Pain Doctor William Hurwitz Found Guilty

“If it wasn't so before, it is now essentially professional suicide to provide pain-management services to one's patients -- a fact that will needlessly cost the lives of many of society's most sick and vulnerable,” said Baylen Linnekin on DrugPolicy.org.

Dr. Hurwitz, a prominent pain management caregiver, was charged with over-prescribing medications such as OxyContin to patients around the country, many of whom suffered from cancer, chronic back pain, arthritis, or diabetes. While pain medications can be abused in this way, many pain treatment specialists believe that the arrest of Dr. Hurwitz and others is unwarranted. Data shows that the under-treatment of pain is causing an epidemic of undue suffering and pain. As the nation’s largest health problem, an estimated 50-75 million suffer from pain each day, resulting in more lost days from work than heart disease and cancer combined.

Under-treatment of pain largely stems from heavy-handed Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) monitoring of prescriptions. Those considered to over-prescribe are arrested, leaving many physicians afraid to appropriately treat their patients with strong pain medications. The DEA has “an unprecedented amount of control over the behavior of physicians” says Siobhan Reynolds, Executive Director of the Pain Relief Network. As a result they “control a doctor’s ability to make a living.”

There has been an 800% increase in physician prosecutions over the past three years. Recently, the DEA has aggressively focused on the pain killer OxyContin – an opioid analgesic that is among the safest and most effective treatments for pain. Doctors now fear arrest and are prescribing the medication less often and in smaller doses – what Reynolds calls “tapering the patient down”.

Concerns about the number of people left under-treated or even untreated have led pain management groups to call for a moratorium on arrests and Congressional investigations into the validity of the DEA’s crackdown. In a blow to the DEA’s campaign to control pain management, a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) panel [last year] voted down a DEA proposal to further restrict patient access to OxyContin.

Content courtesy of the Drug Policy Alliance (www.drugpolicy.org).