Group takes on government interference in doctor prescribed pain medicine

Finally an organization is going to defend doctors under fire from the DEA or other government agencies that try to dissuade legitimate medical doctors from prescribing pain medicine to patients who really need it. Without this group many doctors would be afraid to prescribe necessary pain medicine for those are in serious pain. That would include people dying of cancer and other serious ailments, where such medicines only make sense.

From The Wichita Eagle, Jan. 04, 2008:
Group to file suit in defense of pain doctor
BY ROXANA HEGEMAN
Associated Press
A national pain relief group has rallied to the defense of a Kansas doctor indicted on federal charges that he ran a "pill mill" from his Haysville clinic that led to the deaths of at least four patients.
The New Mexico-based Pain Relief Network will file a civil lawsuit in Wichita federal court alleging that the Controlled Substances Act as applied to doctors and patients is unconstitutional, its president, Siobhan Reynolds, said Thursday in a phone interview.
Stephen J. Schneider and his wife, nurse Linda K. Schneider, pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court on Dec. 21 to counts including conspiracy, unlawful distribution of a controlled substance, health care fraud, illegal monetary transactions and money laundering.
Since its founding in 2002, the group has been involved with 15 cases filed by federal prosecutors against pain-treating physicians, Reynolds said.
"This is what the Pain Relief Network does," she said. "We are very, very upset at the way the Justice Department is doing these prosecutions."
Federal prosecutors had no response to the group's criticism.
"The court has set a Feb. 26 trial date in the Schneider case. At this point, the U.S. Attorney's office is reserving its comments on the case for the courtroom," said Jim Cross, spokesman for U.S. Attorney Eric Melgren.
On Thursday, the Kansas Board of Healing Arts said it had scheduled a hearing on its motion for an emergency suspension of Schneider's medical license. That hearing is set for 3 p.m. Jan. 15 at the board's offices in Topeka.
The Schneiders, who remain in jail pending trial, are not charged with killing any patients. But federal prosecutors have linked them to the overdose deaths of 56 patients who obtained painkillers at the clinic. The indictment alleged they are directly responsible for four of those deaths.
Reynolds said the criminal case filed against the Schneiders is almost identical to other cases federal prosecutors have filed against doctors who prescribe pain medication.
"In none of the cases we have been involved in have those claims ever been proven to be true," she said.
The Pain Relief Network was founded in 2002 in response to the Bush Administration's crackdown on pain-treating physicians, according to its Web site. The group has testified before the House Subcommittee on Crime to promote legislation to return regulation of medicine to states.