By Pat Anson, PNN Editor

An influential anti-opioid activist group -- Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing (PROP) – is raising money to hire a new Executive Director to replace Dr. Andrew Kolodny, PNN has learned.

There is no indication that Kolodny is leaving PROP, a volunteer organization that he founded in 2011 to “turn the tide of opioid overprescribing.” But in an unsigned email sent to supporters this week, PROP asked for donations so it could hire a new Executive Director, a position long held by Kolodny.

“We’ve retrenched and brainstormed and have great plans to expand our reach and impact. Our next big step is to hire a paid staff person. Will you help to make this plan a reality? We are trying to raise $100,000 by December 31st to ensure that we can hire an executive director with resources to take PROP's work to the next level. Please help by donating what you can,” the email said.

Supporters who click the donate button on the email will be taken to a PayPal account operated by the Steve Rummler Hope Foundation, which is PROP’s “fiscal sponsor.” PROP is not a charity, but can collect tax deductible donations under the foundation’s non-profit status.

Like PROP, the Rummler foundation’s main goal is to reduce opioid prescribing. Kolodny works closely with the organization and serves on its Medical Advisory Committee, along with PROP President Dr. Jane Ballantyne.   

Kolodny declined to talk with this reporter about what his future role with PROP will be.

“I haven’t had a good experience answering questions from you in the past, so I’m not going to talk with you,” Kolodny told me in a brief phone call.

‘Heroin Pills’

It would be hard to overstate the influence that Kolodny and PROP have had on opioid prescribing in the United States. A psychiatrist who specializes in addiction treatment and former Chief Medical Officer at Phoenix House, Kolodny is the public face of PROP. He lobbied Congress and federal health agencies for years to limit opioid prescribing, and gives frequent media interviews on opioid-related issues.

In a 2015 C-SPAN interview, Kolodny called opioid painkillers “heroin pills” and suggested pain patients shouldn’t trust their own doctors.  

“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,” he said. “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.”

PROP achieved its greatest success in 2016, when the CDC released its controversial opioid prescribing guideline, which several PROP members helped draft. Although voluntary, the guideline was soon adopted as mandatory policy by many states, insurers, law enforcement and health organizations

Opioid prescriptions were declining even before the guideline was released and now stand at their lowest level in over a decade. But overdoses keep rising, fueled largely by illicit fentanyl and other street drugs, not pain medication.

PROP’s fundraising pitch takes credit for the decline in prescriptions and doesn’t even mention the role of street drugs in the overdose epidemic.

“PROP has helped turn the tide of opioid overprescribing.The good news is that opioid prescribing has decreased. The bad news is that the US still leads the world in opioid consumption, drug companies continue to undermine progress, and -- since the SARS CoV-2 pandemic -- opioid overdose deaths are on the rise again while prescription opioid use remains a route to opioid addiction and death,” the PROP email states.

‘Killer Kolodny’

Kolodny has drawn the ire of many pain patients, who blame him for their increased suffering, loss of access to opioids, and anecdotal evidence of a rising number of suicides in the pain community.  A small group of patient advocates recently staged a “Killer Kolodny Rally” outside Brandeis University, where he co-directs opioid research at the Heller School for Policy and Management.   

Kolodny dismissed the rally, telling the Brandeis student newspaper that the protestors who want him fired worked for the opioid industry or had fallen under its sway, and were “trying to controversialize science.”      

“There were climate change scientists who were similarly attacked and their universities stood by them, and I think that Brandeis would stand by science,” Kolodny said. 

Many pain patients believe Kolodny has enriched himself by promoting the use of Suboxone, an addiction treatment drug. That unproven allegation led Kolodny to ask for and receive a letter from Indivior, Suboxone’s manufacturer, stating that he does not have a financial interest in the company.    

As PNN has reported, Kolodny has made a substantial amount of money working as a consultant and expert witness for law firms involved in opioid litigation. During Oklahoma’s lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson, Kolodny testified that he was being paid $725 an hour and would collect up to $500,000 for his services in that trial alone.  

Kolodny has not always been upfront about who is paying him. Last year he revised his conflict of interest statements on two medical journal articles to include his work in malpractice lawsuits. The articles were co-authored with former CDC director Thomas Frieden.