The next meeting of the Federal Pain Management Best Practices Inter-Agency Task Force is scheduled for this week—and it will be interesting to see what happens.

The reasons are many.

Since the last time the Task Force met, some 6,000 pain patients have left comments about what they think about the various aspects of the draft report.

In addition, there has been an obvious softening by the FDA and the CDC on their rigid anti opioid stances—as the damage done to chronic pain patients who use opioid therapy to manage their pain has become more obvious.

And the media—not all of them to be sure but still enough to be noticed—have begun to shift their narrative from “opioids are bad” to not all who use opioids (notably pain patients) are addicts.

So what the Pain Task Force is going to do on May 9 and 10 in Washington is worth more than a little attention.

The Task Force will vote on the final draft Task Force recommendations for acute and chronic pain management. The plan to disseminate information about best practices for pain management will be presented.

If you are in the D.C. area and have time, I suggest you attend. (If you do, let me know what you think after the meeting by emailing us at editor@nationalpainreport.com)

The Task Force meeting will start at 10 am (Eastern Daylight Time) at the Great Hall at the Hubert H. Humphrey Building, 200 Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C.

Members of the public will have an opportunity to provide comments at the meeting on May 9, 2019 from 11:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. (Eastern Daylight Time). Public comments made during the meeting will be limited to three minutes per person to ensure time is allotted for all those wishing to speak.

Individuals are also welcomed to submit their written comments until Monday, May 6 through the Federal eRulemaking Portal at http://www.regulations.gov. The docket number is HHS-OS-2019-0003. Written comments should not exceed one page in length.

You can learn more information about the meeting by clicking here.

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