Patient Advocates Call on Brandeis to Fire Kolodny
/By Pat Anson, Editor
A coalition of physicians, patient advocates and pain sufferers has written an open letter to Brandeis University asking for the dismissal of Andrew Kolodny, MD, a longtime critic of opioid prescribing who is co-director of opioid policy research at the university’s Heller School for Social Policy and Management.
Kolodny is the founder and Executive Director of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing (PROP), an anti-opioid activist group that has lobbied politicians and regulators for years to enact stronger measures to limit prescribing of opioid pain medication.
“Dr. Kolodny has been prominent in a national campaign to deny chronic pain patients even minimal management of their pain. His actions are directed toward forcing draconian restrictions or outright withdrawal of this class of medications from medical practice,” reads the letter to Brandeis President Ronald Liebowitz and other top administrators at the university.
“He calls for forced tapering of patients formerly prescribed opioids. Policy positions for which he advocates are leading to the deaths of hundreds of chronic pain patients by suicide or pain-related heart failure and medical collapse.”
The letter was drafted by Richard Lawhern, PhD, and signed by over 60 healthcare professionals and patient advocates, including pain management specialists Forest Tennant, MD, and Aimee Chagnon, MD. Lawhern is the corresponding secretary of the “Opioid Policy Correspondents List,” an ad hoc volunteer group that advocates for better pain care. The group receives no funding from outside sources.
To read the letter in its entirety, click here.
Kolodny is a controversial figure in the pain community and is often quoted in the news media as an expert on issues involving pain management, even though his professional background is in psychiatry and addiction treatment. He often refers to opioid medication as “heroin pills” and has suggested that patients shouldn’t trust doctors who prescribe opioids.
“I wish I could tell you that you should trust your doctor and talk to your doctor about this, but that may not be the case,” Kolodny said on C-SPAN in 2015. “We have doctors even prescribing to teenagers and parents not recognizing that the doctor has just essentially prescribed the teenager the equivalent of a heroin pill.”
“Although Dr. Kolodny has a work history in public health and addiction psychiatry, he is neither qualified nor Board Certified in pain management -- a closely related field that has been profoundly and negatively impacted by his assertions concerning public policy. From his published articles and interviews, it is clear to many readers that he knows or cares little about chronic pain patients and their treatment,” Lawhern’s letter states.
In a series of Tweets earlier this year, Kolodny said patients on “dangerously high doses” of opioids should be tapered to lower doses even if they refuse. He then asked for specific examples of doctors “forcing tapers in a risky fashion.”
Dozens of people responded with examples of patients becoming seriously ill or committing suicide after forced tapering, which Kolodny ignored.
The letter to Brandeis calls Kolodny "one of the most polarizing and hated figures in medicine" among people in pain.
“In our view and those of many people whom he has harmed, Dr. Kolodny makes no positive contribution to the work or reputation of Brandeis or its research centers. To the contrary, we believe it is ethically and morally imperative that he be dismissed immediately from the University, before his presence further damages both your reputation and your financial endowments,” the letter states.
The university did not respond to a request for comment on the letter. Neither did Kolodny.
Brandeis is a well-regarded liberal arts and private research university located near Boston. The Heller School for Social Policy and Management is often ranked as one of the top ten schools in social policy. Kolodny joined Heller last year as a senior scientist after resigning as chief medical officer at Phoenix House, which runs a chain of addiction treatment centers.
Kolodny and PROP played central roles in developing the 2016 CDC opioid guidelines, which discourage primary care physicians from prescribing opioids for chronic pain. Although voluntary and only intended for primary care doctors, the guidelines have been widely adopted as mandatory by insurers, federal agencies and throughout the U.S. healthcare system.
In an online survey of over 3,100 pain patients and healthcare providers on the first anniversary of the guidelines’ release, most said the guidelines were harmful to patients, had not improved the quality of pain care, and failed to reduce opioid abuse and overdoses. Critics also cite anecdotal evidence that the guidelines have contributed to an increase in patient suicides.
