By Alan Bavley, McClatchy Newspapers –
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A U.S. Senate committee is examining a Kansas City, Mo.-based bioethics think tank’s financial ties to the pain pill industry.
The inquiry is part of a sweeping investigation by the Senate Finance Committee of connections between pain drug manufacturers and organizations and physicians who have advocated for increased use of narcotic — also known as opioid — painkillers.
Abuse of these potentially addictive pain medications has become a national epidemic and accounts for more overdose deaths than heroin and cocaine combined. About 5 million people had used the drugs recently without a prescription, a federal survey found.
The Center for Practical Bioethics is one of seven organizations that received letters this week from the Senate committee asking them for information about their financial ties and collaborations with opioid manufacturers.
The other organizations are the American Pain Foundation, the American Academy of Pain Medicine, the American Pain Society, the Wisconsin Pain and Policy Study Group, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and the Federation of State Medical Boards.
Recent investigations by news organizations have found that some of these groups, such as the American Pain Foundation, a patient advocacy group, are funded largely by the drug industry.
The Senate committee is seeking to determine whether any of the groups promoted misleading information about the risks and benefits of opioids while receiving financial support from manufacturers of the drugs.
A Senate aide told The Kansas City Star that the investigation may bring into question guidelines for pain management, or the legitimacy of some of the organizations under scrutiny.
One of the organizations, the American Pain Foundation, disbanded last week, citing “irreparable economic circumstances.”
The Center for Practical Bioethics and its founder and former president Myra Christopher have long been advocates for providing adequate pain relief, particularly to people in chronic pain or at the end of life. The center also has long-standing ties to Purdue Pharma, manufacturer of OxyContin and other pain drugs, as well as to other drug companies.
Purdue gave the center $1.5 million as seed money for an endowed chair in pain and palliative care that Christopher now holds. As recently as last month, Purdue was a leading sponsor of the center’s annual dinner and symposium, contributing $25,000 of the $280,000 that the event raised.
In a statement released Friday, center president John Carney said the center planned to cooperate fully with the Senate committee’s request for information.
Christopher was on vacation and unavailable for comment, the center’s spokesman Lorell LaBoube said.
In the past, Christopher has said that grants from Purdue have come with no strings attached.
The center’s corporate gift policy states: “The acceptance of corporate support does not and shall not mean or imply the Center’s endorsement of a corporate sponsor’s policies, activities, products, or services.”
Christopher, who is not a physician, is a recognized authority on pain treatment. She was a member of an Institute of Medicine expert panel that published a report last June on chronic pain in the United States.
But Christopher also appears on a consumer website, “In the Face of Pain,” sponsored by Purdue.
“There are so many good people working on the undertreatment of pain,” Christopher says in a statement on the site.
“But one of the big challenges to moving forward in the direction that we all want to is that this public health issue bumps heads with another serious matter. And that is the abuse of prescription drugs. And what we’ve spent much of our time working on here at the Bioethics Center is … to try to promote balanced policy.”
