National Pain Strategy: A Rough Beast?

(Editor’s Note: Earlier this month, The National Institutes of Health (NIH) released a draft copy of its National Pain Strategy, a long awaited report designed to advance pain research and healthcare in the U.S. The report identifies several areas where the healthcare system is failing pain sufferers and how it can be improved

A coalition of 17 chronic pain organizations called the Consumer Pain Advocacy Task Force was quick to endorse the National Pain Strategy, and is now lobbying the NIH to create an oversight body to implement the plan and provide funding for it

David Becker is a social worker, patient advocate and political activist who believes the needs and concerns of pain sufferers are not adequately addressed by the National Pain Strategy.)

By David Becker

The Consumer Pain Advocacy Task Force started promoting the National Pain Strategy (NPS) less than a week after it was made public. Obviously they didn't wait to hear from their members or people in pain -- as they are intent on seeing that rough beast of a plan be born no matter what people in pain think or want. The NPS is not "urgently needed" as they claim.

The NPS did not put a price tag on any of its plans or estimate how much their plan might save in costs; or how much the prevalence of painful conditions might be lowered or how much incidents of healthcare disparities might be reduced.

It is clear the government didn't want to include clear performance measures in the NPS. They do not wish to be held accountable to Americans or people in pain if the plan doesn’t work.

I do not support this thinly veiled occupational strategy that serves special interest groups without regard to the public good. Like a box of chocolates -- you don't know what you’re getting with this plan. 

DAVID BECKER

It is a big lie to say that the biopsychosocial model or interdisciplinary care meets the evidence based pyramid standards. Not enough research on their paradigm has ever been done and what little there is does not provide strong evidence for their paradigm over treatment as usual.

This plan has failed to learn from the mistakes of the past. A decade of pain control and research was a failure. It based its efforts on the “experts” -- as does the NPS. The more things change in pain care the more they remain the same. And people in pain remain condemned to the failed strategies of the past. The NPS, essentially, is nothing new.

It is clear that the 80 people who created the NPS don't have "the right stuff.” They have left too much to the imagination with their plan and leave out any plan for multi-morbidity or for treatment burden, and don't allow for an ongoing dialogue with people in pain.

To paraphrase Immanuel Kant, “We can think what we want, as long as we obey.”

The NPS was not a conversation with people in pain. It is a top down reductionist strategy by special interest groups to maintain their power and prestige. It will do very little for people in pain or address the ever rising economic burden of poor pain care.

As Helen Keller wrote, it is a terrible thing to see with no vision. The NPS fails to see much of the problems in pain care, failed to listen to the dried voices of people in pain, and offers no inspiring vision to address the many problems in pain care. The NPS is one rough beast that slouches toward Bethlehem and should never be born.

It is tragic that America can’t get it right when it comes to pain care. The politicos are anti-democratic and too ignorant of the real problems to create a sophisticated model or plan for dealing with pain.

My official comments to the NPS will excoriate their claims to expertise and their claims that they care about pain in America. But no article or comments will stop this rough beast from being born – too many organizations have been working hard to make it a reality.

What do you think? You can read the National Pain Strategy for yourself, by clicking here.

The NIH is accepting comments on the NPS until May 20, 2015.

Written comments can be emailed to NPSPublicComments@NIH.gov. They can also be addressed by snail mail to Linda Porter, NINDS/NIH, 31 Center Drive, Room 8A31, Bethesda, MD 20892.