On 1 November, agents from the Drug Enforcement Agency ordered Beverly Hills pain doctor David Bockoff to cease prescribing controlled substances like the powerful pain medication fentanyl, part of the agency’s crackdown on opioids.
A week later, Danny Elliot, one of Dr Bockoff’s patients who relied on the pain medication to treat painful lifelong complications from an electrocution, was found dead by suicide along with his wife, Gretchen, the latest sign that people with chronic pain are struggling to find their place in the US health system as it battles the opioid crisis.
