In 1996, the American Academy of Pain Medicine and the American Pain Society issued a set of guidelines for the use of opioids in the treatment of chronic pain. These guidelines are referred to as a “consensus statement.” The statement leaning toward a more liberal use of opiates was adopted just as the marketing push for OxyContin began.

The guidelines began with a statement that there were currently no nationally accepted consensus for the treatment of chronic pain not due to cancer. The guidelines argued for the expansion of the role of opiates from limited treatment of acute pain to a wider and looser interpretation of chronic pain. It emphasized the clinical differences between addiction, physical dependence and tolerance and even advised that addicts experiencing severe pain could take opioids under careful supervision.

This consensus statement was produced by a task force, which was headed by J. David Haddox, DDS, MD, and former president of the American Academy of Pain Medicine, who was senior medical adviser for Purdue Pharma – the maker of OxyContin. The opioid guidelines grew out of a series of 11 regional workshops conducted by the University of Wisconsin Pain and Policy Studies Group – to which Haddox was a member. This task force produced the opioid statement, which became the precursor to other guidelines including that issued by the Federation of State Medical Boards in 1998.

Haddox was quoted as saying that “the point was to gather consensus. If you are going to do this, this is how it should be done.” There was question as it whether it was ethical for Haddox to be associated with a pharmaceutical maker to guide the formation of a document that would play a key role in promoting the use of products made by the company – Purdue Pharma.