[Congressional Bills 114th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 2678 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

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114th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                S. 2678

      To direct the NIH to intensify and coordinate fundamental, 
translational, and clinical research with respect to the understanding 
 of pain, the discovery and development of therapies for chronic pain, 
   and the development of alternatives to opioids for effective pain 
                              treatments.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                             March 15, 2016

   Mr. Schatz (for himself, Mr. Hatch, Mr. Tester, Mr. Cochran, Ms. 
Collins, and Ms. Baldwin) introduced the following bill; which was read 
 twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and 
                                Pensions

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
      To direct the NIH to intensify and coordinate fundamental, 
translational, and clinical research with respect to the understanding 
 of pain, the discovery and development of therapies for chronic pain, 
   and the development of alternatives to opioids for effective pain 
                              treatments.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Safe Treatments and Opportunities to 
Prevent Pain Act'' or the ``STOP Pain Act''.

SEC. 2. ENHANCING BASIC AND APPLIED RESEARCH ON PAIN TO DISCOVER 
              THERAPIES, INCLUDING ALTERNATIVES TO OPIOIDS, FOR 
              EFFECTIVE PAIN MANAGEMENT.

    (a) In General.--The Director of the National Institutes of Health 
(referred to in this section as the ``NIH'') may intensify and 
coordinate fundamental, translational, and clinical research of the NIH 
with respect to--
            (1) the understanding of pain;
            (2) the discovery and development of therapies for chronic 
        pain; and
            (3) the development of alternatives to opioids for 
        effective pain treatments.
    (b) Priority and Direction.--The prioritization and direction of 
the federally funded portfolio of pain research studies shall consider 
recommendations made by the Interagency Pain Research Coordinating 
Committee in concert with the Pain Management Best Practices Inter-
Agency Task Force, and in accordance with the National Pain Strategy, 
the Federal Pain Research Strategy, and the NIH-Wide Strategic Plan for 
Fiscal Years 2016-2020, the latter which calls for the relative burdens 
of individual diseases and medical disorders to be regarded as crucial 
considerations in balancing the priorities of the Federal research 
portfolio.
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