Pubdate: Thu, 08 Mar 2001
Source: Roanoke Times (VA)
Copyright: 2001 Roanoke Times
Contact:  201 W. Campbell Ave., Roanoke, Va. 24010
Website: http://www.roanoke.com/roatimes/
Author: Laurence Hammack

RURAL DOCTOR LEADS ATTEMPT TO RECALL OXYCONTIN

Lee County's Art Van Zee Is Convinced The Painkiller's Harms Outweigh Its 
Benefits

The drug's maker says restricting access would be a disservice to those who 
take the drug for legitimate reasons.

As a physician in Lee County, Art Van Zee sees the benefits of OxyContin. 
Some of his patients would live in agony without the prescription painkiller.

Van Zee also sees the harm of the powerful narcotic. A patient was recently 
assaulted in his clinic parking lot by someone who grabbed the woman's 
purse in what is believed to be an attempt to get OxyContin.

More than 30 people have died of OxyContin overdoses since 1998, when abuse 
of the drug became prevalent in far Southwest Virginia. Hundreds of addicts 
still alive are becoming increasingly desperate. Van Zee knows of a young 
man who hocked his mother's wedding ring to support his habit.

Convinced that the harms of OxyContin outweigh the benefits, Van Zee is 
helping to organize a national petition drive to have the drug recalled.

Copies of the petition, which began circulating this week, state that 
"OxyContin abuse has reached epidemic proportions in many regions of the 
United States and has been destructive of countless futures, families and 
communities."

The petition calls on the drug's manufacturer, Purdue Pharma L.P. of 
Connecticut, and the Food and Drug Administration to recall the synthetic 
morphine until it can be reformulated to make it less prone to abuse.

Purdue Pharma officials said Wednesday the company has no plans to take the 
drug off the market.

"Any effort to restrict the access to OxyContin would be a disservice to 
the thousands of people" who take the painkiller for legitimate reasons, 
said Jim Heins, assistant director of public relations for Purdue Pharma.

In recent months, as OxyContin abuse has grabbed headlines and led 
newscasts across the country, Purdue Pharma has emphasized repeatedly that 
scrutiny should be directed not at the drug, but at those who break the law 
by abusing it.

A highly effective painkiller for cancer patients and sufferers of chronic 
pain, OxyContin is dangerous only when addicts crush the tablets into 
powder that they then snort or inject for a heroin-like high, the company says.

The drug, administered in a tablet usually taken twice a day, contains a 
time-release formula that gradually emits a powerful pain medication into 
the bloodstream.

As a general internist at the St. Charles Community Health Clinic, just a 
few miles from the Kentucky border, Van Zee said it was difficult at first 
to weigh the drug's legitimate use against its potential for misuse.

"There's no easy scale to balance that on," he said.

But as more people have become addicted to OxyContin peddled on the black 
market, and as crime rates have soared in Lee and other coalfield counties, 
Van Zee said his decision was easier.

"By light years, the harm outweighs the benefits," he said.

Van Zee says there are other drugs - including MS Contin, a painkiller also 
made by Purdue Pharma that includes morphine - that treat pain just as 
effectively but are not as easily abused.

OxyContin abuse, which some law enforcement officials say is a national 
epidemic in the making, so far seems to have struck the hardest in rural 
areas such as Lee County, where a recent survey found that 20 percent of 
high school seniors had tried the drug.

Petition organizers hope that communities across the country grappling with 
the same problem will join their efforts.

"If they have problems to the extent we have problems, there's going to be 
an interest in this," Van Zee said. Van Zee heads the Lee Coalition for 
Health, which is organizing the petition drive.

Organizers hope to gather 100,000 signatures within the next few months.

The coalition is also sponsoring a town meeting on OxyContin abuse at 7:30 
p.m. Friday at Lee High School in Ben Hur.

Meanwhile, some people who take OxyContin under a doctor's order said they 
are afraid that petition drives and negative publicity will deprive them of 
a medication that has restored some normalcy to their lives.

"It is going to be a huge crime if this medication is taken off the 
market," said Jeanette Murray, a registered nurse in the New River Valley 
who suffers from chronic nerve pain from a wrist injury.

"I understand there are problems with the street use of the drug, but on 
the flip side of that there are legitimate patients who are being affected 
tremendously by what is going on in the street and with the media right 
now," Murray said.

For her, Murray said, "it's a wonderful medication."
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