Yale School of Medicine Dean to Serve as Mayday Fund Chair/Kessler, Former FDA Chief, Backs Reforms To Alleviate Pain

David A. Kessler, M.D., J.D., dean of Yale University’s School of Medicine and former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (F.D.A.), has accepted an invitation from The Mayday Fund to serve as honorary chairman of its newly formed National Advisory Committee. Mayday, a New York-based philanthropy, is dedicated to reducing the profound human problems associated with pain and its consequences.

In his role as honorary chairman, Kessler will advocate increased attention to the undertreatment of pain in the United States by working with medical professionals and public policy leaders whose intervention could help alleviate unnecessary pain for millions of Americans.

“We know from various surveys that Americans are sometimes reluctant to take over-the-counter and prescription pain medications because they fear becoming addicted to them, even though addiction is, in fact, extraordinarily rare,” Kessler said. “We also know that many physicians simply don’t prescribe the doses of medicines that are required to reduce pain effectively. As a nation, we must get a better handle on strategies that will encourage adequate pain relief so we can reduce the suffering that accompanies acute pain, chronic pain and pain associated with care at the end of life.”

Fenella Rouse, executive director of The Mayday Fund, said: “Dr. Kessler brings great expertise and energy to an area that is very important. The trustees couldn’t be more delighted about his commitment to engage the public about the importance of this problem and the opportunities for making real headway.”

Kessler said he hopes The Mayday Fund’s commitment inspires doctors, hospitals, health plans, policy makers and others who have yet to focus on this problem to decide they can no longer sit on the sidelines. “The burden of pain is too great for millions of Americans to simply accept while gritting their teeth,” he said.

Over the next several months, Mayday will invite additional leaders in American health care to join Kessler on its National Advisory Committee. He and his colleagues will follow in the footsteps of the Fund’s first adviser, the late Dr. David Rogers, a distinguished medical educator and former president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The Mayday Fund was established in the will of Shirley Steinman Katzenbach and funded from her estate in l992. In l997, the Fund paid out approximately $700,000 to support grants and projects to advance research in public matters related to the alleviation of pain, to inform the media and the public about a range of issues regarding pain, and to help health-care institutions across the country better manage pain in hospitals and other health-care facilities.