RIP, Siobhan Reynolds

Pain patient advocate Siobhan Reynolds died in a plane crash last month. Reynolds was a tireless worker for those who suffered from needless pain as a result of not being able to get a-hold of the appropriate pain-killing medications - largely as a result of government policy, in some fashion or other - and for those who found themselves on the wrong side of the law for prescribing painkillers to their patients. She was the founder of the Pain Relief Network, which went under after Reynolds and her group tangled with the wrong prosecutor.

At The Agitator, Radley Balko writes a lengthy send-off, which should be read:

There aren’t very many people who can claim that they personally changed the public debate about an issue. Reynolds could. Before her crusade, no one was really talking about the under-treatment of pain. The media was still wrapped up in scare stories about “accidental addiction” to prescription painkillers and telling dramatic (and sometimes false) tales about patients whose lazy doctors got them hooked on Oxycontin. Reynolds toured the country to point out that, in fact, the real problem is that pain patients are suffering, particularly chronic pain patients. And because of the government’s harassment, there are increasingly fewer doctors willing to treat them. After Reynolds, the major newsweeklies, the New York Times, and a number of other national media outlets began asking if the DEA’s war on pain doctors had gone too far. 

Reynolds’ passion stemmed from watching her ex-husband agonize, and later her belief that his death was due to his inability to get treatment. She feared her son would contract the same condition, and face the same obstacles. What infuriated her was that this was never a problem of not knowing what relieves chronic pain. This wasn’t about the need for more research. Her husband had found relief in high-dose opioid therapy. The problem was that in its ceaseless efforts to stop people from getting high, the government had blocked that relief, imprisoned the doctor who administered it, and thus condemned her husband to suffer. (Watch The Chilling Effect, the movie Reynolds produced about her ex-husband’s fight here.)

Also see David Borden and Robert Higgs.

Let's hope someone else is there to take up the mantle.