Now that The Journal of Pain has been revived, many of you may not know why publication was interrupted or how it became the flagship journal of a new organization, the United States Association for the Study of Pain (USASP). It’s an interesting chapter in the history of The Journal that included a bankruptcy, organizing anew, begging and bidding, and negotiating a new publishing contract.
In the summer of 2019, members of the American Pain Society (APS) voted to declare bankruptcy on the recommendation of the Board in the face of mounting lawsuits in which the APS was included in litigation associated with the opioid epidemic. In the context of declining revenues and membership, the APS did not have the resources to withstand the legal challenges that were anticipated to continue for multiple years. Accordingly, the APS declared bankruptcy, was dissolved, and was required to sell its assets, including The Journal of Pain. Under court-assigned legal supervision, an auction sale was set for The Journal, with bids due 9 December 2019.
After dissolution of the APS, a group of US-based pain researchers began discussions in late summer 2019 about forming a new pain research-focused organization. Because The Journal was widely respected and highly valued, discussions included bidding for and hopefully acquiring The Journal as a central component of a new organization that did not yet exist. To that end, a GoFundMe fundraising campaign was initiated, raising nearly $30,000! While a great start, we were pretty sure this would not be enough, so personal appeals also were made (this was only part of the begging) for donations to help acquire The Journal.
Despite considerable anxiety and guessing about who might bid for The Journal and what amount would be needed to win the bid, in the end only two bids that met requirements set by the court were received – ours and one other. Michael Gold, representing the new organization in formation, and Jerry Gebhart met in Chicago at 11:00 a.m. on 12 December in an attorney’s office for the auction; the other bidder represented another organization and participated via telephone. (N.B. If you ever find yourself in such an auction and must travel some distance to attend in person, consider asking whether you may participate via telephone). The opening bid was $75,000 by the other organization; their “cannot go any higher” bid was $135,000. The final, winning bid, which was required to be a minimum increment of $10,000 above the previous bid, went to us at $145,000. “Happy” and “relieved” do not adequately describe how we felt. A celebratory lunch at a nearby restaurant was progressively dampened as we discussed the future with accumulating anxieties about how we were going to raise the necessary funds by the end of the year, barely two weeks away. In addition, the sale was not yet a done deal. The court had to approve the wording in the final settlement, which took three visits in late December to the Federal Courthouse, multiple consultations with friends, family (including Michael’s attorney sister Julia) and even a few lawyers who were not family or friends, before the Judge’s approval was granted.
During this same period, Michael Gold, Jennifer Haythornthwaite, and Jessica Merlin (who was elected to serve on the three-person board by the other members of the USASP Organizing Committee) were busy applying for tax-exempt status for the new, not-for-profit organization, the USASP. Their expedited application (read more lawyers) was approved and the ownership of The Journal was transferred to the USASP. In a subsequent editorial, more about the USASP will be presented.
Even after overcoming these obstacles, there remained the matter of finding a publisher for The Journal. The existing contract with Elsevier was negated when the APS was dissolved. The submission portal for manuscripts was closed, and there remained a backlog of accepted manuscripts waiting to be published. Although the journal’s editorial office and staff were prepared to resume their activities, in the absence of a publisher, the office was unmoored and essentially inactive. The process of acquiring a publisher is straight-forward, but time consuming. It includes publicly announcing and advertising the availability of The Journal, receiving and reviewing bids from interested publishers, selecting the “best” bid, and finally negotiating a contract. All of this usually takes many months. Under pressure of time, because The Journal had not been published for several months already, this process was condensed into the shortest time possible. We received three proposals to publish The Journal and had also worked through the details of going the open-access route through a University-based publisher. In the end, a new contract was established in May 2020 with Elsevier and the first issue of The Journal was recently published with Mark Jensen’s “welcome back” editorial.
That The Journal is now the property of and the flagship journal of the USASP is a minor miracle. This was not accomplished easily and would not have been accomplished at all without the hard work and generosity of many individuals. Those who made this possible are gratefully acknowledged below and include a number of anonymous donors.
List of Contributors
Contributions greater than $50,000:
United States Cancer Pain Relief Committee
$10,000 – 20,000:
Valda and G.F. Gebhart, PhD
Megan and Michael Gold, PhD
Jennifer Haythornthwaite, PhD
Luc Jasmin, MD, PhD, and the Painless Research Foundation
The Mayday Fund
$5,000 – $9,999
Regina Anderson, MD, and James N. Campbell, MD
Viravan Maixner, MS, and William Maixner, DDS, PhD
$1000 – $4,999
Jean and Kenneth L. Casey, MD
C. Richard Chapman, PhD
Charles Clelland, PhD
Maryann and Ronald Dubner, DDS, PhD
Donna Hammond, PhD
Charles Helmick, MD
Barbara and Charles E. Inturrisi, PhD
Mark P. Jensen, PhD
Erin Krebs, MD, MPH
Sean Mackey, MD, PhD
Christine Miaskowski, RN, PhD
Ajay Wasan, MD, MSc
Judith N. Paice, RN, PhD
David A. Williams, PhD
$500 – $999
Kenneth Hargreaves, DDS, PhD
Michael Iadarola, PhD
Robert Kerns, PhD
John Loeser, MD
John Markham, MD
Linda Sorkin, PhD
Kimberly T. Sibille, PhD
David Tauben, MD
Vivianne Tawfik, MD, PhD
George Wilcox, PhD
$100 – $499
Rita Agarwal, MD
Sue Aicher, PhD
Kathy Albers, PhD
Seena Ajit, PhD
A. Vania Apkarian, PhD
Michael Ashburn, MD, MPH, MBA
Lauren Atlas, PhD
Jane C. Ballantyne, MD
Gordon Barr, PhD
Emily Bartley, PhD
Allan Basbaum, PhD
Kyle Baumbauer, PhD
Timothy Brennan, MD, PhD
Mary Catherine Bushnell, PhD
C. Patrick Carroll, MD
Robert Coghill, PhD
Andrew Collins, MD
Meaghan Creed, PhD
Steve Davidson, PhD
Brian Davis, PhD
Megan Detloff, PhD
Pat Dougherty, PhD
Robert Edwards, PhD
Carolyn Fairbanks, PhD
Fadel Zeidan, PhD
Elizabeth Felix, PhD
Patrick Finan, PhD
Michael Geisser, PhD
Louis Gendron, PhD
Robert Gereau, PhD
Elizabeth Goldsmith, MD, MS
Fred Goldstein, PhD
Nicholas Gregory, MD, PhD
Neels Groenewald, MB, ChB
Daniel Harper, PhD
Steven Harte, PhD
Kevin Hellman, PhD
Chris Herndon, PharmD
Keela Herr, RN, PhD
Cheryl Hillery, MD
Marta Illueca, MD
Mary Janevic, MPH, PhD
Michael Jankowski, PhD
Susmita Kashikar-Zuck, PhD
Joel Katz, PhD
Benedict Kolber, PhD
Martin Koltzenburg, MD, PhD
Jeffrey Lackner, PsyD
Helen Lai, PhD
Emily Law, PhD
Laura Frey Law, MPT, MS, PhD
Benjamin Lee, Md
Marco Loggia, PhD
Katherine Martucci, PhD
Jonathan Mayer, PhD
Stacy McAllister, PhD
Daniela Menichella, MD
Estephan Moana-Filho, DDS, MS, PhD
Lorimer Moseley, PhD
Vitaly Napadow, PhD
Timothy J. Ness, MD, PhD
Richard Ohrbach, DDS, PhD
Akiko Okifuji, PhD
Tonya Palermo, PhD
Donald Penzien, PhD
Jeffrey Petruska, PhD
Mark Pitcher, PhD
Frank Porreca, PhD
Rajan Radhakrishnan, MSc, PhD
Diana Rae, MSN, RN-BC
Ke Ren, PhD
Matthias Ringkamp, MD, PhD
Martin Schmelz, MD
William Schmidt, PhD
Andrei Sdrulla, MD, PhD
David Seminowicz, PhD
Laura Simons, PhD
Laura Stone, PhD
Andrew Strassman, PhD
Gregory Terman, MD, PhD
Richard Traub, PhD
Catherine Underwood, MBA, CEA
Yuiry Usachev, PhD
Johan Vlaeyen, PhD
See Wan Tham, MB, BS
Steven Weisman, MB
Yi Ye, PhD
Paul Zeltzer, MD
Contributions less than $100
Miroslav Backonja, MD
Vanessa Benavent, DDS, MSD
Staja Booker, RN, PhD
Meagan Callahan, MSN, RN-BC
Marta Čeko, PhD
Julie Eisele
Michelle Failla, PhD
Perry Fine, MD
Liang Han, PhD
Anna Kratz, PhD
Janelle Letzen, PhD
Junnan Li, PhD
Vani Mathur, PhD
Aaron Mickle, PhD
Megan Miller, PhD
Karen Moss, RN, PhD
Jamie Moy, PhD
Hadas Nahman-Averbuch, PhD
Marie O’Brien, RN
Luis Queme, MD, PhD
Barbara Rakel, RN, PhD
Teri Reyburn-Orne, NP
Lynn Rusy, MD
Kate Sadler, PhD
Tim Salomons, PhD
David Schwartz, DC
Elizabeth Seng, PhD
Maria Silveira, MD, MPH
Natasha Sosanya, PhD
Roland Staal, MD
Scott Strassels, PharmD, PhD
Elia Valentini, PhD
Elsa H. Wuhrman, DNP, FNP
Article Info
Identification
Copyright
© 2020 by United States Association for the Study of Pain, Inc.
Comments are closed.