Morphine Manifesto

In conjunction with World Cancer Day 2012 (February 4, 2012), Pallium India, the International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care, and the Pain & Policy Studies Group / WHO Collaborating Center at the University of Wisconsin have released a Morphine Manifesto. IASP and other leading organizations and foundations from around the world have signed this manifesto, which calls for an end to the unethical practice of promoting access to expensive opioid analgesics without also making available low cost immediate release oral morphine.

Furthermore, it calls upon governments, health care institutions, and the pharmaceutical industry to assure the accessibility of immediate release morphine to patients in need at a cost that the individual and community can afford.

IASP member and winner of the IASP award for Excellence in Pain Management and Research in Developing Countries, Dr. M.R. Rajagopal, who is also the chairman of Pallium India and the driving force behind the creation of the Morphine Manifesto, states: "Prolonged unrelieved pain destroys the mind; destroys the body; destroys families. Inexpensive and effective immediate release morphine can relieve most of such pain. We cannot call ourselves a cultured or ethical society if we deprive this relief to those in pain; or worse yet, benefit financially from this suffering by forcing expensive, unaffordable alternatives on them."

You can read and sign the manifesto online at www.palliumindia.org/manifesto.