The sudden and still officially unexplained death of Prince was shattering enough to his fans, friends and family; now it turns out he might have just missed being treated by an addiction expert.
The lawyer for Dr. Howard Kornfeld, an opioid addiction specialist who runs the Recovery Without Walls clinic in Mill Valley, Calif., confirmed to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and the Associated Press that Kornfeld was called by Prince's staff on April 20 because Prince “was dealing with a grave medical emergency.”
Kornfeld launched a life-saving mission but it was too late. Prince was found dead at his Paisley Park compound on April 21.
So who is Kornfeld and what is Recovery Without Walls? Some experts in addiction treatment said they didn't know Kornfeld or declined to comment. The American Society of Addiction Medicine says Kornfeld is a member in good standing.
What is known is that Kornfeld offers treatment and medications that have been successful in the past in weaning addicts off opioids.
If Prince did indeed have an addiction to painkillers (something that continues to be strongly denied by his friends and associates), then Kornfeld would have been a likely expert to call, one of a growing number of such specialists as the problem of prescription drug abuse has grown in the U.S.
Kornfeld is a pain management specialist who helped establish a pain clinic in Oakland, Calf., in addition to Recovery Without Walls in Mill Valley.
The clinic describes itself as a "personalized outpatient clinic, specializing in innovative, evidence-based medical treatment for chronic pain and drug and alcohol addiction."
"Unlike many 28-day or residential treatment programs, the Recovery Without Walls outpatient drug and alcohol treatment program is patient responsive rather than schedule or protocol managed," according to the clinic's philosophy. "Under the guidance of founder and director, Dr. Howard Kornfeld, patients are encouraged to discover their own internal healing pathways aided by a skilled recovery team focused on the most advanced treatment options available."
According to a San Francisco Chronicle article in 2013 and his website, Kornfeld has had success in treating patients with pain using buprenorphine, a decades-old semi-synthetic drug considered less risky in terms of addiction and overdose than other painkillers linked to increasing addictions and deaths due to prescription drug abuse.
Kornfeld may have been planning to offer this treatment to Prince.
After getting the call from Prince's staff, Kornfeld couldn't fly out immediately, says his lawyer, William Mauzy of Minneapolis, so Kornfeld sent his son, Andrew Kornfeld, to Paisley Park to discuss Prince's treatment options.
“The plan was to quickly evaluate his health and devise a treatment plan,” Mauzy told reporters. "The doctor was planning on a life-saving mission.” Mauzy did not detail the "grave medical emergency."
But that never happened. When Andrew Kornfeld arrived at Paisley Park on the morning of April 21, Prince could not be found. Shortly after, Kornfeld ended up being one of three people who found Prince's body in an elevator, prompting shock and horror from Prince's staff members.
Mauzy told reporters that Kornfeld had never met nor spoken to Prince before the singer's representatives called him. He said Andrew Kornfeld was carrying a small amount of buprenorphine and that he intended to give the medication to a local doctor that Kornfeld had arranged to see Prince on the following day.
Neither Kornfeld was talking on Wednesday.
Stuart Gitlow, an addiction-medicine expert and past president of the American Society of Addiction Medicine, who spoke without direct knowledge of Prince's case, said buprenorphine is an appropriate drug used successfully in addiction treatment.
"There’s nothing wrong with being seen by your personal physician and starting on medication as long as the doctor knows what he’s doing, and in this case Dr. Kornfeld seems to have the background to know what he's doing," Gitlow said, adding that Kornfeld is a senior member of his professional society.
But Gitlow, who has a private practice in Rhode Island and is a member of the faculty of the University of Florida, said he was concerned whether Kornfeld acted appropriately in response to what was supposed to be a medical emergency.
"If it’s an emergency situation and the patient is at risk of dying, then I wouldn’t fly across the country, I'd call an ambulance and get him to someone locally," Gitlow says. "It's not routine for doctors to fly across the country to start people on buprenorphine."
Gitlow says past episodes of celebrity deaths due to drug overdoses, such as Amy Winehouse and Michael Jackson, indicate that "special treatment" offered to celebrities rarely works. But proper evaluation by specialists and a careful treatment plan, including random drug tests, usually does work, for celebs and non-celebs alike.
"Proper care has an 80% to 90% long-term recovery," he says.
The Carver County Sheriff's Office, which is investigating the circumstances of Prince's death, has now been joined by the U.S. Attorney in Minneapolis and the Drug Enforcement Agency in Minnesota. The federal agencies issued a statement Wednesday confirming the move as a way to "augment" the sheriff's investigation with federal resources and expertise.
A final cause of death is pending further testing, and may still be weeks away. Investigators have indicated they are exploring what role, if any, prescription painkillers may have played in Prince's death and in his emergency treatment at a hospital about a week before his death.