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Hundreds of millions of people around the world live with chronic pain - many in such severe pain they are disabled by it. The Institute of Medicine estimates that chronic pain costs the U.S. alone $560 to $635 billion a year in direct medical costs and lost productivity. Morphine, an effective painkiller, costs only three cents a dose, yet because of excessive regulation in many countries, it is unavailable to millions of people who need it, even at the end of life. The World Health Organization notes that in addition to the one million end-stage AIDS/HIV patients who can't get morphine and other controlled medications, 5.5 million terminal cancer patients, nearly a million people suffering from accidents or violence, and an incalculable number of people living with chronic illnesses or recovering from surgery don't have access to it, either.



About the Author

Judy Foreman

Judy Foreman is a former nationally syndicated health columnist whose "Health Sense" columns have appeared regularly in the Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Dallas Morning News and other national and international outlets. For years, she also wrote the Globe's popular short feature, "Health Answers." She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Wellesley College, served in the Peace Corps in Brazil for three years, then got a Master's degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. From 2001 to 2004, she was a Lecturer on Medicine at Harvard Medical School and, for most of this time, was a scholar at the Brandeis Women's Research Center. She has also been the host of a weekly, call-in radio show on Healthtalk.com and has won more than 50 journalism awards.Her book on chronic pain, "A Nation in Pain - Healing Our Biggest Health Problem," is due out in January, 2014 from Oxford University Press.



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