“Health is not the absence of disease.” It cannot be identified as the total absence of pain either. As those who exist in a fallen world, the frailty of the body and mind will never be completely cured on this side of eternity. Pain reminds image-bearers that their embodied selves are made for more than the uninterrupted self-actualization that the secular mindset cherishes above all else. Common grace offers many wonderful cures, but it will never offer the final solution to all of our ailments.

In 1996, pain was declared the “fifth vital sign,” ranking alongside blood pressure, pulse, respiratory rate, and body temperature when assessing a patient’s state of health. But this “fifth vital sign” was not declared by the surgeon general but by the American Pain Society, a group funded by “Big Pharma.” That organization went out of existence in 2019, faced with massive legal challenges.

Who is to blame for the American opioid crisis? Beth Macy’s 2018 bestselling book, Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America, aims its sights squarely at Purdue Pharma’s concerted effort to push OxyContin on doctors as “non-addictive” despite lacking any verifiable science for backing such a claim. A new exposé from The New York Times also documents how pharmaceutical middlemen helped facilitate the overprescription of opioids by discouraging restrictions that would have better-protected patients from future addiction.

Still, the consequences of opioid usage remain clear. Deaths from drug overdoses exceeded 100,000 in 2021, most of which involved the use of opioids.

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