I am very concerned about the article written about me titled, “Lawmakers relied on info from doctor paid by pharmaceutical company for bill on opioid substitutes,” from June 2, 2021.

My verbal statement to the author stands that I didn’t think about the form I filled out and made an honest mistake. I understand the optics and am willing to take some negative press for a stupid mistake in a very important forum. I was trying to make a difference after struggling, multiple times a day, with how limited I was as a pain physician in getting the safe and effective care my patients needed for treating their debilitating pain. My focus that day was on cramming all the valuable pain treatments we cannot get covered into only three minutes of allowed testimony. My nerves got the best of me, and I made a serious, unconscious mistake by neglecting to disclose my relationship with Collegium.

Discrediting me personally, however, with untrue statements and misrepresenting my intent casts a shadow over a revolutionary bill (HB21-1276) that will save lives. It will by allowing patients to have safer and affordable alternatives to the cheap generic opioids that only cost pennies for insurers to cover and have fueled thousands of deaths in Colorado alone.

Data shows that 75% of heroin users are first exposed to opioids through a legitimate prescription. A potentially dangerous and addicting oxycodone/acetaminophen 5/325-milligram tablet costs insurers 5 cents. This is why we can get it and other cheap, dangerous and addicting opioids without any cumbersome prior authorizations, red tape, denials and prohibitively high out-of-pocket costs for patients.

Too often these cheap, generic and dangerous opioids are the only affordable option for patients. Despite all the deaths and evidence, insurers in Colorado and across the country still make these dangerous opioids the easiest option for patients and create hurdles and barriers to safe and effective pain treatments – like many other non-opioid pain medications, safer atypical and abuse-deterrent opioids, physical/occupational therapy, pain psychology, chiropractic treatments and acupuncture.

Insurers will tell us that we can’t prescribe too much of a cheap generic opioid and tout that as their taking a stand against the opioid epidemic. But they still set up their tiers and prior-authorization processes to make smaller amounts the easiest, fastest and most affordable option for patients. This while they delay, deny or make prohibitively expensive the safer and proven alternatives to their “preferred” cheap, generic and dangerous opioids. This is the real ethical issue and dwarfs even this largely untrue report of my ethics and intentions.

The first misrepresentation was to dress up the article with a stock photo of a bottle of OxyContin 80-milligram tablets when I have never had anything to do with Purdue and 100% of my testimonies have been to reverse the damage largely caused by the drug that was curiously used to visually represent me with. I appreciate it being taken down, but the errors continued.

It was stated that I accepted money, “from more than a dozen pharmaceutical companies between 2013 and 2019.” In that time, I spoke for Pfizer, Collegium, Depomed and Mallinkrodt (that is four) to educate my colleagues on the safer and abuse-deterrent qualities of these new medications, in efforts to provide safer pain medications than the ones we can get so easily under the current insurers’ formularies. Other dollar amounts listed on the ProPublica website that comprise your “more than a dozen” quote include meals that were provided to feed our office. The cost is listed under my name, as I represent the office, and “accepting a turkey sandwich and a cookie” is not the same as “accepting money”.

Writing that, “In response to committee questions, however, the only drug Clapp talked about was tapentadol,” ignores the many times I mentioned tramadol and buprenorphine along with long list of other non-opioids and treatments mentioned many times as well! Please search my testimonies for mention of voltaren gel, lidocaine patches and the many therapies including detailed explanations of the evidence supporting psychology, physical therapy, acupuncture, etc. Answering one out of the many questions asked after one of my many testimonies where I “only talked about tapentadol”, grossly misrepresents my many hours spent at the Capitol.

Regarding your reference to my open letter of admonition to the state was based on a complaint after I discharged a patient for misusing her medications. Your statement that I continued to prescribe opioids despite inconsistent drug screens is false as her “inconsistent urine drug screens” were not truly inconsistent, but labeled as such when the patient mistakenly checked off that she was taking a medication she was not and then tested negative for it – which is actually “consistent” with what she was truly taking. She simply made an honest mistake on the form. If interested, my full letter of explanation is easily available.

Again, I made a dumb and “naive” mistake by not writing about my paid speaker role with Collegium. That’s it. I didn’t think about my speaking role for tapentadol as I was focused on using my three minutes of testimony and my need to be sure to include the values of all the therapies not affordable to patients under the current structure (psych, physical therapy, occupational therapy, acupuncture and other non-opioid and atypical pain medications).

A few final questions the article doesn’t address: If I was being paid by them, why didn’t this continue if I was doing such a great job for their company? If I was comfortable not disclosing my relationship, why not keep getting paid? Also, the original bill when this occurred was vetoed by the governor. So why come back for round two when I hadn’t received any money from Collegium in years?

Please look at the whole picture and stop slandering me as a physician and, more importantly, this incredible House Bill 21-1276 and what it accomplishes to prevent so many deaths in Colorado!

Jonathan Clapp, MD, is the president of the Colorado Pain Society and chairman of the Colorado Medical Society’s Substance Use Disorder Committee. He is double board-certified in physical medicine and rehabilitation and pain medicine.