The American Pain Foundation (APF) describes itself as an advocacy organization for patient pain relief. The non-profit foundation promotes the message that the threat of addiction to prescription painkillers has been exaggerated and pain medication is underused. A non-profit news organization named ProPublica has investigated the American Pain Foundation and found that almost 90% of the group’s $5 million in funding in 2010 came from pharmaceutical companies. One of these companies is Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin.

The views promoted by APF are in contrast to reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that more than 15,000 people die each year from overdoses of opioid painkillers like OxyContin. The CDC has called the painkiller situation an epidemic and a growing group of experts question the effectiveness of these drugs.

Although Will Rowe, chief executive of the APF, …