Riverside psychiatrist pleads not guilty in Medicare scheme

Report from the Houston Chronicle

A Houston psychiatrist who was indicted separately in the Riverside General Hospital $160 million Medicare billing fraud scheme pleaded not guilty on Friday and intends to stand trial in August.

Dr. Sharon Iglehart is accused of one federal conspiracy count, two health care fraud charges and a pair of allegations that she made false statements to investigators. At a pretrial conference before U.S. District Judge Ewing Werlein, her lawyers - which include high-powered defense attorney Rusty Hardin - said she is ready to face a jury. Iglehart originally was arrested in December 2013, but the allegations have been amended twice since then - growing from nine to 12 pages in the most recent indictment secured from a federal grand jury and filed on July 21. Iglehart pleaded not guilty to the amended five counts and retained her freedom on $50,000 bail.

Former Riverside CEO and president Earnest Gibson III was convicted as the ringleader in three conspiracies involving Medicare billings for Riverside's psychiatric treatment programs from 2005 to 2012 in which patients were ineligible for treatment or were warehoused but did not receive the reported care. The government alleged that $31 million in fraudulent reimbursement requests were paid. His son, former group home owner Earnest Gibson IV was also convicted at trial and sentenced to 20 years.

The elder Gibson received the heaviest punishment so far: 45 years. His second-in-command, Mohammad Khan, received a 40-year sentence. They received some of the nation's longest sentences for health care fraud - particularly, stealing from the Medicare or Medicaid programs, which is one of the top criminal prosecutorial priorities for the U.S. Justice Department.

Through her Iglehart Wellness Center, the psychiatrist allegedly participated in the scheme by submitting claims that falsely indicated she provided intensive outpatient services for severe mental illness through Riverside's treatment program. Iglehart retains an active medical license in Texas. She was reprimanded by the Texas Medical Board in 2009 for "recreating medical records for psychiatric patients significantly later than the time she had provided examination, diagnosis and treatment to the patients," according to the agency's website. Her disciplinary status was cleared in 2011.

Jury selection in Iglehart's case is set for Aug. 31. If convicted, the doctor faces up to 10 years in prison on each count. Regina Askew, who rose from a case worker to become an auditor, will spend 12 years in prison.

In July, Sharonda Holmes, who was involved in paying and receiving kickbacks, was sentenced to 3½ years and Waddie McDuffie became the sixth person to receive prison time in the scam that crippled Riverside. The historic Third Ward institution began as Houston's first hospital for black patients and became one of the state's largest providers of substance abuse and mental health treatment. McDuffie pleaded guilty to delivering kickback money to group home owners in exchange for them sending patients for mental health treatment at the hospital. He received a five-year term of probation and six months of home confinement. Those who have pleaded guilty or were convicted at trial are among the dozen defendants who are jointly responsible for $46 million in restitution.

All of the Riverside cases are being prosecuted by Washington-based lawyers assigned to the Justice Department's criminal fraud division.

Timberlawn mental hospital cut off from federal funding over safety issues

From a much long report in the Dallas News

Federal regulators are taking the rare step of kicking one of North Texas’ largest psychiatric hospitals out of the Medicare and Medicaid programs for leaving patients in “immediate jeopardy” of injury or death.

[...]

Timberlawn flunked a make-or-break inspection, a final chance to prove it could fix an array of problems after promising improvements for months.

The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services found that unlicensed personnel were monitoring patients and some patients were going more than 12 hours without seeing a nurse. Electrical cords and other unsafe objects remained in rooms within reach of suicidal patients.

“These practices posed an immediate jeopardy to the health and safety of patients,” inspectors said in a report.

The state said it is moving quickly to evaluate its enforcement options.

“The issues have been egregious and incredibly disheartening. We are absolutely looking at the full range of penalties, including license revocation,” said Carrie Williams, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of State Health Services. “Our inspectors have been in and out of the facility since February, citing issues and not seeing progress. It’s turned into a critical situation.”

Much more information at the link, which includes hand wringing over what they will do when a dangerous and unsafe facility is shut down.

An abrupt end for Houston psychiatric hospital Cambridge facility gives up license and discharges its last patient

One of Houston's largest inpatient psychiatric hospitals closed suddenly last week, leaving a void in a city already underserved.

The 148-bed facility at 7601 Fannin had operated as Cambridge Hospital since 2012. On Monday the phone was disconnected and its website contained only the stark message: Cambridge Hospital is closed. Attempts to reach officials at the facility were unsuccessful.

The hospital surrendered its state license on July 7 and discharged its last patient the same day, said Chris Van Deusen, a spokesman for the Texas Department of State Health Services.

Those in Houston's mental health community said the closing was not entirely unexpected.

"I was hearing that this was coming," said Steve Glazier, chief operating officer at Harris County Psychiatric Center, the area's largest facility with 250 beds. He said administrators acknowledged financial struggles to him more than a year ago.

[...]

Cambridge Hospital began operating in 2012 in the space that once housed IntraCare Medical Center, once the second-largest inpatient facility in the county.

IntraCare closed after losing its certification from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which had declared it "an immediate and serious threat to patient health and safety."

Houston Hospital Leaders Sentenced to 45 Years in Prison for Alarming Psychiatric Fraud Scheme

Details of the fraud allegations against Riverside General Hospital executives

The bulk of the Medicare and Medicaid fraud allegations against Gibson, et al. center around Riverside’s psychiatric facilities, which are classified by the government as a “partial hospitalization program” (PHP) A PHP is technically an outpatient treatment facility, but is geared toward the round-the-clock care required for patients enduring a severe mental illness. Under government guidelines, mental health patients receiving care at a PHP must be routinely seen by a psychiatrist, guided through a care plan, and carefully monitored throughout the course of treatment.

According to the allegations, Riverside collected more than $158 million in funds from Medicare and Medicaid on behalf of PHP patients who rarely, if ever, saw a psychiatrist for their illnesses. Moreover, Riverside regularly billed the government for psychiatric services that were never rendered, mostly because the patients were in the advanced stages of dementia and unable to participate in the treatment.

Patient care aside, Riverside is also accused of offering kickbacks and financial incentives to executives group homes, as well as recruiters tasked with increasing referrals of mental health patients to Riverside’s facilities.

In addition to the three main participants listed above, six other individuals recently pled guilty to conspiring with Gibson to bring in the maximum number of Medicare and Medicaid clientele.

According to a statement by the U.S. Attorney General’s Office, “The former President of Houston’s Riverside hospital, his son, and their co-conspirators saw mentally ill, elderly, and disabled Medicare beneficiaries as commodities to be turned into profit centers – not as vulnerable individuals in need of health care….Rather than providing needed medical care to a historically underserved community, the defendants ran a longstanding hospital into the ground through their greed and fraud. According to the evidence presented at trial, the defendants had patients sit around the facility watching movies while they received no treatment. Meanwhile, the defendants billed Medicare more than $158 million for care that was never provided. This brazen fraud cannot and will not be tolerated.”

See Also

Department of Justice Press Release, “Former President of Riverside General Hospital Sentenced to 45 Years in Prison in $158 Million Medicare Fraud.” June 9, 2015.

Texas Medical Board temporarily suspends license of Dallas Psychiatrist

Via the Dallas Morning News

The Texas Medical Board temporarily suspended the license of a Dallas physician on Tuesday after determining her continued practice could pose a threat to public welfare.

The board panel received an emergency referral on May 6 from the Texas Physician Health Program based on a self report from Dr. Abbie Ewell. Ewell's self-report claimed she was unsafe to practice because of "a recent relapse of a mental or physical condition," the board said.

Ewell's suspension will last until the board takes further action, the board said.

She graduated in 2008 from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and was an assistant professor in the school's psychiatry department.

Two psychiatrists at Terrell State Hospital resigned this week after they were accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from a pharmaceutical company

From the Texas Tribune. More information in the original report

Two psychiatrists at Terrell State Hospital resigned this week after being told they would face disciplinary action for accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from a pharmaceutical company to promote the drug Seroquel, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.

According to agency documents, Dr. Anthony Claxton, the hospital's clinical director, and Dr. Lisa Perdue, a psychiatrist, received large amounts of money from pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to promote the company’s drugs to other doctors and state regulators.

Claxton and Perdue were notified Tuesday by DSHS that they had violated department rules and faced possible termination. By the end of the week, both had resigned, a DSHS spokeswoman said.

Claxton is accused of taking $231,000 from AstraZeneca for “promotional speaking and consulting services” on at least 166 occasions dating back to 2005. Perdue allegedly received $615,525 for 460 such instances since 2005. State health code forbids employees from accepting other compensation that could affect their official duties.

Texas Medical Board hands out meger $5,000 dollar penalty for psychiatrist sex with patient.

As Reported on the East Texas Matters Website, an announcement from the Texas Medical Board which can also be found here (PDF)

On April 10, 2015, the Board and Fermin Briones, jr., M.D., entered into an Agreed Order publicly reprimanding Dr. Briones and requiring him to within 30 days undergo

an independent medical evaluation and

follow all recommendations for care and treatment;

within one year and three attempts pass the medical jurisprudence exam;

within one year complete at least 16 hours of in-person cme, divided as follows:

1. eight hours in ethics and
2. eight hours in HIPAA compliance;

and pay an administrative penalty of $5,000 within 90 days.

The board found Dr. Briones engaged in unprofessional conduct

by having a sexual relationship with a patient and

continuing to have inappropriate contact with the patient after the filing of the complaint alleging a sexual relationship had occurred with the patient; and

violated state and federal patient confidentiality laws through his filing of a lawsuit seeking a restraining order against the patient.

The initial Texas Medical Board report can be found here

Briones, Fermin, Jr., M.D., Lic. No. N0660, San Antonio On January 29, 2015 a disciplinary panel of the Texas Medical Board temporarily suspended, with notice, the Texas medical license of Fermin Briones, Jr., M.D., a San Antonio psychiatrist, after determining his continuation in the practice of medicine poses a continuing threat to public welfare. The suspension was effective immediately. The Board panel found that on June 6, 2014, a report with the Alamo Heights Police Department was filed alleging that Dr. Briones had initiated and nurtured a sexual relationship with a patient. Physical evidence, including videos, emails, and texts messages, demonstrate there was a sexual relationship. Dr. Briones continued to communicate with the patient via email and attempted to persuade her to not participate in the Board proceedings. On December 30, 2014, Dr. Briones sent an email to the patient threatening to report her to her professional licensing board should she continue to participate in the proceedings against him at the Board. The temporary suspension remains in place until the Board takes further action.

Here is a previous local TV news report

The Mysterious Vanishing Brains How could 100 jars of human brains—taken from deceased patients of an Austin mental hospital—just disappear from their home at the University of Texas?

As Reported in The Atlantic

Their article was excerpted from Alex Hannaford's Malformed: Forgotten Brains of the Texas State Mental Hospital.

Somewhere in a little-used room in the bowels of the Animal Resources Center on the University of Texas’s campus in Austin sit around 100 or so large glass jars. They’re stored three-deep on a wooden shelving unit that takes up an entire wall. Glass doors do a fairly good job of keeping off the dust and protecting them from the occasional visitor to this air-conditioned storeroom.

Those jars house an unlikely collection: Each contains a complete—or, in a few cases, a partial—human brain, submerged in formalin. And on most is affixed a label, faded with time but still legible, inscribed with three pieces of information: a reference number, the condition from which the patient suffered (described in archaic Latin), and the date of death.

The specimens, which date back to the 1950s, all belonged to patients at the Austin State Hospital (ASH), formerly the Texas State Lunatic Asylum, an institution that still sits on a shady lot off Guadalupe Street, about three miles north of downtown Austin.

[...]

From the 1950s to the mid-1980s, the resident pathologist at the hospital was a man named Dr. Coleman de Chenar, and it was in the room where he performed autopsies that he began to amass a collection of brains. At the time of his death in 1985, he had around 200 specimens that he’d collected during routine autopsies on mental patients.

[...]

Tim Schallert, a neuroscientist at UT and the collection’s curator, says that when the original brains were bequeathed to the University of Texas, there were around 200 specimens. By the mid-1990s, they were taking up much-needed shelf space at the Animal Resources Center, and Dr. Jerry Fineg, the center’s then-director, asked Schallert if he would move half of the jars elsewhere.

When Schallert got around to it, he says they had vanished. He asked Fineg if he knew what had happened to them, and Schallert says Fineg told him he got rid of them. “I never found out exactly what happened—whether they were just given away, sold or whatever—but they just disappeared.”

[...]

It’s a mystery worthy of a hard-boiled detective novel: 100 brains missing from campus, and apparently no one really knows what happened to them. Going through the official channels at the University of Texas eventually leads to a suggestion that Tim Schallert might know, as he is the collection’s curator. It’s back to square one.

Back in 1986, the Houston Chronicle described a fierce “battle for the brains” between UT and Harvard Medical School, and now 100 of the specimens—half of the original collection—have disappeared. Space at UT was limited, but the director of clinical support services at the State Hospital 25 years earlier had described being “overwhelmed” by calls about the collection. They were, she said at the time, a “valuable research tool.” A Harvard professor had said researchers were “crying out” to get the brain tissue in the UT collection. And yet today, apparently nobody knows where half of this valuable collection has gone. Were they given back to ASH? Were they sold? Were they given away? Will we ever find out?

While the witty suggest zombies, we are not so sure which shrinks would have an appetite for such a collection. It's like something out of a bad movie.

The Top Ten Reasons Psychiatrists Get Sued

This is the text of a paper/talk presented at a conference on medical malpractice in Texas in 1993, and is focused on Texas Law.

How I Decided to Sue You: Misadventures in Psychiatry

It is an interesting read, but is 24 pages long, including cover sheet, etc.

As a quick summary, The top ten reasons psychiatrists get sued are

A. Failure to Prevent Suicides or Self Inflicted Injuries
B. Sex with the Sick
C. Informed Consent (or lack thereof)
D. Inappropriate Administration of Electro Convulsive Therapy
E. Inappropriate Use or Non Use of Physical or Chemical Restraints
F. Liability for Locking Them Up
G. Injuries Resulting from Escapes or Elopements
H. Medication Errors
I. Failure to Diagnose Intracranial Lesions
J. the Psychiatrist Duty to Warn Third Persons

Overall, an interesting read. This is a PDF Document

Texas nursing home psychiatrist in federal custody on 52 counts of fraud, including upcoding

As seen in this report

Authorities have arrested a nursing home psychiatrist and charged him with 52 counts of healthcare fraud, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas announced Thursday.

Robert Hadley Gross, M.D., filed Medicare and Medicaid claims for services he did not perform and upcoded to get overpaid for services he did render, according to the charges. The indictment states that he often filed claims for nursing home patients who already had died, and that “for numerous dates of service” he filed claims for more services than he could possibly provide in a given day.

His wrongdoing began in 2009 and continued through this year, during which time he racked up nearly $1.75 million in fraudulent payments, according to U.S. Attorney Sarah R. Saldana of the Northern District of Texas. Gross worked in nursing homes in San Angelo, TX, and in other communities in and around Tom Green County.

If convicted, Gross could face 10 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine for each count of fraud. He was arrested Wednesday and was scheduled to appear in court Thursday, according to Saldana's office.

E. Texas psychiatrist Riyaz Mazcuri has been arrested, accused of trafficking Indian women for forced labor, prostitution

As reported on the KLTV website KLTV.com-Tyler, Longview, Jacksonville, Texas | ETX News

An East Texas psychiatrist has been arrested and charged in connection with what’s being described as a ‘forced labor conspiracy’ in New York.

Riyaz Mazcuri, was arrested Thursday by the Gregg County Sheriff's Office and booked in the jail on a federal warrant.

According to documents from the federal court in the Southern District of New York, Mazcuri, known as ‘The Doctor,’ was indicted along with three other men accused of organizing a human trafficking organization.

Mazcuri is a psychiatrist who has practiced in Texas for several years in Houston and most recently at a facility in Kilgore.

Federal court documents state the men would hire female dancers in India under the assumption they would perform cultural programs in the United States. Prosecutors allege when they would get to the U.S., the women would be forced to dance in nightclubs in front of men for twelve to fourteen hours per night, seven nights a week. Some of the performers were reportedly engaged in prostitution. The men would reportedly force the women to perform by confiscating their passports and by threatening them with physical violence.

The group reportedly operated in New York and in other locations from 2008 to 2010.

According to jail records, Mazcuri has a Houston address. He appeared before a judge via video conference Friday afternoon where a judge allowed Mazcuri to be released on $300,000 bond. Mazcuri must now appear before a judge in a New York City federal court on August 1.

More than half of all foster children in Texas above 6 are drugged, 41,3% of those who receive medication receive 3+ different classes of medicines

Who are the real child abusers here? More than half of all foster children in Texas above 6 receive psychotropic medication, 41,3% of those who receive medication receive 3+ different classes of medicines. A study published in Pediatrics, the Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics

Psychotropic Medication Patterns Among Youth in Foster Care

Julie M. Zito, PhD a,b,
Daniel J. Safer, MD c,
Devadatta Sai, MS a,
James F. Gardner, ScM a,
Diane Thomas, BA d,
Phyllis Coombes, MA d,
Melissa Dubowski, BS d and
Maria Mendez-Lewis, MPA d

Departments of

a Pharmaceutical Health Services Research
b Psychiatry, University of Maryland, Baltimore, Maryland
c Department of Psychiatry and Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, Maryland
d Office of the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Austin, Texas

---

ABSTRACT

CONTEXT. Studies have revealed that youth in foster care covered by Medicaid insurance receive psychotropic medication at a rate >3 times that of Medicaid-insured youth who qualify by low family income. Systematic data on patterns of medication treatment, particularly concomitant drugs, for youth in foster care are limited.

OBJECTIVE. The purpose of this work was to describe and quantify patterns of psychotropic monotherapy and concomitant therapy prescribed to a randomly selected, 1-month sample of youth in foster care who had been receiving psychotropic medication.

METHODS. Medicaid data were accessed for a July 2004 random sample of 472 medicated youth in foster care aged 0 through 19 years from a southwestern US state. Psychotropic medication treatment data were identified by concomitant pattern, frequency, medication class, subclass, and drug entity and were analyzed in relation to age group; gender; race or ethnicity; International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, psychiatric diagnosis; and physician specialty.

RESULTS. Of the foster children who had been dispensed psychotropic medication, 41.3% received ≥3 different classes of these drugs during July 2004, and 15.9% received ≥4 different classes.

The most frequently used medications were antidepressants (56.8%), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder drugs (55.9%), and antipsychotic agents (53.2%).

The use of specific psychotropic medication classes varied little by diagnostic grouping.

Psychiatrists prescribed 93% of the psychotropic medication dispensed to youth in foster care. The use of ≥2 drugs within the same psychotropic medication class was noted in 22.2% of those who were given prescribed drugs concomitantly.

CONCLUSIONS. Concomitant psychotropic medication treatment is frequent for youth in foster care and lacks substantive evidence as to its effectiveness and safety.

Full Study at the Link

Houston Psychiatrist's License Suspened Over Cocaine Use

As reported by the Houston Chronicle

The Texas Medical Board temporarily has suspended the license of Houston psychiatrist Dr. Eli Anderson, saying he failed a test for cocaine use and his practice represents a threat to the public's welfare.

Agency documents indicate Anderson, 64, pleaded no contest to a third-degree felony cocaine possession charge in June 2005. He was placed on a five-year order of deferred adjudication, meaning that the offense would be stricken from his record if he met probation-like requirements during that period.

In February 2007, Anderson was arrested in Lubbock on outstanding warrants from Clay County. While in custody, Lubbock police lodged other charges against him, including one for possessing drug paraphernalia.

In August of that year, officials of Anderson's employer, the Lubbock Regional Mental Health and Mental Retardation Center, notified the medical board that the charges had led to his dismissal.

In June, Anderson tested positive for a cocaine metabolite.

Medical board spokeswoman Jill Wiggins said the temporary suspension will remain in effect indefinitely. Anderson may appeal the decision in state district court.

Anderson, a graduate of the Baylor College of Medicine, has practiced in Texas 29 years, most recently at 8240 Antoine Drive. He could not be reached for comment.

Mentally retarded child beaten up by an angry caregiver at Denton State School in Texas

From a much longer article in the Houston Press

Every day she comes here to be with him — to wash his wiry hair and clip his yellowed nails and rub his calloused feet. The boy has no control over his body. His head rolls from side to side, his eyes dart from one thing to another and drool pools out of his mouth. His name is Haseeb, and he is 34.

He wasn't always like this. For most of his life, he has been profoundly mentally retarded, but there was a time when he could sing and dance and communicate with his mother, in broken English and Urdu. There was a time when he ate cheeseburgers with his family and bopped his head to his brother's hip-hop.

And then something happened.

Six years ago, not far from where Chishty sits, a nurse's aide found Haseeb in bed, soaking in his own blood and urine. No one at the school could explain what happened. For six months he lay in intensive care, suffering from massive internal injuries that triggered toxic shock and then paralysis. His mother insisted someone at the school was to blame — she had seen a bruise in the shape of a footprint near his groin on the morning they found him. But no one had reported any abuse, so her claims went ignored.

For two and a half years, she told this story to anyone who would listen, and then the unexpected happened. Kevin Miller, a former caregiver at the school, admitted he had abused Haseeb in a drug-induced rage, punching and kicking him more than a dozen times. He said his supervisors knew about the attack and helped him cover it up. Even more alarming, he said abuse at the school was rampant. He knew his confession, which he first offered at a drug rehab clinic in Houston, might send him to prison, but he felt it was worth the risk if it sparked reforms.

More than three years have passed since then, and none of the changes Miller envisioned have taken place. Yet largely thanks to Chishty's efforts, her son has become the face of a movement. For the first time in nearly a decade, advocacy groups for the mentally retarded are pushing for the closure of the 13 state schools in Texas. These facilities, which house nearly 5,000 people, represent the largest institutionalization of mentally retarded in the nation. The alternatives — smaller, community-based group homes — are cheaper, safer and more humane, mental health rights advocates say. The trend across the country is toward this model of care, and other states, including California and New York, have either shuttered their institutions or are in the process of doing so.

Jeff Garrison-Tate, who heads Community Now, an Austin-based advocacy group, cites the Chishty tragedy as a defining example of why Texas should close all its state schools. "Haseeb is the tip of the iceberg," he says. "By their very nature, these are places where abuse is rife to occur."

Supreme Court asked to hear Zoloft case

From the Buffalo News

Attorneys have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case of a teen sentenced to 30 years in prison for killing his grandparents when he was 12, arguing that the sentence is cruel.

Christopher Pittman shoot his grandparents Joe and Joy Pittman with a shotgun in 2001, then set fire to their home.

During his trial four years later, Pittman's attorneys unsuccessfully argued the slayings were influenced by the antidepressant Zoloft - a charge the maker of the drug vigorously denied.

In the brief submitted to the high court late Monday, attorneys from the University of Texas School of Law argued that the 30-year sentence violates Christopher Pittman's Eighth Amendment protection from cruel and unusual punishment.

Such a lengthy sentence is "unconstitutionally disproportionate as applied to a 12-year-old child," according a copy of the petition provided by the Juvenile Justice Foundation. It said Pittman "is the nation's only inmate serving such a harsh sentence for an offense committed at such a young age."

Twenty-five states and the District of Columbia set the minimum age at which a juvenile may be tried as an adult above 12, so in more than half the nation, Pittman's attorneys argue, Pittman could not have been tried as adult and could never have been sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Each year about 200,000 defendants under 18 are sent to the adult system, according to the National Center for Juvenile Justice. Most end up there because of state laws that automatically define them as adults, due to their age or offense. Those numbers escalated in the 1990s as juvenile crime soared and legislators responded, with 48 states making it easier to transfer kids into criminal court, according to the center.

Zoloft is the most widely prescribed antidepressant in the United States, with 32.7 million prescriptions written in 2003. In 2004, the Food and Drug Administration ordered Zoloft and other antidepressants to carry "black box" warnings - the government's strongest warning short of a ban - about an increased risk of suicidal behavior in children.

Another Case of Kids Over-Medicated on Psych Drugs

A report from Corpus Christi, Texas

The parents of three elementary students who showed up for school seemingly under the influence of drugs were back in court Tuesday to see if a judge would allow them to keep the children temporarily.

The kids, ages 6, 9 and 10, reportedly have been diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. They have been living with their paternal grandparents since they were taken from their mother and stepfather in September.

Tuesday judge Carl Lewis decided Tuesday the children would remain with the grandparents for at least the next 30 days.

In the courtroom, the kids' mother Jennifer Bartley and stepfather Edward Bartley avoided KRIS-TV cameras, and they would not say on-camera whether they intentionally overmedicated their children. But, police said, on Sept. 14, the children appeared drunk as the couple dropped off two of Jennifer's three children at Luther Jones Elementary

Investigators later found out the 10-year-old daughter tested positive for a drug similar to Xanax, a drug not prescribed to her.

A court document recently obtained by 6 News...read, "the children were admitted into the hospital for over a week". It went on to say, "there was sexual acting out by (the 10-year-old) with (the 6-year-old.)"

The document outlined a family service plan outlining tasks Jennifer and Edward Bartley must complete, including placing the children's medications in a lock box that includes a sign-in sheet listing times and dates medications are given.

The couple was also order to undergo family counseling. The Bartleys, along with the children's father, Joshua Davenport, also must submit to random drug testing.

Davenport did not want to talk on camera, but he told the judge he no longer uses drugs and that he hopes to get custody of his children someday.

The court did allow for the parents to see the children once a week.

Davenport said the 9-year-old suffers from bipolar disorder and ADHD, and he has been admitted into Padre Behavioral Hospital. Court documents said the child has made little progress with his conditions.

The other two children reportedly were also seeing a psychiatrist.

Lewis said he will review the case again in 30 days.

A police investigation has not determined whether the parents unnecessarily drugged the children. If it does, however, whoever is to blame could face a charge of injury to a child or endangering a child.

Hopefully this won't turn into another case where a psychiatrist misdiagnosed a case of child abuse as ADHD. Tragically, there is an awful chance that it will.

Fortunately, no child was killed due to drug side effects. Tragically, the psychiatrist in charge of this fiasco is not likely to be investigated.

The Political Use of Psychiatric Drugs in Deportation Proceedings

From the Dallas News

The federal government would like to forcibly sedate and deport an immigrant-restaurateur who resisted his removal last August with repeated screams because of fears he'd be murdered back in his native Albania.

But an unlikely champion from East Texas has penned a private bill in Congress that would allow 32-year-old Rrustem Neza to stay in the country until early 2009 – and give him time to receive a full rehearing of his political asylum case.

Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Tyler, who sits on the House judiciary subcommittee on immigration, is opposed to loosening immigration. But he believes the government's treatment of Mr. Neza is "intolerable" and "callous."

Mr. Gohmert, a former district court judge, spoke to President Bush about the case this week, a staff aide said.


"I am a strong believer in following the laws regarding immigration," Mr. Gohmert said in a written statement. "However, we have laws to allow people to remain here based on asylum and the need to protect their lives."

Mr. Neza fears he will be killed back in his homeland because of his knowledge of a political assassination of a democracy leader in Albania, a European country of 3.6 million that fought off communism in the late 1990s.

Two of his brothers have won asylum. And two of his cousins were killed in Europe because of the knowledge they had regarding the assassination of Azem Hajdari, said Mr. Neza's Dallas attorney John Wheat Gibson.

The Gohmert bill could effectively stall Mr. Neza's deportation until early 2009.

Private bills have been issued before on behalf of individual immigrants. But the Gohmert measure is unusual because immigration now stirs such quick rancor.

Carl Rusnok, an ICE spokesman in Dallas, said he couldn't comment on the Neza case because of litigation in Los Angeles over the policy – "on rare occasions" – of forced druggings for certain deportees.

Such medications had been administered to deportees "for their own safety and the safety of people on the plane," he said. In the past, Mr. Rusnok has noted that Mr. Neza came into the U.S. using a false Italian passport and has an order for deportation against him.

On Aug. 8, at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, Mr. Neza repeatedly screamed, "I am not a terrorist," when immigration agents tried to board him on a flight.

Airline officials refused Mr. Neza's passage after he told them he was being "illegally deported," according to documents in a federal district court in Abilene.

Though Mr. Neza was denied political asylum, there are two pending appeals. And a judge is expected to make a decision on whether immigration officials can sedate him.

"My main concern is to prevent the deportation," said his attorney, Mr. Gibson. "The drugging is just one more mean thing they are doing to this guy to deliver him into the hands of the assassins. My ultimate goal is to keep him out of hands of the assassins."

Others see it differently.

Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that wants tough enforcement of immigration laws, said it's "unwise for someone to go over the heads of those who have adjudicated the case."

As for the possibility of sedation, he added, "We cannot allow policy to exist that if someone yells and screams all bets are off and the laws are not enforced. Otherwise, we'll have a lot of kicking and screaming."

Due process

But such druggings by federal immigration agents are stirring controversy.

In early October, the ACLU filed a motion in federal court in Los Angeles to stop U.S. immigration authorities from forcibly drugging deportees about to board commercial flights.

The ACLU is seeking class action status for its suit, which stems from the forced drugging of an Indonesian minister and a Senegalese man with anti-psychotic drugs.

The issue of forced druggings gained prominence during the nomination hearing of ICE chief Julie Myers on Sept. 12. In her testimony, Ms. Myers said current ICE policy prohibits sedation without a court order, and, thus, the court order provides the deportee due process under the U.S. Constitution.

ACLU attorney Ahilan Arulanantham said the practice raises serious questions.

"Immigrants are not animals, and you cannot forcibly drug them," said Mr. Arulanantham, who has also been in contact with Mr. Gibson, the Dallas attorney for Mr. Neza.

At Cornell Law School, immigration law specialist Stephen Yale-Loehr said the "case raises serious concerns about when the government can forcibly sedate a person to carry out a deportation order."

"A court should review the allegations carefully to make sure Mr. Neza's due process rights are not violated," Mr. Yale-Loehr said.

Arguing safety

In the interim, U.S. government attorneys Scott Frost and Tracy Short argued in a court pleading that "there is exceptionally strong public interest in the enforcement of duly enacted laws of the United States."

Drugging Mr. Neza with a sedative by a psychiatrist employed by the U.S. Public Health Services will have multiple beneficial effects, the attorneys argue in their pleading. "It will prevent Neza from committing assaultive acts against others, it will allow the United States to enforce its immigration laws, and it will ensure the safety of Neza and others during the removal."

The federal government cites a 1996 Texas case involving a deportee with the surname of Bechara, who threatened to bring down the plane if he were forced on the plane.

But Mr. Gibson counters that Mr. Neza made no such threats.

Mr. Neza was apprehended after filing a liquor license application for his Lufkin restaurant, called Joe's Italian Grill.

The government, in court documents, also notes that a state application for a liquor license stated Mr. Neza was a U.S. citizen. False claims to citizenship can result in permanent bars from the country.

No charges have been brought against Mr. Neza, Mr. Gibson said. And the false claim to U.S. citizenship wasn't made by Mr. Neza but by someone filling out the application, Mr. Gibson said in court documents.

Using the Population as Guinea Pigs - The Psychiatric Side Effects of a Poorly Tested Drug

From CBS11 TV in Dallas/Fort Worth

The drug manufacturer and the FDA say they test new drugs on a few people and then release it to the masses.

But the masses may be upset to learn that the government and drug companies may be using the population as guinea pigs.

For example, Becky Moser of Dallas is one of 3 million people taking Chantix, the anti-smoking pill. She said it is helping her quit.

But soon after taking the pill, Becky said she began to have thoughts of suicide. That was not one of the symptoms on the warning label, she said.

But Pfizer, the manufacturer of Chantix, knew about the side effect. When clinical trials were conducted, it was listed as a rare, adverse reaction.

According to Pfizer, Chantix was tested on approximately 5,000 people before its U.S. release. Becky thinks "that’s not a lot of people."

The Washington D.C. watch dog group Public Citizen agrees. The group put Chantix on its worst pill list.

There is great concern that new drugs have potential dangers that turn up after wide public release. According to Public Citizen, "one half of all problems that arise in a drug occur within the first 7 years."

According to Dallas psychiatrist Stephen Vobach, who researched drugs for clinical trials, that's just the way it's done.

In fact, traditionally drug companies, not the FDA, fund and conduct the drug research. The FDA does review the results, but some argue the pharmaceutical companies are better equipped to conduct the studies.

According to Pfizer, the clinical trial information is intended for doctors, not patients. That's why Becky didn't know that suicidal thoughts were an adverse reaction.

Pfizer points out "these aren't reactions associated with the drug, and there is no causal association - it's just that they were reported in the trials."

An official statement from Pfizer read:

Quitting smoking with or without treatment is associated with nicotine withdrawal symptoms such as depressed mood and anxiety. Quitting smoking has also been associated with the exacerbation of underlying psychiatric illness. Care should be taken with patients with a history of psychiatric illness and patients should be advised accordingly by their doctor.

It was a CBS 11 investigation last month that documented the bizarre behavior of Dallas musician Carter Albrecht who was shot and killed trying to break into a house. According to his family, it was just hours after taking Chantix with alcohol. Click here to read the investigation.

Since then, CBS 11 has received similar stories of rage and suicidal thoughts from people using Chantix. Click here to read some of their testimonials.

According to the FDA's database, the list of people complaining about the drug's side effects is nearly equivalent to the number of people who were part of its initial clinical trials.

Becky says if she knew then what she knows now, "I wouldn't have taken it."

Pfizer says Chantix is safe. It spends billions of dollars on research and is continuing to study the drug.

Texas Medical Board gets scrutiny

CBS 42 Texas Investigates:

The Texas Board of Medical Examiners is the state agency that oversees doctors in Texas. It's supposed to protect the public from bad doctors.

But some say the board isn't doing its job.

Tuesday the Texas House Appropriations Committee will be hearing from doctors and others who say the medical board wastes valuable time and resources going after doctors for minor record keeping violations instead of doctors who pose a risk to patients.

CBS 42's Nanci Wilson talked to some of the medical board's most outspoken critics in this installment of CBS 42 News Investigates.

Steven Hotze has a thriving medical practice in Houston. But lately, he's trying to change a different practice.

"The Texas Medical Board needs to be reformed," Hotze said.

He says he thought the medical board was supposed to go after dangerous doctors.

"I personally had an anonymous complaint filed against me for advertising," he said. "I have a radio program I have had every day for the last seven years. I wrote a book, Hormones, health, and happiness. Some competitor complained, and I've got to hire attorneys, go to the board hearings. I saw the way we were treated -- like criminals. "

The board dismissed the complaint against him, but he still had to pay thousands in legal fees.

"I started hearing horror stories from other doctors," Hotze said. "Their licenses being revoked and the intimidation tactics that were used."

That's when he created a web site to draw attention to the issue. And he's the first of many doctors expected to testify before the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday.

"It's egregious," Hotze said. "It's wrong and it should be stopped. The board is really out of control."

During the last meeting in August, the medical board disciplined 88 doctors.

Seven surrendered their licenses.

Twenty-four were cited for quality of care issues -- unprofessional conduct -- problems with drugs or alcohol, and non-therapeutic prescribing.

But more than half -- 49 doctors -- were disciplined for things like violating board rules, inadequate medical records, advertising or other minimal violations.

Hotze says this is typical.

"Once legislators were made aware of it, some had heard of this from their doctors," Hotze said. "They said things have got to stop. We have to reform the board."

Hotze says the Texas Medical Board needs to focus on its mission.

"They ought to be helping with licensing," Hotze said. "And then those doctors that are drug addicts, those who are alcoholics or sex abusers -- get rid of them. That's what they ought to be doing."

But he says, they are not.

One example -- psychiatrist Gregory Vagshenian.

You may remember back in 2004, he was convicted of nine charges of assault.

During the trial three former patients described how he molested them when he practiced at the VA center in Austin.

And according to the medical board records, nine of his other patients made similar accusations.

Vagshenian denies he did anything wrong.

This wasn't the first time he was accused of sexual misconduct.

In April of 1990 he was arrested in Redwood City, California for solicitation of a lewd act.

He was convicted and, after serving probation, his record was expunged with the understanding that he would disclose the arrest if he applied for any license.

But in 1993 when he applied for a medical license in Texas, he checked "no" when asked if he had ever been arrested or convicted.

He also didn't disclose his second arrest in September of 1990 for solicitation of a lewd act in San Francisco.

When the allegations surfaced about his practice at the VA center -- the Texas Medical Board suspended his license. But it was reinstated -- soon after he was convicted -- with the restriction that he have no direct contact with patients.

A year and a half later -- the medical board lifted that restriction and ruled he could start seeing patients again as long as it's limited to the military.

That's not likely though. He's banned from practicing in any federal healthcare programs.

Psychiatric facility told to relocate patients, threatened with closing

From the Longview News Journal

Acadia Pathways Hospital, a psychiatric facility in North Longview, has been forced to move all its patients to other establishments after a state investigation into complaints about patient care and hospital management.

The Texas Department of State Health Services issued an emergency 10-day suspension of Acadia's license on Thursday. The state agency also delivered a notice of violation to Acadia, detailing the department's proposal to revoke Acadia's license.

Acadia administrators are scheduled to meet today with state officials to discuss the violations and determine what needs to be done.

"If we are satisfied that the conditions are successfully addressed, we can ... re-instate the license," said Doug McBride, press officer for the State Health Services Department. "If we're not satisfied, the most severe action would be the revocation of the license permanently, or at least not temporarily."

If Acadia's license is revoked, it would have to reapply for one to operate again.

The state began investigating the facility in October, after a complaint was filed.

There are specific violations listed in the state's notice to Acadia, including an incident in September of a facility psychiatrist physically assaulting a 16-year-old patient.

Other violations are more general, such as Acadia's failure to have a written staffing plan from July to October that was based on the number of patients, the patients' needs, the expertise of the staff and other factors.

Acadia Pathways, owned by Acadia Heathcare, is a 76-bed hospital that treats people of all ages suffering from psychiatric illnesses and chemical dependency, according to its Web site.

The notice from the state department was addressed to Pamela Broughton, listed as Acadia's administrator/CEO on the facility's Web site.

A call placed Monday to Acadia revealed that Broughton no longer works there. Hospital officials would not answer a request for comment on Monday, but said a statement will be made today.