Word: quattlebaum
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...letters pour into the Washington office of Judith Quattlebaum, 49. Again and again they tell a story that is all too familiar: the unremitting agony endured by a cancer patient, the frustrating sense of impotence felt by the family, and the apparent indifference of doctors seemingly more concerned about the latest advance in chemotherapy than about the comfort and dignity of their patient. Quattlebaum has been through it, having watched her grandmother slowly succumb to cancer. Seven years ago, she decided to act. Working out of her home, she organized the National Committee on the Treatment of Intractable Pain...
Over the years, Quattlebaum's efforts have won considerable support in Congress, but several attempts to pass a heroin bill have been defeated. This year she is closer than ever. The Compassionate Pain Relief Act would authorize the use of heroin over a four-year evaluation period for hospitalized terminal cancer patients. It has been approved at the committee level in the House, and a companion bill has been introduced in the Senate. The bills have the support of such diverse political leaders as conservative Republican Barry Goldwater of Arizona and liberal Democrat Henry Waxman of California...
...large, supporters have been persuaded by Quattlebaum's argument that heroin, which has been prohibited for use by U.S. doctors since 1956, is in many ways superior to morphine, the injectable narcotic most widely prescribed for cancer pain. According to Quattlebaum, heroin is faster acting because it is more soluble: "You can use half a cc of heroin, when you may have to use 20 times as much morphine." This is especially important in treating patients who are so emaciated that there is little muscle left in which to inject a drug, making a large shot extremely painful. Quattlebaum...
...many authorities disagree with Quattlebaum's views...
...really benefit from the drug. "The evidence would suggest that her oin is the great non-issue of our day," says Kathleen Foley, chief of the pain service at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Foley, who has testified against the bill, challenges many of Quattlebaum's claims. While heroin is more soluble than morphine, she says, it is somewhat less potent than Dilaudid, a synthetic opiate already on the U.S. market. Nor is heroin likely to benefit patients who are allergic to morphine or are bothered by its side effects: new research by Cornell...