Pain Equity Initiatives...why do some have an issue with it?

In case you missed it, Morehouse School of Medicine has partnered with Advil with the goals of addressing pain bias, pain inequity, access to pain relief medication, equitable access to those in the medical field that will listen and advocate for their patient, and more. What's interesting is once Advil rolled out the ad, it was met with heavy criticism, specifically from those who have not been historically racially and/or gender marginalized (I think we all know what population I'm referring to).

Based on history and medical experiments, Black people were seen as being able to handle and process pain differently than those who identify as White. Now, there has been plenty of research that shows surgical operations (OB-GYN people you know what I'm talking about), presentation of diseases to Black people (the Tuskegee experiment), and so many more examples, that make it seem like Black people can handle an excess amount of pain and be okay compared to our White counterparts.

For those unfamiliar to my reference of the medical field, surgical operations, and benefiting from the pain and experiences of Black women, let me introduce you to Mrs. Henrietta Lacks. Mrs. Lacks when to The Johns Hopkins Hospital due to vaginal bleeding, which at that time, was one of the few to treat "poor" African Americans, only for it to be confirmed as cervical cancer. However, after Mrs. Lacks underwent radium treatments for her cervical cancer, but her cells were tested, mind you without her or her family's consent, and have been used in modern medicine to "test the effects of radiation and poisons, to study the human genome, to learn more about how viruses work, and played a crucial role in the development of the polio and COVID-19 vaccines" (Johns Hopkins Medicine, n.d., para. 2). What the institution also mentions is that they could and should've done more to inform Mrs. Lacks and her family to receive informed consent, volunteer her cells for medical research, and more (Johns Hopkins, n.d.; Nature, 2020). What's unfortunate is their statement of "offered HeLa cells freely and widely for scientific research" (Johns Hopkins, n.d., para. 4) and "use of Henrietta Lacks' cells in research was an acceptable and legal practice in the 1950s (Johns Hopkins, n.d., para. 5). For those familiar with ethics, this was completely unacceptable as the involuntary usage of her cells for research, her uninformed consent, and possible "harm" from the medical institution (Nature, 2020).

Let's move on to the Tuskegee Experiment, also known as the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. What is the back story of this experiment? Well researchers recruited 600 African American men in Macon County, Alabama to study how syphilis progresses in human subjects, and were told they would receive free medical care (Nix, 2017). What was found that although the men were monitored by health workers, they were only provided placebos instead of penicillin to treat the disease (Nix, 2017), as well as researchers advising and convincing local physicians to not treat the participants/patients (can we say super unethical?!). Unfortunately, the researchers were going to let the study continue until all participants had passed for them analyze the data, with little regard to the participants passing the diseases to their spouses and their children (Nix, 2017).

All this to say, the partnership between Morehouse College of Medicine and Advil is one that is definitely need. Many Black and Brown individuals choose to go to a practitioner that either looks like them or identify in one or more identities, for example, Black, identify as woman. I will be completely honest and share that I am one who does that when it comes to my healthcare team, and my experience has been amazing. More often than not, when we express, we are experiencing discomfort, a high level of pain, etc., if we are under the care of someone who does not identify racially or ethnically, and at times gender-wise, our concerns, our worries are often dismissed. For example, think of Black and Brown soon-to-be mothers who are told they are "fine" even though blood pressure is up, pain level is up, and exposes them to a higher risk of maternal and/or fetal death. Don't believe me? The Center for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] states "Black women are three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than White women. Multiple factors contribute to these disparities, such as variation in quality health care, underlying chronic conditions, structural racism, and implicit bias. Social determinants of health prevent many people from racial and ethnic minority groups from having fair opportunities for economic, physical, and emotional health" (CDC, n.d.).

All of this say, if you have an issue with Advil and Morehouse College of Medicine partnering together to provide equitable access to medical care and resources, you may want to take a look at yourself, any resources and access you did not have to "fight" for and so on. Granted, there are sub-populations across that may not have the same access to opportunities, resources, and medical care as others, but we are specifically talking about Black and Brown people who have been historically misinformed, taken advantage of, received harm, and have suffered medical complications because they were viewed as "test subjects" instead of human beings.

If you're interested to learn more about the Advil Pain Equity Project (not an ad), please use the link below to be directed to their site.

Dr. Murray

References

Advil. (2024). The Advil Pain Equity Project. The Advil Pain Equity Project.

Nature. (2020). Henrietta Lacks: Science must right a historical wrong. Nature, 585(7). https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02494-z.

Nix, E. (2017). The Tuskegee experiment: The infamous syphilis study. Tuskegee Experiment: The Infamous Syphilis Study | HISTORY.

Johns Hopkins Medicine. (n.d.) The legacy of Henrietta Lacks. The Legacy of Henrietta Lacks | Johns Hopkins Medicine.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention. (n.d.) Working together to reduce Black maternal mortality. Working Together to Reduce Black Maternal Mortality | Women’s Health | CDC