This Week:

Siobhan Reynolds
Pain relief and the law

Listen (Mp3 - 12.8 mb) (membership required)

Siobhan Reynolds is the president of The Pain Relief Network (PRN), which was formed to oppose the Federal Government crackdown on the treatment of chronic pain.

They have raised awareness of this issue in the media, and developed and implemented a Clinical Litigation Project.

People in severe chronic pain are the most disenfranchised and voiceless minority in America today. They exist in the darkness created by the myth of available care. Their daily lives are truly a hell on earth. When people in pain realize that they require daily opioid pain medications, they are met with derision and suspicion, by their family and friends. Their physicians treat them as though they had become criminals subjecting them to mandatory drug testing, and coercing them into signing away their medical privacy rights to law enforcement.

Previous shows on related topics:
Big Bad Renee
Her offense? How about drawing pictures... of PLANTS. This is
one story you are just NOT going to believe....

Links:

Visit the Pain Relief Network website

Now You See It, Now You Don't: The Amazing Vanishing DEA Pain FAQ

Siobhan Reynolds statement to the NY Assembly Health Committee

Pitching relief
A Physician With Firsthand Knowledge About Pain Advocates Opium-Based Drugs Despite Fears of Abuse - Washington Post

The DEA's War on Pain Doctors
Some in the medical community call it “a war on pain doctors,” or “state-sponsored terrorism.” However you describe the current campaign, Frank Owen writes, the DEA’s hardball tactics have scared physicians nationwide to the extent that legitimate pain sufferers now find it increasingly difficult to get the medicine they need. - Village Voice

Florida's "War On Drugs" Turning Into War On Doctors and Patients
Pain Relief Network Joins National Physician and Patient Advocacy Groups in Denouncing Florida's Hearings On Pain Drugs - From The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Inc.