January 2000 • Volume 6 • Number 1
Thanks to AAFP effort, AMA will seek changes in pain relief act
BY PAULA BINDER
San Diego, Calif.Relieving pain is good medicine. But to the Academy, the American Medical Association's support for the Pain Relief Promotion Act of 1999, H.R. 2260 and S. 1272, has been bad medicine.
Under the bill, federal law enforcement officials could look back at a patient's death and -- using federally disseminated guidelines on palliative care -- determine whether the physician provided appropriate care or assisted in a suicide.
While both AAFP and AMA oppose physician-assisted suicide, the AAFP "doesn't want the government in the role of defining good medical practice," explained AAFP President Bruce Bagley, M.D., of Albany, N.Y. "Such guidelines might not cover 'outliers' -- those patients who need more medication to control pain. This would create a 'chilling effect' -- exactly the opposite of what the bill's sponsors intend."
So the AAFP delegation went to the AMA House of Delegates Dec. 5-8 to try to change AMA's stance on the pain relief bill. The result: The AMA will seek improvements in the act by deletion of provisions that would establish federal protocols and/or regulations for pain management and palliative care. However, delegates did not adopt a second AAFP-sponsored resolve that would have instructed the AMA to withdraw its support for the pain relief act if those changes were not achieved.
Delegates adopted a third AAFP-sponsored resolve that instructs the AMA to "oppose any future legislation which gives the federal government the responsibility to define appropriate medical practice and regulate such practice through the use of criminal penalties."
Others opposing the pain relief bill in its current form include the American Society of Clinical Oncology, American Pain Society, AMA's Specialty and Service Society caucus and several state delegations.
The pain relief bill, H.R. 2260 and S. 1272, is intended to promote effective pain management while deterring the misuse of controlled substances for physician-assisted suicide. The House passed H.R. 2260 Oct. 27 by a bipartisan vote of 271-156.
FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department.
Copyright © 2000 by American Academy of Family Physicians.
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