Advil has initiated the Advil Pain Equity Project, dedicating itself over multiple years to mitigating a supposed crisis of “pain inequity” and interrogating racial biases in pain-related healthcare—ostensibly without any ulterior motive pertaining to sales of the anti-inflammatory medicine.
Grants will be given to Morehouse School of Medicine and BLKHLTH to aid in creating patient resources and a medical student course on pain equity, though the amounts are undisclosed.
“As one of the world’s most recognizable over-the-counter pain relief brands, we believe that everyone deserves relief from pain,” Stacey Harris, vice president of marketing at Advil, said in the announcement. “To create real systematic change that gives patients true pain equity, we need to tackle this challenge at the source, which means changing how the broader medical community treats Black patients’ pain.”
A survey by Advil and Morehouse involving 2,000 Americans showed that 93% of Black respondents experience daily life impacts from pain, and 83% reported negative experiences seeking pain management help.
Fortunately, with the new campaign, the pharmaceutical industry has stepped in to relieve this crisis, presumably by selling more Advil to black people.
The project includes the “Believe My Pain” campaign, opening with a roundtable discussion led by journalist Elaine Welteroth and featuring physician Uché Blackstock, M.D., to share experiences of inequitable pain treatment in Black communities.
“This negligence and lack of care in the healthcare system is unfortunately too common, and so often brings irrevocable damage to Black patients and their families,” Welteroth said in a press release.
Blackstock, who founded Advancing Health Equity to address healthcare bias and racism, emphasized the necessity of systemic change.
“We live in a world and a society where there is systemic racism,” Blackstock said. “I know from my own personal experiences that we need to not only bring awareness to this, but systemic change as well.”
Tabia Henry Akintobi, Ph.D., from Morehouse School of Medicine, highlighted the importance of addressing health inequities.
“This requires partners that share similar values. We look forward to our partnership with Advil to champion pain equity within healthcare and social systems and work towards forging a path with lasting solutions.”
The project also plans a digital series with Tosha Rogers and Ebony Butler, Ph.D., advocating for Black health, in collaboration with Urban One, alongside digital tools and resources for improving pain care experiences and outcomes, available at BelieveMyPain.com.
However, the premise of Advil’s campaign is in contradiction to the wisdom of a great number of mystics and philosophers who affirm the positive moral value of pain and suffering. Notably, Friederich Nietzsche was known to expound upon the positive value of pain, remarking that “woe implores—go!” in his poem “Zarathustra’s Roundelay.” Additionally, the Catholic spiritual tradition also highlights the spiritual value of pain, with Saint Faustina Kowalska opining that suffering was one of the two things which the angels might envy of humankind, and mystic Simone Weil asserting that suffering brought human beings in contact with the divine.
Scroll down to leave a comment and share your thoughts.