"The Pain Management Legal Defense Trust"
DR. HURWITZ'S CASE AND FUNDRAISING APPEAL
On December 15, 2004, Dr. William Hurwitz, formerly a pain specialist in McLean, Virginia was convicted of 50 counts of drug trafficking in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. Sentencing is scheduled for April 14, 2005. The prosecution is seeking a life sentence. He is 59 years old.
The government's case was built around a group of patients - between 5 and 10 percent of the 400 patients in Dr. Hurwitz's practice - who conspired with each other and lied to Dr. Hurwitz about their pain and then abused and/or sold the drugs he prescribed to them for pain treatment. According to the prosecution, Dr. Hurwitz's failure to detect the fraud proved that he intended the unlawful use and distribution of these drugs. As even the prosecutors acknowledged in court, the overwhelming majority of his patients suffered from severe pain, many of whom were ready to testify that they owed their return to active, productive lives to Dr. Hurwitz's care. The court permitted only 4 of his legitimate patients to testify. The prosecutors also relied on an expert witness whose testimony was immediately denounced by 6 past presidents of the American Pain Society as containing "serious misrepresentations." In instructing the jurors, the presiding judge, Leonard Wexler, expressly told them that whether Dr. Hurwitz was practicing in good faith was not relevant to the most serious of the charges.
Dr. Hurwitz's case is a microcosm of the deepening tensions between police authorities and the pain treatment community. Frustrated by their inability to suppress the illicit drug market, federal and state drug warriors have engaged in a campaign of intimidation against doctors willing to treat severe pain with opioid medications - treatment carried out with lawful drugs approved for that indication by the FDA.
Legally, the core issue is whether non-physicians in the federal Justice Department should be permitted to take control over the regulation of pain treatment using the blunt tool of criminal prosecutions under the Controlled Substances Act, or whether peer review boards of medicine should retain primary responsibility for regulating medical practice as a matter of state jurisdiction. Medically, the prosecutions of doctors who treat pain in good faith will worsen an already serious societal problem - the under-treatment of pain in America.
The Hurwitz family has retained a Washington, D.C.-based lawyer for the appeal. The trial itself cost more than $500,000, funded exclusively by Dr. Hurwitz's immediate family. Dr. Hurwitz himself is destitute, and the family is out of resources. For this reason, the Hurwitz family is appealing to the public for financial support for the appeal. Please make your contributions to "The Pain Management Legal Defense Trust" - a fund set up to support Dr. Hurwitz's appeal and defense and not linked to any group or organization - and send them to:
c/o Kenneth Hurwitz
P. O. Box 958
Village Station
New York, NY 10014
If you have any questions, or wish to write to Dr. Hurwitz, please feel free to contact Kenneth (Dr. Hurwitz's younger brother) or his wife Mi Ling Tsui at mltsui@nyc.rr.com.
We just want to reiterate how important this fund is for Dr. Hurwitz and his family. And hey! Your contribution doesn't have to be a lot. 5, 10, 20 bucks will help. So com'on - write that check TODAY.
Thank you - Ocpm
