A recent study conducted by researchers at Georgia State University is the first of its kind to demonstrate that administration of preemptive morphine prior to a painful procedure in infancy blocks the long-term negative consequences of pain in adult rodents.

More people suffer from pain than from heart disease, diabetes and cancer combined, but many of the drugs used to relieve suffering are not completely effective or have harmful side effects.

Morphine’s serious side effect as a pain killer – its potential to create dependency – has been almost completely eliminated in research with mice by genetically modifying a single trait on the surface of neurons. The study scientists think a drug can be developed to similarly block dependency.

Cancer patients are suffering unnecessarily because they wrongly believe that morphine and other opioids are only used as “comfort for the dying” and as a “last resort” rather than seeing them as legitimate pain killers that can improve their quality of life.

Alpharma Pharmaceuticals LLC, a subsidiary of Alpharma Inc.(NYSE: ALO), a leading global specialty pharmaceutical company, presented results from a Phase 2 study that showed ALO-01, an extended-release morphine sulfate plus sequestered naltrexone, provided similar effectiveness to KADIAN® (morphine sulfate extended-release) Capsules in osteoarthritis patients with moderate-to-severe chronic pain.

For the first time, pain researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown that it's possible to separate the good effects of opiate drugs such as morphine (pain relief) from the unwanted side effects of those drugs (tolerance, abuse and addiction).

Morphine stops the synapse-strengthening process in the brain known as long-term potentiation at inhibitory synapses, according to new research conducted by Brown University brain scientist Julie Kauer. In Nature, Kauer explains this startlingly persistent effect, which could contribute to addiction and may provide a target for treatments of opioid addiction.

Many people, including health care workers, believe that morphine is a lethal drug that causes death when used to control pain for a patient who is dying. That is a misconception according to new research published in the latest issue of Palliative Medicine, from SAGE Publications.