Physicians who try to help patients manage chronic pain have been under assault for a while now by the DEA. Drug Warriors — almost none of whom have been to medical school — along with a faction of the Texas Board of Medical Examiners who fear the feds’ wrath, believe that too many doctors over-prescribe pain medication. Yes, there are abusers and drug seekers, but there are plenty more chronic pain patients.
So the Texas Board now suspends licenses of doctors on as little as a single complaint. The Fort Worth Weekly was looking into the case of one such suspended physician in Fort Worth — Dr. William Littlejohn. In the course of getting the story, one of the paper’s sources — a chronic pain patient and Vietnam War veteran who couldn’t get the pain relief he desperately needed — apparently killed himself. (Autopsy is under way, but four other Littlejohn patients have killed themselves, so it looks that way.)
I guess they don’t call it a War on Drugs for nothing.
I read that story in the Fort Worth Weekly and was absolutely horrified by the behavior of the board, and the indifference to their suffering.
The story you link to actually doesn’t say he killed himself. It says that no cause has been found, and that it was still awaiting an autopsy. In fact, the FW Weekly article mentioned several different potential causes for his death that were not suicide related. Is there a more up to date article that actually says it was suicide?
Going with what looks likely. That’s what I’m hearing.