Today, leading women's health advocates called on the Institute of Medicine (IOM), through the release of the first Congressionally-mandated report on the state of our nation's effort to eradicate chronic pain, to "seize this historic opportunity" to help the millions of afflicted American women suffering from prevalent, longtime neglected pain disorders.

In a letter sent today to Dr. Phillip Pizzo, Chair of the IOM Committee on Advancing Pain Research, Care and Education, organizational leaders of the Campaign to End Chronic Pain in Women thanked the IOM for their important work and called on the special Committee to be bold in its recommendations, which are expected by the end of June. The letter notes that up to 50 million women in America suffer from one or more of the following prevalent, neglected and poorly understood chronic pain conditions that frequently co-occur and disproportionately affect women: chronic fatigue syndrome, endometriosis, fibromyalgia, interstitial cystitis, TMJ disorders and vulvodynia, at an annual cost of up to $80 billion a year.

They called on the IOM to recommend a concerted and coordinated effort to confront this costly problem: "The report should call on our nation's leaders to enact a long overdue, concerted, coordinated, and serious effort to tackle this costly problem through an expanded collaborative research effort and improved clinical care. Doing so has the potential to not only lead to an improved quality of life for millions of Americans, but will start the process of reducing wasteful and inefficient health care spending."

Last year Congress directed the IOM to develop recommendations on how to significantly improve the state of our nation's pain research, medical management and educational efforts. This report is expected to be delivered to Congress by June 30, 2011. Since the IOM study began in November 2010, the Campaign has, on every available opportunity, submitted oral and written testimony; today's letter outlined essential elements of the solution to this complex problem.

"Through the release of this report, the IOM has a historic opportunity to redefine how our nation confronts our chronic pain epidemic," said the Campaign leaders. "These recommendations hold the promise of stimulating long-overdue improvements in the quality of medical care provided to millions of chronic pain sufferers."

Source:
Campaign to End Chronic Pain in Women