Stigma, Scarcity and the Price of Legitimacy: Chronic Pain Advocacy and the Politics of Pharmaceutical Partnerships in Canada

Drawing on interviews with 22 Canadian chronic pain advocates, this study shows pharmaceutical funding was widely viewed as a pragmatic response to stigma, weak public funding, and institutional neglect rather than as simple ethical capture. The authors conclude that these structural constraints entrenched pharmaceuticalized approaches to pain advocacy, even as industry ties later became a source of reputational liability.