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A Quick Note to Senator Markey – Life as an Extreme Sport
Life as an Extreme Sport

A Quick Note to Senator Markey

I’m cranky. The water has been out at the house for almost 24 hours now; a water main broke just outside our apartment yesterday afternoon, and appears to be spreading through multiple city blocks, now. An historical building undergoing renovations has turned into a swimming pool, there are reports of streets buckling under the now-gushing water geysers, and my joking, yesterday, about a Hellmouth opening here suddenly seems a little more on the nose.

So I wasn’t in the best headspace to read that one of my Senators, Ed Markey, is not only supporting the 21st Century Cures Act, but is pushing for the additional “opioid crisis” addiction funding – with no thought to the harm that causes chronic pain patients, and the utterly asinine blindness to funding research into pain and other pain treatment modalities. So I jotted off a quick email, and wanted to share it here:

I am deeply disappointed that, with the 21st Century Cures Act, not only have you proudly pushed funding that supports the opioid panic (and publicized it), Senator – you are contributing to the stigma and difficulty in accessing health care patients with chronic pain face. Nowhere in any of this “omg opioid crisis” panic funding do we see what REALLY needs to happen: funding for research into chronic pain and other treatment modalities. You focus on addiction at the expense of patients in genuine pain, and you’re doing that because addiction makes a better media story than pain. While I have been surprised to learn of you – you are frequently overshadowed by Elizabeth Warren in the national media – I am now sad to say I’m disappointed in you, and beyond losing respect for your work, I question your ability to accurately and adequately represent constituents like me.

There are many other problems with the 21st Century Cures Act, which you can read about at Health Affairs (among other places, including Stat News, if you need a more local read), but in this measure, you are alienating constituents with chronic pain who, research shows, are both at low risk for addiction and are the most harmed by pushes like these. MA already has restrictive and difficult limitations to access that constrain and minimize the quality of life of disabled people. Additional funding and penalties towards abuse of illicit drugs (and conflating those with prescription drugs) harms everyone and helps no one.

I am disappointed, today, to call you my senator.