"Ignorance about the use of opioid medications is the result of a failure, across much of the world including in some industrialized countries, to provide healthcare workers with adequate instruction on palliative care and pain management." --Human Rights Watch 2011 Report: "Please, do not make us suffer any more"
 
"One of the largest obstacles to the provision of good palliative care and pain treatment services in many countries is the lack of training for healthcare workers. Many do not have an adequate understanding of palliative care, do not know how to provide it and subscribe to various myths about morphine and other opioid analgesics." --Human Rights Watch 2011 Report: Global State of Pain Treatment Access to Medicines and Palliative Care
 
 "More than 60 million Americans have some type of persistent or recurrent pain (chronic non-cancer pain) sufficient to substantially affect their lives. At least 40% of patients with chronic pain treated in a routine practice setting fail to achieve adequate pain relief." --Robert R. Leverence, MD, Robert L. Williams, MD, MPH, Michael Potter, MD, Douglas Fernald, MA, Mark Unverzagt, MD, Wilson Pace, MD, Bennett Parnes, MD, Elvan Daniels, MD, Betty Skipper, PhD, Robert J. Volk, PhD, Anthony E. Brown, MD, and Robert L. Rhyne, MD
 
 
 "Pain is a universal experience. Common chronic pain conditions affect at least 116 million U.S. adults at a cost of $560-635 billion annually in direct medical treatment costs and lost productivity." --Committee on Advancing Pain Research, Care, and Education [2011] 
 
 
"According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), pain is one of our most important national public health problems, a silent epidemic." --Philipp M. Lippe, MD, FACS, Charles Brock, MD, Jose David, MD, Ronald Crossno, MD, and Stuart Gitlow, MD
"The reasons for unrelieved cancer-related pain are numerous and may include a lack of knowledge and skill on the part of healthcare professionals regarding pain assessment and management; misguided fears (of healthcare professionals, patients, or family members), myths, and attitudes regarding the use of opioids; and myths and misunderstanding by the public, patients, and family caregivers." --Esther Green, RN, MS, Caroline Zwaal, MS, Carole Beals, RN BS, Barbara Fitzgerald, RN, MSN, Ingrid Harle, MD, FRCSC, OCFP, FCFP, ABHPM, Janice Jones, RN, MN, ACNP, Julianna Tsui, RPh, BS, Jocelyne Volpe, RN, BS, MN, ACNP, Dineke Yoshimoto, RN, MHS, and Jennifer Wiernikowski, RN, BSN, MSN
  

 "Millions of people in the world with severe acute and chronic pain suffer because of the ignorance of doctors and the lack of a standardized scientific approach." --WHO Delphi study report, 2007
 
"Morphine is a low-cost, effective pain relief medicine ideally suited for poor countries. It is inexpensive to manufacture, costing approximately one American cent for each ten milligrams of generic morphine sulfate tabulate or morphine hydrochloride solution." --Allyn L. Taylor, J.D., LL.M., J.S.D.

 
"...there are strong indications that pain receives insufficient attention in virtually all phases of medical education—the lengthy continuum that includes medical school (undergraduate medical education), residency programs (graduate medical education), and courses taken by practicing physicians (continuing medical education [CME])." --Committee on Advancing Pain Research, Care, and Education; Institute of Medicine [IOM 2011 Report]