http://www2.rpa.net/~lrandall/thernstrom.html
http://www.vachss.com/help_text/archive/pain_disease.html
"In January, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, the basic national health care review board, implemented the first national standards requiring pain assessment and control in all hospitals and nursing homes.
"Standards for evaluating and managing pain in lab animals have long been tightly regulated, but curiously there had never before been any legal equivalent for people. Maine took the further step last year of passing its own legislation requiring the aggressive treatment of pain, and California and other states are considering following suit.
''It's a field on the verge of an explosion,'' Carr says. ''There's no area of medicine with more growth and more public interest. We've come far enough scientifically to see how far we have to go.''
THERE IS MUCH MORE TO READ AT THE ABOVE WEBSITE!!