Please Help! Pain Patients Are Dying! Support Illinois HB 5373!

In Illinois, pain patients are a marginalized, highly vulnerable, stigmatized community. Pain medicine prescriptions continue to decrease, as doctors become afraid of legal reprisal, but we have a record number of overdose fatalities. Previously stable patients on long-term pain therapy have taken their lives, died from un or under treated pain (the number 1 cause of global mortality), been forced by desperate circumstances to resort to the illicit market, which exponentially increased fatalities. Illinois has one of the lowest prescribing rates in the US but the 14th highest number of deadly overdoses. Recent data reveals that not a single overdose fatality is attributable to prescription pain medicine. State agencies substitute their judgment for doctors and destroy the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship.

Many people are unaware of the toll that restrictive state policies have taken on Illinoisans. Oncologists have decreased prescriptions by 50%. Children with terminal illnesses are denied pain relief. Veterans, who became injured serving our country, have lost access to their medicine—to such an extent that suicides increased by over 1/3. Millions of Illinoisans are one accident away from being chronic pain patients, are impacted by chronic pain themselves, and/or are affected because they are the friend, caretaker, loved one, or other part of a chronic pain patient’s life. Even palliative care and hospice specialists turn people away because they’re afraid of legal consequences.

The American Pain & Disability Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization that tries to protect the pain community. We see firsthand, in our advocacy, practitioners who won't give terminally ill children pain medicine; veterans who served us but are now in terrible pain from combat injuries, and more---but we can't protect doctors and patients as they need to be protected without legislation. We also have an existing healthcare and medication shortage, which is made much worse every time a practitioner gives up or faces reprisal. Our website is www.4APDF.org.

Current policies harm one of our most vulnerable communities. You can help fix this! Please support HB 5373 to protect chronic pain patients and their doctors—millions of lives depend on it!