…A few things (heart rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure, blood oxygen saturation) are routinely checked at medical visits. This is because these simple parameters provide highly useful information on the current health of the patient (hence why they are called “vital” signs).
The current opioid crisis began after the opioid manufacturers developed a marketing campaign to have pain become “the fifth vital sign. “ As a result doctors began asking every patient their current pain level on a 1-10 scale, and as a significant portion of the population will always have a baseline level of discomfort, this created the perception there was an epidemic of unaddressed pain.
The drug companies were then able to use the existence of this “epidemic” to have medical boards penalize doctors for malpractice if they “inhumanely” failed to address their patients pain levels. There were a lot of reasons why this was a terrible idea, one of which is the opioid epidemic that is currently tearing low-income areas of America apart, which has been so damaging to the country, it has overriden the typical corruption that keeps bad drugs on the market and free of any criticism.
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I strongly believe this was a disastrous mistake/demonic act of greed and willful harm. With no proof except my own observation, I also believe Ibuprofen is a terrible drug that leads to mental decline. I have watched too many friends blithely pop high doses of this garbage every time they get a headache or feel anxious or whatever. Some bodily pain is normal and pain after injury is normal and helps direct healing. It is good to get used to pain and treat it as little as reasonably possible. ABN
American Buddhist Net 