Health Choices
Sickle Cell Anemia…Battling Pain
Airing Nationally on Public Television – February 2004 

For more information or to order a tape ($29.95) please contact:
Melissa Butler
(203) 221-0888 · melissabbutler@aol.com
** PLEASE MENTION THE CODE "SCDAA" WHEN ORDERING TAPES

Many diseases are most common in certain ethnic groups, which is often a complicating factor when it comes to understanding that disease and then treating and managing it. A particularly stark example is sickle cell anemia, a chronic disease that primarily affects African-Americans in the United States. Management of this disabling condition often runs headlong into prejudice, a lack of financial resources and some difficult social and medical realities.

In this one-hour program, Health Choices will take a look at people who suffer from sickle cell anemia, their families and caregivers. What causes sickle cell? What are the health problems caused by this genetic disease? How is it treated and what are prospects for a cure? And we will look at the primary symptom sickle cell patients must deal with – pain – the many strategies used to treat this chronic pain and some of the social and economic problems that can stem from it. Do some physicians decline to prescribe opium-based pain medications to sickle cell patients because of their color or social status? Are sickle cell patients under-treated due to lack of education and misconceptions about the disease? The use of opioids for pain - controversial from the days doctors prescribed laudanum in the 19th century to the current concern about oxycontin - what economic and social realities do sickle cell patients face when they must use these medications on a daily basis?

Host Dr. Howard Torman guides us through this hour with the help of actor and writer Ossie Davis, who has worked for 50 years to better educate not just the African-American community, but all Americans, about this serious disease which affects some 70,000 people and a source of concern for the over 2 million others, who have the sickle cell trait that could be passed on to their children.

This Health Choices program is an awareness project. Research and information was developed in collaboration with Dr. Russell K. Portenoy, Chair of the Department of Pain Medicine and Palliative Care at Beth Israel Medical Center of New York.

Funding support has been provided by: