Two weeks after the FDA panel ruled against new OxyContin restrictions suggested by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and members of Congress, a pain-management specialist, William E. Hurwitz, M.D., of McClean, Va., was arrested and indicted on 49 counts of drug trafficking in 39 states. Officials also linked him to the death of three of his patients.

"I was very heartened by the action of the FDA advisory panel," said Joel Hochman, M.D., a Houston psychiatrist and executive director of the National Foundation for the Treatment of Pain. "There is no rational basis for restricting the availability of OxyContin for pain patients or their prescribing physicians."

However, Hockman said that the arrest of Hurwitz was outrageous, and could result in self-imposed restrictions by pain-management specialists.

Siobhan Reynolds, executive director of the New York City-based Pain Relief Network, called the arrest of Hurwitz "government by P.R."

Ed Childress, a spokesman for the DEA, defended the arrest, saying that Hurwitz's link to three deaths "would certainly not qualify as a hero in my estimation."

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