Where would we be without our Heroes? Those who have bravely paved the way for us. Their are so many who have fought for addicts to have the right to choose what type of treatment works for them & I know those mentioned here are only the tip of the iceburg. However, these are the people I admire. They have worked tirelessly researching, educating & advocating for Methadone Therapy. Many of them are no longer with us and others are aging. As the song says..."We need a Hero". We need a new generation of fighters more than ever. I often wonder what Dr. Dole would have thought about the anti-methadone groups and their efforts to take this medication off the market. We need people like him more than ever. Please take a moment to read & learn about the Pioneeres in Methadone. "But those who came before us will teach you. They will teach you from the wisdom of former generations."Job 8:10 Vincent Paul Dole was born the son of Vincent and Anna Dole of Chicago. He received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Stanford in 1934 and a medical degree from Harvard in 1939. In 1941, after an internship at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, he joined the Rockefeller Institute as an assistant in kidney research. In World War II, Dr. Dole served as a lieutenant commander with the Naval Medical Research Unit at the Rockefeller Institute’s hospital. In 1947, he was named an associate member of the institute and, in 1951, a full member. When the institute became a graduate university in 1955, he was appointed a professor. Later he studied obesity and noticed that some people crave food in the same way as addicts crave drugs. He wondered whether the effects could be related and concluded that addiction is a metabolic disorder - not just a bad habit - which must treated like any other chronic illness. His was a lone voice at a time when some clinicians tried to cure addicts by giving them lobotomies. But then Dole found a book called the 'Drug Addict As Patient' written by Marie Nyswander whom he later married. In 1964 he asked her to join him on a research project and together they began to shift a handful of long term heroin users onto less harmful drugs. They found that methadone, first developed by German chemists as a painkiller, satisfied the physical cravings of addiction but didn't make users high or subject them to violent mood swings. His contributions, along with his wife, led the way for addicts all over the world to have a safe, effective form of treatment available to them. We are forever indebted to him. Marie Nyswander, Methadone Researcher Marie Nyswander, wife of Dr. Dole and partner in his research died in Manhatten on April 21, 1986 at 67 from cancer. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence and of the Cornell University Medical School, Marie Nyswander had been commissioned a lieutenant (junior grade) in the navy late in World War II, assigned to the Public Health Service, and posted at the United States Public Health Service hospital for addicts in Lexington. Her experience with addicts there led her, unlike many psychiatrists, to accept addicts as patients when she entered private practice. In 1957, in a New York City storefront, she had launched a service project for addicts, with a team of New York psychiatrists and psychoanalysts offering their services to the city's addicts. Thus Dr. Nyswander had had experience with multiple approaches to the treatment of addiction-the Lexington approach, her own approach as a therapist with addicted patients, that of her storefront project, and the efforts of other psychotherapists and psychoanalysts. * She recognized that none of them accomplished very much. Like so many others during the 1950s and 1960s, she was thus eventually forced to the conclusion that maintaining addicts on legal opiates was the only feasible solution. She was beginning to think about risking her reputation, and perhaps even her freedom, by launching private research-a narcotics-dispensing clinic of her own, using her personal funds-at just the time when Dr. Dole turned his attention from obesity to heroin addiction. The rest is history. Born in Sarawak, in what is now Malaysia, in 1921, Dr Ding was remembered by his friends for championing the rights of the underprivileged and grooming a generation of social activists and political leaders.He trained in medicine at Johns Hopkins University in the United States and became a missionary worker. He helped drug addicts, men living in cage homes and other disadvantaged groups after migrating to Hong Kong in 1961. The prominent physician, widely known as a reform-minded professional alongside urban councillors Elsie Tu and Brook Bernacchi in the 1960s and 1970s, was a champion of the underdog. He was an advocate for methadone treatment for drug addicts. In 1971, a pilot project led by Dr Ding demonstrated the effect of reducing unemployment and criminality among drug addicts who received methadone treatment. A methadone outpatient programme was implemented in 1972 by the then Medical and Health Department. Dr Ding was a prime mover in the establishment of the Independent Commission Against Corruption. In 1973, he blamed endemic corruption for Hong Kong's serious drug problem. "One of the roots of the severity of the drug problem is corruption." "If we described Martin Lee as the 'father of democracy' in Hong Kong, Dr Ding should be remembered as the 'grandfather of democracy'," Mr Ho said. Dr Ding, who emigrated to San Francisco in 1990, died of pneumonia. Dr. Newman received his bachelor’s degree from New York University and his MD, with honors, from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. He earned a M.P.H. degree from the University of California at Berkeley. He has been involved in addiction treatment throughout the world for more than 30 years.Dr. Newman was the Director of the Baron Edmund de Rothschild Chemical Dependency Unit in New York Until January 2001,he was President and CEO of Continuum Health Partners, Inc.(a $1.6 billion hospital network in New York City). Prior to the creation of Continuum in 1997, he was CEO of the Beth Israel Health Care System for 20 years. He is now President Emeritus of Continuum and Director of The Baron Edmond de Rothschild Chemical Dependency Institute of Beth Israel Medical Center. For the past 30 years, Dr. Newman has played a major role in planning and directing some of the largest addiction treatment programmes in the world - including the New York City Methadone Maintenance and Ambulatory Detoxification Programs, which in the mid-1970s treated over 33,000 patients annually. He has also been a strong addiction treatment advocate in Europe, Australia and Asia. Dr Newman is Professor of Epidemiology and Social Medicine and Professor of Psychiatry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. You can view his blog at http://opiateaddictionrxtalk.blogspot.com/
Dr. Vincent P. Dole, Methadone Researcher, May 18, 1913-August 1, 2006. 
Ding Lik-kiu, Methadone Advocate & Researcher 1921-2008
Dr Robert Newman, Advocate Extraordinaire
Dr Andrew Byrne, Addiction Specialist
Dr Andrew Byrne has been involved in opioid treatments from a primary care background for 20 years at the same site in Redfern, an inner suburb of Sydney. He is recognised worldwide as a specialist in the addiction field and was involved in the seminal stages of the Chapter of Addiction Medicine, Royal Australasian College of Physicians. He received the Dole-Nyswander award from the American Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence in April 2006. He has assisted and led many research studies regarding Methadone and is truly unique among todays physicians in his ability to take a closer look at research instead of accepting it at face value. Visit his website at http://www.redfernclinic.com/c/ and read his critiques of the study about prolonged QT intervals in Methadone patients. He found several discrepancies in this study including 6 of the 7 links used as references had no site associated with them.
J. Thomas Payte, M.D., Founder of the Dear Doctor Letters
J. Thomas Payte, M.D. is the Founder and Medical Director of Drug Dependence Associates, an outpatient chemical dependency treatment program in San Antonio, Texas that blends pharmacotherapies with self-help and behavioral concepts.
Dr. Payte has worked in both the public and private sectors of treatment since the 1960's. He developed his "Dear Doctor" letter for methadone maintenance patients who, for various reasons, must visit private physicians for medical conditions unrelated to their addictions. These patients are very often discriminated against with regard to their care and their need of pain medications for the medical problems for which they are seeking care. This is due to the ignorance of physicians in general practice about addictive disease and methadone treatment.Dr. Payte puts it very clearly to patients, "I instruct patients to give this letter to their new doctor in their presence and ask them to read it. If the letter goes in the trash, the patient should go to the door and find a new doc." The reaction to the letter may give some clue as to the type of doctor-patient relationship that might develop..If your clinic does not have a similar letter, give this to the clinic doctor to use as a guideline and have him or her sign it, furnishing your clinic's address, phone number, etc. These letters include one for prisons/jails, one for parol officers, one for patients on MMT to take with them to the hospital that explains pain control and one for the MMt clinics themselves when an increase is needed. These letters can be found at his website at http://www.jtpayte.com/ .Finally, let me add that Dr. Payte is an advocate for the development of Medical Maintenance to be made available throughout the United States. He is indeed a champion for those of us trying to recover.
Beny J. Primm, MD, MMT Pioneer: A Champion for Addiction Treatment
Dr. Beny J. Primm has served as the Executive Director of the Addiction Research and Treatment Corporation (ARTC) of Brooklyn, New York, since its inception in 1969. ARTC is one of the largest non-profit substance-abuse treatment programs in the country serving minority communities. ARTC provides comprehensive, multi-modality service and treatment programs for approximately 2300 men and women, primarily members of severely underserved populations.Dr. Primm is known nationally and internationally for his total commitment to the treatment of substance abuse, and the psychological, social, and economic ills that fuel it. He teaches that all treatment modalities can be effective, that substance abuse prevention, treatment, and recovery must be mainstreamed with other human-focused disciplines, and, finally, that integration of all of these approaches is the bedrock for effective treatment.Dr. Primm’s contributions to MMT extend far beyond the medical care and social services he provides his patients. His political networks at the city, state, and federal level have drawn substantial financial aid to inner cities.
Dr. Mary Jeanne Kreek, Professor, Researcher, Addiction Specialist
Mary Jeanne Kreek is one of the world's leading scientists in the field of drug addiction, as well as a teacher and mentor who has trained researchers from around the world. Prof. Kreek gained her bachelor’s degree at Wellesley College before earning her MD at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and completing her post-graduate research at Cornell University-New York Hospital Medical Center. She joined Rockefeller University in 1964, where she remains to this day, simultaneously continuing her clinical work at the Rockefeller University Hospital. She is renowned for her part in pioneering the methadone maintenance treatment for heroin and opiate addicts, and has over 400 publications in her field. Dr. Mary Jeanne Kreek has been awarded the Columbia College of Physicians & Surgeon's Alumni Gold Medal for Distinguished Achievements in Medicine. Dr. Kreek is the first awardee from the drug addiction research field and the fourth woman to receive this award. She is Professor and Head of the Laboratory of the Biology of Addictive Diseases, Rockefeller University Hospital, The Rockefeller University, and Principal Investigator and Scientific Director of a NIDA Research Center in New York City. She joined the Rockefeller Institute in 1964 and, with Dr. Vincent P. Dole and the late Dr. Marie Nyswander, performed initial studies of methadone for the chronic management of heroin addiction. These studies led to development of the first effective pharmacotherapy for addiction treatment.“There are over a half-million people on methadone maintenance today,” said Dr. Mary Jeanne Kreek, director of the Laboratory of the Biology of Addictive Diseases at Rockefeller University. “That means they are on regular medication, just like anyone with a chronic disease.”
