Richard A “Red” Lawhern, Ph.D., has advocated for pain patients and their family members for over twenty years, with online research, physician referrals, authoring of websites and critical commentaries. Red is also the Director of Research for the Alliance for the Treatment of Intractable Pain (ATIP.)
The Facial Pain Advocacy Alliance is proud to present Red’s body of work. Our goal is to arm pain patients with all of information they need to advocate for themselves and their right to proper medical treatment.
COMMENT TO THE CDC DOCKET 2020:
Comment-to-CDC-Docket-2020-V1.1
Use arrows to navigate the PDF document above.
TOP PRIORITY:
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Congress: Clean Up This Mess!
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Point Paper on Regulatory Over-Reach and Departures of Doctors from Pain Management Practice
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200 – 400 Words to Change the World
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Obstacles to Patient Access to Controlled Substances and Needed Legislative Remedies
The War on Pain Patients
Contrary to popular belief, doctors over-prescribing opioids did not cause our drug crisis, nor does it sustain its steady climb. According to CDC’s data, nearly half of all overdoses don’t involve prescribed opioids at all. Among the remaining drug-related deaths in 2017, half involved illicit fentanyl and heroin. Only about 18,000 deaths involved a prescription opioid, and most of those also involved multiple illegal drugs and alcohol.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse says most addicts begin to abuse drugs in their teens or early 20s. Contrast that with pain patients on opioid therapy, the majority of which are over age 55. Seniors are prescribed opioids three times more often than youth under age 18, yet somehow seniors have the lowest overdose rates of any age group, and youth overdose six times more often. Prescriptions aren’t the problem.
Restricting pain medication to pain patients won’t stem the tide of illicit fentanyl and heroin overdose deaths. Forcing pain patients off the only medications that work, providing no alternatives, and driving those same patients to street drugs and, increasingly, to suicide won’t help either.
Lawmakers must direct their attention to the real problem–the rising tide of illicit street drugs–and stop persecuting pain patients, the most vulnerable among us.
Red’s Body of Work
Forewarned is forearmed.
Read up so you’re ready to counter any false claims with hard facts.
- Point Paper for National Centers of Accident Prevention and Control with References
- Suicide and the Opioid Crisis
- Comments to “Treatment for Acute Pain: An Evidence Map”
- An Agonized Death that Didn’t Have to Happen
- Regulators, I Double Dare You! (to Reexamine the Medical Evidence)
- Inconvenient Truths in America’s Opioid Crisis
- An Open Letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee
- Stanford Letter to the Oregon Chronic Pain Task Force and Governor Brown
- What is the Sound of One Hand Clapping?
- Opioids: Chasing the Wrong “Epidemic”
- A Message to Legislators: Stop Your Phony War Against Pain Patients!
- Criminalizing the Opioid Epidemic is No Way to Help Chronic Pain Sufferers
- Figures Lie and Liars Figure – Why the Demographics of the So-Called “Prescription Opioid Crisis” Don’t Work
- Red’s Contributions to the Global Summit on Diagnostic Alternatives
- An Open Letter to the Baptist World News
- Stop The War On Chronic Pain Patients
- The CDC Opioid Guidelines Violate Standards Of Science Research
- It’s Not All In Your Head
- Somatic Symptom Disorder
- Tracking Down the “Research” Behind the CDC’s Opioid Prescribing Guidelines
- The CDC’s Fictitous Opioid Epidemic, Part 1
- The CDC’s Fictitious Opioid Epidemic, Part 2
- How Would Opioid Prescription Guidelines Read if Pain Patients Wrote Them?
- Demographics of Neurological Face Pain at a Social Networking Website
- Warning to the FDA: Beware of “Simple” Solutions in Chronic Pain and Addiction
- Letter To The Editor, Capital Times of Madison (WI)
- An Open Letter to the President’s Commission on Combating Addiction and the Opioid Crisis
- A Second Open Letter to the President’s Commission on Combating Addiction and the Opioid Crisis
- A Government In Disarray Over Opioid Therapeutic Use vs. Addiction
- Red’s Recommended Reading
- Interviews with Richard “Red” Lawhern, Ph.D.
- Dr. Lawhern speaking on Matt Connarton’s radio show Unleashed November 28, 2018 and March 13, 2019
- ATIP After-Action Report on 9/25 Meeting of the HHS Inter Agency Task Force on Best Practices in Pain Management
Meet Your Advocate
Richard A “Red” Lawhern is the spouse of a chronic facial pain patient. He has advocated for pain patients and their family members for twenty years with online research, physician referrals, authoring of websites and critical commentaries. From Red’s website:
“I retired as a systems engineer and operations research analyst… In my so-called spare time, I support an online community called “Living with TN” as a moderator and content author, providing literature and internet research to chronic face pain patients. I also mentor young people who are struggling with life in our times.”
Red has been invited to join the Editorial Advisory Board at the journal “Practical Pain Management” as a founding member to advocate for people in pain. In this position, Red will help to establish the editorial focus of the journal. Red’s body of work includes three previous articles at Practical Pain Management.
Red is the Director of Research for the Alliance for the Treatment of Intractable Pain (ATIP.) If you want to join Red in the fight for pain patients’ rights, ATIP is the place to start.