Update 5/8/2019: S.483 was signed by President Obama 4/19/2016. An update will be coming as time allows. However, please follow the link to the letter to President Obama from PAINS. While research on addiction is important, we need money allocated to investigate treatments for chronic pain that includes alternative therapies, and yes, opioids. Chronic pain affects far more people than addiction, yet few seem to realize that. We need evidence that will ensure access to medications that are available now.
Following is my letter to President Obama, my state senators and representatives. Please join me in asking your legislators to pass laws that will provide chronic pain patients the care we need and change how pain is perceived, judged and treated in America. Let them know you want them to support legislation that coherently and collaboratively addresses all aspects of pain. Let's bring research funding, proven integrative care, and access to medications to the table. Let them know how you want them to respond when legislation passes to them. Send them the letter from PAINS to President Obama, as I have. You can find contact information for your legislators on my website at: http://www.celestecooper.com/sample-advocacy-letter.html
“Those who have learned by experience what physical pain and bodily anguish mean, belong together all the world over;
they are united by a secret bond.”
- Albert Schweitzer
Dear____
As an RN, chronic pain
patient, advocate, writer, and published author of self-help books for coping
with chronic pain, I ask that you please read the
letter sent to President Obama from the Pain Action Alliance to Implement a
National Strategy asking him to make the finances and tools available
to implement the National Pain Strategy. Chronic pain patients and those
suffering from opioid addiction deserve compassionate, effective treatment. I
have lived with chronic pain since childhood, having suffered life-long chronic
migraine. Now in my “golden years” I suffer from more than one chronic pain
condition, two for which we know little about and one that is extensive and
inoperable. To withhold the medication that allows me to do the things I write
about or to look at me differently because an opioid is the only medication
that helps me is inhumane. To make decisions based on media sensationalism
instead of reliable evidence is not democratic, nor is it the values this land
is supposed to stand for. It is equally deplorable that addicts are kicked out
of treatment before they are ready. Mental health care in the United States is
not outcome based; it is driven by ability to pay. These things must change,
but they will not unless we have your support.
[US Senators]
Please enact legislation such
as S.483 introduced
by Senator Orrin Hatch, and other legislation that will move the National Pain
Strategy forward.
[US Legislator]
Please support H.R. 471 (S.
483) legislation introduced by Rep. Tom Marino, and other legislation
that will move the National Pain Strategy forward.
Please read:
Letter
to President Obama from the Pain Action Alliance to Implement a
National Strategy
Thank You
~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~
Also see:
Ensuring
Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Actof 2015 - S. 483 H.R. 471 A
Template Letter Chronic Pain
Others in support of the NPS:
- Pain Action Alliance to Implement A National Strategy (PAINS)
- The National Fibromyalgia and Chronic Pain Association (NFMCPA)
- The US Pain Foundation
- State Pain Policy Advocacy Network (SPPAN)
- The American Academy of Pain Management (AAPM)
- The American Academy of Pain Medicine
- Consumer Pain Advocacy Task Force (CPTAF)
CPTAF also sent a
letter to the Senate HELP Committee
- Dr. Sean Mackey, Stanford University Pain Research, and Dr. Lynn Webster, Past President of the American Academy of Pain Medicine, author and producer (see interview, here).
- Other organizations, and individuals, many outlined at the end of the PAINS letter, those who are on the steering committee at PAINS, and those aligned with the CPTAF (also listed at the end of their letter to the US Senate HELP committee noted above).
~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~
"Adversity is only an obstacle if we fail to see
opportunity."
Celeste Cooper, RN
Learn more about what you can do to help your body function to its
potential in the books you can find here on Celeste's blog. Subscribe
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All answers and blogs are based on the author's opinions and
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