Pain Research Comes into Its Own

In the first case of its kind, a jury earlier this year found a physician guilty of undermedicating a patient for pain. Claiming that such an action amounted to elder abuse and recklessness, the judge awarded $1.5 million to the patient's family. The precedent-setting case occurred after the passage of a Congressional provision, the Decade of Pain Control and Research, which went into effect Jan. 1. Signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton and sponsored by the American Academy of Pain Medi

Written byJennifer Fisher Wilson

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"Too many people with chronic pain are undertreated," says neuroscientist Allan I. Basbaum, department of anatomy chairman and member of the Keck Center for Integrative Neuroscience at the University of California, San Francisco. "Pain is difficult to measure. You can't see it and thus the medical community often underestimates the magnitude of a patient's pain. And because people die in pain, but not of pain, nobody wants to give money specifically to pain research."

Editor's Note: This is the fourth article in a series on the senses. The final installment, on the sense of smell, will be published in the December 10 issue.

Private foundation funds for pain research remain scant, but National Institutes of Health funding--partly in response to the congressional mandate--has become more abundant spending. According to NIH numbers, the 1995 FY budget for pain condition was $67.3 million, the 2002 FY budget is estimated at $157.1 million. ...

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