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."