Just over 20% of American adults suffer from chronic pain, making chronic pain one of the most significant health concerns affecting individuals in the United States. For many chronic pain disorders, the prevalence is higher amongst women. In order to elucidate the actions underlying the development and treatment of chronic pain, as well as associated behaviors, animal models are necessary. However, as we have not produced a novel treatment for chronic pain in some time, many researchers are calling for better behavioral measures, citing a lack of translational validity in our measures as the reason for this slow progress. Efforts to design novel behavioral assays increased, but this movement has not yet had its intended impact, and whether it ever will is questionable. This is because other major issues exist in the field that are being ignored: insufficient understanding of the patient population and individualized medicine, the omittance of negative data that would inform other researchers of what not to do, a lack of personal accountability amongst researchers, and an inappropriate perception of the goals of animal research are some of these issues.