The Crime of Pain Management

Dr. Deborah Bordeaux used to be a pain management specialist. Now she's a convicted felon facing a 100-year prison sentence as a drug dealer. Bordeaux was arrested when the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and South Carolina law enforcement raided the Myrtle Beach clinic where she once prescribed opioids to severely ill patients. Siobhan Reynolds is a New York City-based film documentarian with a chronically ill life partner. When Reynolds attended Bordeaux's trial earlier this year, the South Carolina doctor's ordeal and the apparent miscarriage of justice prompted Reynolds to found a new group to advocate for pain patients and the health care workers who treat them, the Pain Relief Network (http://www.PainReliefNetwork.org).

... a growing number of physicians indicted and sometimes convicted of being drug traffickers but who say they were only doing what was best for patients... Florida Dr. James Graves sits in prison pending appeal after being convicted of manslaughter, while three other physicians face murder charges related to their prescribing opioids. The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (http://www.aapsonline.org) maintains a list of more than 30 doctors it contends have been unfairly prosecuted over pain management issues.

On September 9, the Pain Relief Network addressed the FDA in response to the rising tide of physician prosecutions and urged it to halt cooperation with the Justice Department until Justice recognizes the current medical understanding of what constitutes acceptable pain care practices. Under the Controlled Substances Act, the FDA must holding hearings on drugs and "advise" the Attorney General as to their proper classification. PRN's Reynolds told the FDA committee the process was fraught with mischief since the Justice Department, through its prosecutions of physicians, had proven it was not interested in the scientific or medical evidence.

Explaining that because her ex-husband had suffered severe pain and problems getting it treated, she eventually formed a listserv for patients and physicians interested in the issue, Reynolds then told the committee what came next. "One by one, I watched as several of our most prominent members were arrested and charged with murder, or subjected to accusations of violating the Controlled Substances Act. I knew, as I watched, that something was going terribly wrong," she said. Reynolds described watching the trial of Dr. Bordeaux. "I sat alongside her and two other doctors tried on similar charges. I was shocked and dismayed to learn that the Justice Department was bringing out of date, antiscientific, prejudicial testimony into a US courtroom in the hopes of convincing the jury that by prescribing medication in conformity with the actual, up to date standard of care, the standard I was familiar with, that these doctors had done something shameful, something unspeakably wrong."

Hundreds of physicians have now been charged with CSA violations because of Justice's stubborn adherence to outdated science, she told the committee. "I'm here to tell you that a terrible misunderstanding has occurred here and that the public health has been inestimably damaged. All over America doctors have simply put down their pens, patients in pain have returned to their beds or committed suicide. The suffering and destruction of innocent life is unimaginable," Reynolds said. "PRN is therefore calling on you to suspend your cooperation with the DOJ and to stand solely for your primary commitment to safeguard the public health."

...Reynolds and the PRN have taken a first step toward bringing the looming crisis in pain management care into the bowels of the federal bureaucracies. But with federal prosecutors cutting down pain doctors like weeds and congratulating themselves for jailing the "drug dealers," this is a battle that is far from over.

Full Original article at Stopthedrugwar.org