#Following is a segment of an opinion piece by Drs. Josh Bloom and Jeffery Singer, appeared in USA Today on March 12, 2025, and is reprinted with permission. The entire op-ed can be read here.
Not a month goes by without one or both of us receiving emails from desperate people pleading for help finding a physician willing to take new pain patients − a task that has become next to impossible. Increasingly, these pleas are not just about pain management but about finding ways to end their lives, as years of forced reductions or complete discontinuation of the opioid painkillers that previously allowed them to function have left them bedridden, in constant severe pain or both.
Josh Bloom
Dr. Jonathan (Josh) Bloom, ACSH's Director of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, earned his Ph.D. at the University of Virginia and completed postdoctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania. During his 20-plus years in drug discovery at Wyeth, his research group discovered the antibiotic Tygacil®, approved in 2005. He holds 25 issued patents and has authored 35 academic papers. Since joining ACSH in 2010, he has written more than 2,000 articles and dozens of op-eds for major newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal and Chicago Tribune.
