Tuesday, November 25, 2003

The Delicate Balance of Pain and Addiction
New York Times story - "Over the past two decades, conflicting medical ideas have surfaced about narcotic painkillers, the drugs that Rush Limbaugh blames for his addiction while being treated for chronic back pain. And both of them, not surprisingly, have centered on the bottom-line question: just how great a risk of abuse and addiction do narcotics pose to pain patients? Throughout much of the last century, doctors believed that large numbers of patients who used these drugs would become addicted to them. That incorrect view meant that cancer sufferers and other patients with serious pain were denied drugs that could have brought them relief. But over the past decade, a very different viewpoint has emerged, one championed by doctors specializing in pain treatment and drug companies eager to broaden the market for such drugs. It held that these medications posed scant risk to pain patients, and some experts now believe that it also had unfortunate consequences because it caused, among other things, physicians to develop a false sense of security about these drugs..."