Summary
A chronic lack of opioid drugs leaves millions of people throughout the developing world to live and die in unrelenting, excruciating pain. It is a particularly bitter irony in India, which historically had the world's biggest legal opium poppy industry.
The Lancet journal has dubbed the lack of access even to cheap pain killers such as morphine a "medical, public health, and moral failing". Justin Rowlatt reports from Kerala, where Dr M R Rajagopal is pioneering a revolution in palliative care, including the successful lobbying of the Indian government to liberalise its draconian laws on opioids in 2014.
But where will the drugs come from? Megan O'Brien of the American Cancer Society explains a cheap solution they are advocating in Sub-Saharan Africa. And Kunal Saxena, managing director of pharma company Rusan, tells of his hopes for the privatisation and expansion of India's opium business.
Producer: Laurence Knight
(Picture: Benedict Alexander, a patient at the Pallium India clinic, with his wife Bindu; Credit: BBC)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Business Daily. I'm Justin Rowlatt and brace yourselves as we enter a world of untreated pain |
| 0:07.3 | that is literally beyond your imagination. |
| 0:16.1 | For three days he was crying. Like a snake wriggling, he would be on the floor thrashing and crying. |
| 0:21.5 | The pain was just excruciating. |
| 0:23.7 | I couldn't move my hands or legs. |
| 0:26.1 | I couldn't even turn my head. |
| 0:27.9 | Several of the countries that we work in had no opioids whatsoever. |
| 0:31.9 | Unbelievable. |
| 0:33.9 | Unbelievable. |
| 0:34.2 | Cruel situation. |
| 0:36.7 | Big market. |
| 0:42.3 | Just basic morphine consumption could increase by almost 100 times. We hear a lot about the devastating effects of the over-prescription of opioid painkillers in America, |
| 0:58.2 | but there is a much bigger problem worldwide. The lack of effective pain relief in low and middle-income countries. |
| 1:05.9 | Tens of millions of people live and die in agony, agony that could quite easily be avoided. |
| 1:14.0 | But in the coastal city of Travandrum, in the state of Kerala on the tip of the Indian peninsula, |
| 1:19.8 | change is afoot. |
| 1:32.2 | Benedict Alexander used to be in constant pain. |
| 1:34.8 | Cancer has spread through his body. |
| 1:38.6 | I couldn't sit down. |
| 1:39.9 | I couldn't sleep. |
| 1:41.0 | I couldn't lie down. |
| 1:42.2 | I couldn't walk. |
... |
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