The Contradictions of Pain Therapy

In: Policy review: the journal of American citizenship, Heft 176

Abstract

The medical profession now estimates that 116 million Americans suffer from chronic pain and merit some kind of treatment -- more than a third of the entire population. This number doesn't even include sufferers of acute pain, or children. Already eight million Americans use drugs to manage this pain, representing a tenfold increase in the last fifteen years. Pain that a generation ago would have been overlooked as a natural part of everyday life now has the attention of physicians, leading to an enormous increase in both narcotic and nonnarcotic prescriptions, with narcotics now representing the most widely prescribed class of medications in the U.S. Indeed, $600 billion is spent annually on the chronic pain problem. Adapted from the source document.