made sense scientifically.”

That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking all along, it seems so obvious. 

A virus walks into a bar…

Packed Bars Serve Up New Rounds Of COVID Contagion | Kaiser Health News – By Jordan Rau and Elizabeth Lawrence June 25, 2020

As states ease their lockdowns, bars are emerging as fertile breeding grounds for the coronavirus.

Public health authorities have identified bars as the locus of outbreaks in Louisiana, Florida, Wyoming and Idaho.

Bars are tailor-made for the spread of the virus, with loud music and a cacophony of conversations that require raised voices. The alcohol can impede judgment about diligently following rules meant to prevent contagion. 

Medical Tribalism in the Era of Covid-19

John Ioannidis and Medical Tribalism in the Era of Covid-19 – BY JEANNE LENZER & SHANNON BROWNLEE – June 2020

I’ve posted about his contrarian views several times because I think it’s a good idea to see information and opinions from reliable scientific professional sources that are different from the panic-inducing click-bait spouted endlessly by the media.

It started on March 17, when Ioannidis published an opinion essay in STAT saying that the data on Covid-19 were not sufficient to know the disease’s true prevalence and fatality rate.

Ordinarily sober-minded researchers have attacked Ioannidis’ methods with hyperbolic and emotional arguments that suggest it’s not so much his science but his questions that they dislike. 

Misperceptions about ‘Opioid Epidemic:’ Exploring Facts

Misperceptions about the ‘Opioid Epidemic:’ Exploring the Facts – ScienceDirect – Pain Management Nursing – Feb 2020

Here is the full article I posted about yesterday:

A plethora of statistics and claims exist concerning the rise in prescription opioid use and the increase in opioid-related deaths.

Eleven misperceptions were identified that underlie some of the growing national concern and backlash against opioid use.

Misperceptions include

• the number of opioid overdose deaths,
• the quality of government-sponsored data and guidelines,
• the impact of opioid dose escalation on overdose risk,
• postoperative opioid use associated with long-term use, and
• the link between prescription opioid use and heroin initiation.

Illicit Drug Use Not Always a Problem

Here are three articles about illicit drug use pointing out that the drugs themselves aren’t always a problem (and many also come in prescribed versions).

It is the criminalization of drug use that causes chaotic and destructive behavior and imposes such high costs on society (court system, incarceration, law enforcement).

Except for the legality, using illicit drugs is not much different than using alcohol. Some cause far less physical or social harm than alcohol and some are even less addictive, so we cannot claim “illicit drugs are bad for you”.

Coronavirus: How We Misjudge Risk

Coronavirus ‘Hits All the Hot Buttons’ for How We Misjudge Risk – The New York Times –By Max Fisher – Feb 2020

I see a striking similarity between fear of the coronavirus and fear of opioid addiction.

Like everywhere else on campus, and in much of the world, the coronavirus was all anybody could talk about. But one of the attendees, a public health student, had had enough. Exasperated, she rattled off a set of statistics.

The virus had killed about 1,100 worldwide and infected around a dozen in the United States. Alarming, but a much more common illness, influenza, kills about 400,000 people every year, including 34,200 Americans last flu season and 61,099 the year before.  

So the 80,000 flu deaths I previously cited from the 2017-2018 winter flu was unusual, but not entirely out of the norm. 

FACTS about the Wuhan Coronavirus

A Primer on the Wuhan Coronavirus  | American Council on Science and Health – by Henry Miller – Feb 2020

I’m so sick of seeing all the sensationalist coverage of the new coronavirus and found this article to get a more reasonable accounting of what’s going on with it. To me, this is just another flu or cold virus like all the others that lead to death for a small percentage of people every single year.

To put things in perspective:

2017–18 United States flu season – Wikipedia

The 2017-2018 flu season was severe for all populations and resulted in an estimated 959,000 hospitalizations and 79,400 deaths. This is the highest number of patient claims since the 2009 flu season.

Despite almost a million Americans hospitalized and almost 80,000 Americans dying, there was no panic, no sensational headlines, no rush to buy masks, or any other craziness spread by fear-mongering media.

Even Medical Lit Subject to Media Hype about “Opioid Crisis”

Are Prescription Opioids Driving the Opioid Crisis? Assumptions vs Facts | Pain Medicine | Oxford Academic – Mark Edmund Rose, BS, MA – Dec 2017

Sharp increases in opioid prescriptions, and associated increases in overdose deaths in the 2000s, evoked widespread calls to change perceptions of opioid analgesics.  Medical literature discussions of opioid analgesics began emphasizing patient and public health hazards.

Repetitive exposure to this [mis-]information may influence physician assumptions.

This is a huge problem for us, and a sad commentary on the state of medicine in the U.S. when doctors are influenced more by media-hype and biased research than their patients’ lived experiences. 

Incorrect Medical Information has Dire Consequences

The Press: Incorrect Medical Information, Dire Consequences! | American Council on Science and Health –By Wolfgang Vogel — Oct 2019

Reporters and editors have the duty to inform the public about current events. In fulfilling this duty, every journalist must follow the journalistic code of ethics; reports must be based on proven facts or when personal opinions are used they must be clearly be labeled as such.

Sometimes we don’t even realize the difference between something we have knowledge of and something we only believe. More than once in my life, things I thought I “knew” turned out to be more assumptions or opinions rather than facts.