Kansas City Center for Practical Bioethics at Epicenter of Congressional Concerns about Conflicts of Interest with Pain Pill Industry

The Center for Practical Bioethics (CPB) in Kansas City, Missouri, has on several occasions been investigated for its financial ties to the pain pill-opioid industry. In 2012 the United States Senate Finance Committee investigated CPB founder and former president Myra Christopher.¹ Christopher is a long-time acerbic critic of physicians for not recognizing and treating chronic pain. Christopher and CPB have longstanding financial ties to numerous drug companies. The CPB has received substantial financial support from a variety of pain medication companies including Purdue Pharma manufacturer of OxyContin. Christopher herself held a Chair funded with a $1.5 million dollar “gift” from Purdue Pharma.¹ Justifiable criticism of CPB continues; U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) has questioned in 2016 whether members of the Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee (IPRCC) with financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry should be allowed to continue to serve.² Senator Wyden specifically singled out CPB for concern stating that Christopher and Richard Payne, MD, both employees of CPB, receive a disturbing variety of funding from drug manufactuers.²

Such conflicts of interest are not unusual and are frequently non-disclosed or incompletely or inadequately disclosed. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found that nine of 19 “pain experts” on a pain panel organized by the National Institute of Medicine organized in 2011 had connection to manufacturers of narcotic painkillers.³ Myra Christopher was named by the investigative reporter for her conflicts. During the time period 2009–2011 drug companies were providing 14% of the Center for Practical Bioethics operating budget.³

In my opinion the Center for Practical Bioethics and its founder Myra Christopher have seriously undermined their credibility and objectivity by accepting so much financial support from the pain medicine industry whose opioid products they shill. CPB and other “pain management experts’ receiving monies from the opioid industry must accept and admit some culpability for the current opioid overuse crisis.⁴ As the above Gale editorial states Russell Portenoy, MD, the leading proponent of opioid use, has publicly admitted regret and culpability.⁵ It’s past time for other pain management experts and organizations, especially those receiving monies from the opioid industry, to do the same, eschew conflicting pain medicine industry income and direct more resources to the opioid abuse epidemic.

Biography

John C. Hagan, III, MD, FACS, is a Kansas City, Mo., ophthalmologist and Missouri Medicine Editor since 2000. He is a multi-year Super Diamond Contributor to MMPAC.

Contact: jhagan@bizkc.rr.com