Wife of psychiatrist convicted of sex assault guilty of trying to bribe juror

As reported in the Globe and Mail Be sure to check out this related story on the original trial: Sex-assault victims confront convicted psychiatrist in court

The wife of a Calgary psychiatrist convicted of sexually assaulting his court-appointed patients has been found guilty of trying to bribe a juror during her husband’s trial.

Erica Levin was charged with obstruction after a juror came forward to say she had been approached by a relative of the accused.

The juror testified this week that she was offered $1,000 if she found Dr. Aubrey Levin not guilty.

The psychiatrist was convicted in January, 2013, on three counts of sexual assault against male patients and sentenced to five years in prison.

Jurors at Erica Levin’s trial were shown surveillance video of her approaching a female juror at a light-rail transit platform near the courthouse and giving her a note.

Levin, who is 70, told court that the note did not contain money, but a suicide note.

She testified she had gone to the transit station with the intent to throw herself in front of a train, but decided not to kill herself when she realized she needed to take care of her cat.

Levin sobbed as she testified that her husband’s trial was not fair and that gross inconsistencies in the trial added to her depression.

During cross-examination, the Crown pointed out that she had other opportunities to kill herself if she wanted to and accused her of lying.

The juror was excused from the doctor’s trial after she came forward with her allegations.

Levin remains free on bail until her sentencing in November.

Aubrey Levin asked for a reduction in his sentence, but it was upheld by the Alberta Court of Appeal in June.

The original allegations against him came to light in 2010 after one of his patients stepped forward with secret videos he had recorded during sessions with the psychiatrist.

The patient was on probation at the time the videos were taken and had been ordered by a court to see Levin twice a month.

The man said he had told authorities about previous assaults and no one believed him, so he bought a spy camera and brought it to his appointments.

Levin, who immigrated to Canada from South Africa, was frequently used by the courts to assess people and provide expert opinions at hearings.

He served briefly as director for the Regional Psychiatric Centre in Saskatoon and was licensed in 1998 to practise psychiatry in Alberta.

Levin is no stranger to controversy over his work. He faced heated accusations about his time as a military psychiatrist during apartheid in South Africa, where he earned his degree in 1963.

In the 1970s, he was a psychiatrist at a military hospital where aversion therapy through electric shocks was allegedly used in an attempt to change the sexuality of gay soldiers. Levin is mentioned in a report that aimed to shed light on abuses of gays and lesbians in the military by health workers.

Lawsuit by former Kamehameha students alleges decades of sex abuse at hands of school psychiatrist

As reported by KHON in Hawaii

Former Kamehameha Schools students have stepped forward saying they were sexually abused while they attended the school. Their claims were outlined in a lawsuit filed Tuesday in State Circuit Court by their attorney, Michael Green.

Green says for now, he is representing eight men who all say they were sexually abused and molested at the hands of Dr. Robert McCormick Browne, a psychiatrist who Green says worked for Kamehameha Schools and conducted so-called therapy sessions on the students, falling within a 21-year period from 1958-1981. Green says, at the time, Browne was the Chief of Psychiatry at St. Francis Medical Center and the boys were all younger than 16 years old.

“Many of them had minor problems at Kamehameha Schools when they were young, from 7th grade and 8th grade, and they were referred to Dr. Browne,” said Green. “If they did not see Dr. Browne, the threat was (they would) get expelled.”

Green says Dr. Browne died in 1991. According to the lawsuit, the so-called therapy sessions took place at the doctor’s home in Manoa along with a vacation home in Kamuela during weekend sleepovers. Green says the doctor was a dorm adviser and was given access to students at their dorm rooms. Green says the victims also allege the sessions took place at the doctor’s office at St. Francis.

The lawsuit comes just as the statute of limitations on the filing of child sex and molestation cases is set to expire next month, a deadline that was set two years ago by the state legislature. But there is a move to grant yet another extension for those who are willing to come forward and file suit. KHON2 obtained a copy of Senate Bill 2687, a measure that would extend the statute of limitations even further. If this measure becomes law, complainants who allege child sexual abuse will get to file civil suits up until they turn the age of 55.

State Sen. Maile Shimabukuro introduced the bill and also won approval for the two-year extension that expires next month. As for the age of 55, Sen Shimabukuro said, “It’s a way to strike a compromise between the rights of the accused and the rights of the victims.”

There's a video report

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.

Washington State Supreme Court rules psychiatric boarding unlawful

As seen in this report (more info at the link)

The Washington State Supreme Court ruled Thursday that boarding psychiatric patients temporarily in hospital emergency rooms and acute care centers because there isn’t space at certified psychiatric treatment facilities is unlawful.

The court ruled unanimously that patients held temporarily in settings that don’t provide individualized psychiatric treatment violates the state’s Involuntary Treatment Act.

“It’s always been inhumane not to provide treatment, now it’s clearly illegal,” said Ross Hunter, D-Medina, Chair of the State House Appropriations Committee. Hunter said the state will have to respond sooner than the Legislature can act, which might not be until a new budget can be approved next spring.

[...]

“If a client is strapped to an emergency  bed rather than being in a psychiatric treatment environment, it can be traumatic for the patient and can certainly delay healing,” De Felice said. Effective outpatient treatment can also be less costly, he said.

[...]

The Supreme Court said in its ruling that patients may not be warehoused without treatment because of a lack of funds nor can it justify the state’s failure to provide the treatment necessary for recovery.

The ruling quotes the Involuntary Treatment Act which says, “Each person involuntarily detained or committed pursuant to (the Act) shall have the right to adequate care and individualized treatment.”

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia has announced that Dr. Paul Eric Termansen must have a chaperone present any time he is treating a female patient, unless it is part of a group session.

As seen in this report in the North Shore News of British Columbia

A North Shore psychiatrist has retired from practice after being censured by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia.

The regulatory body announced last week that Dr. Paul Eric Termansen must have a chaperone present any time he is treating a female patient, unless it is part of a group session. Beyond that, Termansen must display a sign in his reception and treatment rooms stating the requirements for female patients and must notify the college if he wants to practise at another location.

The interim requirements came after allegations made by three female former patients "which included kissing and embracing, comments of a sexual nature, and a joint business venture with resultant negative financial consequences and threatened litigation," according to a statement from the college. Termansen refutes the claims.

"It would be important to understand these are unproven allegations. The allegations raise serious concerns and our role is to ensure patient safety as well as thoroughly investigating the complaints of these three women and it does take some time," said Dr. Heidi Oetter, the college's registrar.

According to Vancouver Coastal Health, Termansen will not be treating any more patients at Lions Gate Hospital. "We are aware of the college's actions. Dr. Termansen has retired. His last day seeing patients is today,' said Anna Marie D'Angelo, senior media relations officer for Vancouver Coastal Health on Monday. "Dr. Termansen has been a long-serving member of the medical staff at Lions Gate Hospital." According to Oetter, Termansen is still licensed and the investigation will continue.

Attempts to reach Termansen were unsuccessful.

Fox News Psychiatrist Claims World Cup an Obama Government Conspiracy

Keith Ablow, a Fox News psychiatrist, thinks that the World Cup might be an Obama government conspiracy

It was only a matter of time before a Fox News panelist suggested the FIFA World Cup presented a convenient distraction from the problems facing President Barack Obama.

"I'm suspect," (Fox psychiatrist) Dr. Keith Ablow said Thursday on "Outnumbered" as the US men's national team faced off against Germany. "I am suspect because, here's the thing. Why, at a time when there are so many national and international issues of such prominence -- I'm a little suspicious of yet another bread-and-circus routine. Let's roll out the marijuana, pull back the laws, and get people even more crazy about yet another entertainment event."

Ablow's four female co-hosts weren't buying it, interrupting him with protests of "what?" and "what's wrong with you?"

"This is a way to distract people," Ablow continued. "This is like Rome. I can see why Obama would love the World Cup --"

"What are you talking about?" interjected Kimberly Guilfoyle, who said her son plays soccer. "This is encouraging for kids to get out and play sports, and you can play soccer from a young age."

Ablow continued to insist he found it odd that "people are playing games more than ever" when there are other pressing issues to pay attention to. He didn't enumerate what those issues may be.

"Gosh, I'm gonna have to disagree with the doctor here," Harris Faulkner chimed in. "They set these schedules years ago. It's not like they lined it up with the current events of the world, so no way is that the case."

The Doctor is plainly crazy

Wisconsin Psychiatrist Dr. Ron Rubin has medical license suspended indefinitely, accused of smoking pot with patients, prescribing dangerous amounts of prescription drugs, and even treating underage girls without their parents’ consent.

You can read the court order here The court order, issued by the Wisconsin Medical Examining Board, says Dr. Rubin overprescribed stimulants to at least 9 patients last year, many of them people he met at Wisconsin strip clubs. In some cases he prescribed six times the recommended maximum dose of amphetamines. As seen in this report

Rubin’s own lawyer admits the allegations against him are striking.

“The medical board I think hearing what sounded like some pretty awful allegations I think acted appropriately and summarily suspended his license,” said Hal Harlowe, one of Dr. Rubin’s attorneys.

It’s the first time he’s had any formal action taken against him, even though he’s been the subject of 11 complaints dating back to 1997.

“I think it’s awful particularly because I did attempt to take his, get his license from him,” says a former patient.

[...]

It’s impossible to say what he’s been accused of, because the state shreds complaints against doctors every 5 to 7 years.

From what little information is still available, it appears most cases involved allegations of professional misconduct.

The majority of complaints, though, weren’t even investigated. It’s impossible to say what he’s been accused of, because the state shreds complaints against doctors every 5 to 7 years.

From what little information is still available, it appears most cases involved allegations of professional misconduct.

The majority of complaints, though, weren’t even investigated.

There is also two video reports





There is a lot more at the linked news story

Comedy TV: Beverly Hillbillies Season 1 Episode 34 - The Psychiatrist Gets Clampetted

Classic American TV Comedy Show

The show was ranked #1 and attracted as many as 60 million viewers per week. The Clampett Clan included Buddy Ebsen (Jed), Irene Ryan ("Granny"), Max Baer Jr. (Jethro), Donna Douglas (Elly May). Also starred Raymond Bailey (Milburn Drysdale), and Nancy Kulp (Jane Hathaway)

In this episode, Jethro finally gets his bill of health from Dr. Twombly so he can graduate the fifth grade, but Twombly really wants to talk to Grannie again. Drysdale brings him to the Clampetts' just as Grannie showed Pearl how to use a love potion, so everyone thinks Twombly's interest in Grannie is love.

Waking up from sadness: Many find trouble getting off antidepressants

Part of a much longer story at Al Jazeera America:

Long-term use of antidepressants has become increasingly common over the past decade, according to a recent National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey study. Some 70 percent of the estimated 16 million long-term users in the United States — defined as having used the drugs more than 24 months — are women.

Data from IMS Health, as reported in a study published in the December Journal of Clinical Psychiatry by lead author Dr. Ramin Mojtabai, shows antidepressants are the most commonly prescribed medication class in the U.S. It links national trends in increased long-term use of antidepressants with treatment in primary-care settings, where most antidepressants are prescribed.

Scott, who did not see a mental-health specialist until 2010, believes her general practitioners repeatedly misdiagnosed her.

“Nobody’s listening,” Scott said. “They just prescribe.”

With the help of a nonprofit withdrawal program, Scott has been working to become antidepressant-free after finding out last year that she has thyroid disease as well as a hormonal imbalance. Working to address these underlying physical conditions, Scott said she feels better than she has in years.

[...]

. . . findings in the April issue of the journal Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics that found almost two-thirds of a sample of 5,000 patients diagnosed with depression within the previous year did not meet the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders criteria for a major depressive episode.

Instead, the patients were given false positive diagnoses, according to Mojtabai’s study.

[...]

“Almost anything emotionally and behaviorally destructive can happen during withdrawal because serotonin is the most widespread neurotransmitter in the brain,” said (Peter) Breggin, the psychiatric withdrawal expert.

Coming off SSRIs can cause “all kinds of behavioral and neurological disturbances,” he said, listing some common side effects, such as “shocklike feelings in the head, imbalance, odd feelings in different parts of your body, depression, hopelessness, suicidal feelings and actions, disabling anxiety and persisting sexual dysfunction.”

But Breggin warned not to be discouraged by these side effects, since it is not yet known whether any damage is irreversible.

“There’s a reason to come off,” he said. “You want to try as best as you can to withdraw, because it’s only going to get worse in time.”

Former Veterans Affairs Psychiatrist Pleads Guilty to Medicare Fraud

As seen in this press Release from the US Department of Justice

Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Former Veterans Affairs Psychiatrist Pleads Guilty to Medicare Fraud

Dr. Mikhail L. Presman, a licensed psychiatrist employed by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), pleaded guilty today to health care fraud for falsely billing Medicare for home medical treatment to Medicare beneficiaries and agreed to forfeit more than $1.2 million in illegal profits.

Acting Assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch of the Eastern District of New York, and Special Agent in Charge Thomas O’Donnell of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG) made the announcement.

According to court documents, from Jan. 1, 2006, through May 10, 2013, Presman submitted approximately $4 million in Medicare claims for home treatment of Medicare beneficiaries notwithstanding his full-time, salaried position as a psychiatrist at the VA hospital in Brooklyn. Contrary to his representations, Presman did not provide any treatment to a substantial number of the beneficiaries he claimed to have treated. For example, Presman submitted claims to Medicare for home medical visits at locations within New York City even though he was physically located in China at the time of these purported home visits. Additionally, Presman submitted claims to Medicare for 55 home medical visits to beneficiaries who were hospitalized on the date of the purported visits.

Presman is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge I. Leo Glasser of the Eastern District of New York on Feb. 13, 2014, and faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

The case was investigated by the HHS-OIG, with assistance from the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General, and brought as part of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, under the supervision of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Bryan D. Fields of the Fraud Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Patricia E. Notopoulos of the Eastern District of New York.

Since its inception in March 2007, the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, now operating in nine cities across the country, has charged more than 1,500 defendants who have collectively billed the Medicare program for more than $5 billion. In addition, HHS’s Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, working in conjunction with HHS-OIG, is taking steps to increase accountability and decrease the presence of fraudulent providers.

To learn more about the Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team (HEAT), go to:

http://www.stopmedicarefraud.gov

Did Antidepressant Play a Role in Navy Yard Massacre?

Did Antidepressant Play a Role in Navy Yard Massacre? By John Horgan in Scientific American

Once again, antidepressants have been linked to an episode of horrific violence. The New York Times reports that Aaron Alexis, who allegedly shot 12 people to death at a Navy facility in Washington, D.C., earlier this week, received a prescription for the antidepressant trazodone in August.

 

When I first researched antidepressants almost 20 years ago, I encountered claims that they sometimes triggered violent episodes—for example, a 1989 incident in which a Kentucky man taking fluoxetine (brand name Prozac) shot to death eight co-workers and then himself. I dismissed the claims, reasoning that, because people prescribed psychiatric drugs are disturbed to begin with, it is not surprising that a tiny fraction hurt themselves and/or others.

By 2004, however, in part because of lawsuits that forced pharmaceutical companies to disclose data on adverse effects, the FDA ordered antidepressant manufacturers to include a warning that antidepressants “increased the risk compared to placebo of suicidal thinking and behavior (suicidality) in children, adolescents, and young adults in short-term studies of major depressive disorder (MDD) and other psychiatric disorders.”

Alexis, who was 34, was reportedly seeking treatment for insomnia when he received his prescription for trazodone. Originally marketed as an antidepressant after its approval by the FDA in 1981, trazodone is also prescribed for anxiety and insomnia. Trazodone was a precursor of the extremely popular selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs); like the SSRIs, trazodone boosts levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin.
A website maintained by the National Institutes of Health states that trazodone and other antidepressants have been associated with “new or worsening depression; thinking about harming or killing yourself, or planning or trying to do so; extreme worry; agitation; panic attacks; difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep; aggressive behavior; irritability; acting without thinking; severe restlessness; and frenzied abnormal excitement.”

Could trazodone have played some role in the Navy Yard rampage? I put this question to David Healy, a professor of psychiatry at Cardiff University in England and an authority on side effects of psychiatric medications.* He has testified in numerous court cases involving suicides and homicides whose perpetrators were ingesting antidepressants. Healy is not opposed to psychiatric medications–he prescribes them to his own patients—but he has long been active in pointing out medications’ risks. *[Healy and other health-care experts have founded an organization called RxISK to gather data on side effects of drugs. See Postscript.]

Healy responded by email that he “would need to know much more details” to judge whether trazodone might have contributed to this week’s massacre. Indeed, as the Times reported, Alexis had displayed signs of mental illness and acted violently well before being prescribed trazodone. In 2004 he fired bullets into a car in Seattle, during what he described later as a “black out” episode. So far, moreover, there are no reports that he had trazodone in his system during his Navy Yard rampage.

But Healy said that, although data on antidepressants and violence are much more scarce than data on suicide, there is evidence that “you can put healthy volunteers on these drugs and some will become violent.” A study by the Drug Safety Research Unit in Southampton of paroxetine (Paxil) and fluoxetine (Prozac) involving more than 25,000 subjects showed that one out of every 250 subjects were involved in “a violent episode,” including 31 assaults and one homicide, Healy said.

Another study involving more than 9,000 subjects taking the antidepressant paroxetine (Paxil) for depression and other disorders showed that subjects experienced more than twice as many “hostility events” as subjects taking a placebo. Healy added: “I have had clinical experience of at least one older man, with no prior history of violence, who became homicidal after a week on citalopram where the problem cleared up once treatment had stopped.”

Healy suspects that the main causal factor behind suicide and violence toward others is increased mental and/or physical agitation, which leads about 5 percent of subjects taking antidepressants to drop out of clinical trials, compared to only 0.5 percent of people on placebos.
In their excellent overview “Antidepressants and Violence: Problems at the Interface of Medicine and Law,” published in PLoS Medicine in 2006, Healy and two co-authors note that “serious violence on antidepressants is likely to be very rare.” But they call for “more clinical trial and epidemiological data to be made available and for good clinical descriptions of the adverse outcomes of treatment.”
They add: “Legal systems are likely to continue to be faced with cases of violence associated with the use of psychotropic drugs, and it may fall to the courts to demand access to currently unavailable data. The problem is international and calls for an international response.”

Antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs clearly help alleviate mental illness in some patients. But as I have written previously, such medications may on balance harm patients more than they help. We need better data on the risks that these medications pose not only to patients but also to others.

*Postscript: David Healy and other health-care experts from around the world have formed an organization called RxISK to gather data on adverse effects of pharmaceutical drugs, including violence. The RxISK website calls it “the first free, independent website where patients, doctors, and pharmacists can research prescription drugs and easily report a drug side effect–identifying problems and possible solutions earlier than is currently happening.” I hope RxISK succeeds, because we badly need it.

Post-Postscript: For more on links between psychiatric medications and violence, see this 2010 paper in PLOS One, “Prescription Drugs Associated with Reports of Violence Towards Others,” and a followup blog post by journalist Robert Whitaker, author of Anatomy of an Epidemic.

Ex-psychiatrist in Cresco sex case has long history of lewd behavior

As reported in the Pocono Record

Charged in Monroe County with soliciting sex from what he believed to be a 13-year-old boy, a former psychiatrist has had his license revoked in three states including Pennsylvania, and served jail time in New Jersey for lewdness, according to the Pennsylvania Board of Medicine.

[...]

Monroe County District Attorney's Office detectives arrested Kessler at his home Friday.

This resulted from an investigation detectives began in May, after a woman told state police a suspicious adult had been contacting her 13-year-old son on Facebook.

Authorities said this adult, identified as Kessler and using a fake name online, contacted a detective posing as the boy and began a sexual conversation.

Authorities said Kessler, thinking he was still talking to a minor, sent links to pornographic videos, along with a photo of a nude male he identified as himself, and told the detective he wanted to perform oral and other sex. Kessler's license to practice psychiatry in Pennsylvania had been revoked in July 2012 by the Pennsylvania Board of Medicine, said Pennsylvania Department of State spokesman Ronald Ruman. Kessler's license revocation was the latest development in a troubled history that began in 2001. The Board of Medicine's license revocation ruling reveals the following details:

• A graduate of the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and Central Connecticut State University, Kessler was first licensed in 1999 in New York, where in June 2001 he completed a four-year internship/residency at what was then Long Island Jewish Medical Center and Hillside Hospital.
• Kessler later was licensed in Massachusetts.
• On July 1, 2001, he began a residency in a child/adolescent psychiatry program at Cambridge Health Alliance in Massachusetts.
• On July 8, Kessler was charged with "open and gross lewdness" and disorderly conduct, after two men told police he had exposed himself to them and masturbated in his car in a doughnut shop parking lot in Walpole, Mass.
• This prompted Cambridge Health Alliance to fire him from its child/adolescent psychiatry program Aug. 1.
• In November 2001, with the earlier criminal case still pending, Kessler again was charged with open and gross lewdness and indecent exposure.
• Two boys, ages 10 and 12, told police they saw him nude and masturbating in the front window of his mother's Falmouth, Mass., home.
• With two criminal cases now pending against him, and unable to find work since his termination from Cambridge Health Alliance, Kessler returned to New York.
• Because he did not renew his Massachusetts license when it came due in December 2001, the license was labeled "revoked," though not due to any disciplinary action at that time.
• Kessler applied at Brunswick Hospital Center in Amityville, N.Y., and Holliswood Hospital in Queens, N.Y.
• He omitted his Massachusetts employment on both applications, and put "no" when asked on Brunswick Hospital Center's group malpractice insurance policy application if he'd ever been charged with a felony.
• On Dec. 1, 2001, Kessler started working full time at Brunswick.
• On June 2, 2002, Kessler was convicted of open and gross lewdness in the second criminal case in Massachusetts.
• He began the long process of appealing the verdict, but there is no mention of whether he served any jail time, according to state papers.
• On June 3, he pleaded not guilty to open and gross lewdness in the first criminal case, while the disorderly conduct charge in that case had been dismissed, but the matter would be continued for another year.
• In October 2002, Kessler admitted on his New York license renewal application to having been charged with a crime and disciplined by a hospital.

Based on this, the New York Board for Professional Medical Conduct charged him in December 2002 with lying on his hospital job applications about never having faced any criminal charges.

Psychiatrist Frederick Berlin, founder of the Johns Hopkins Sexual Disorders Clinic in Baltimore, testified at the January 2003 board hearing on the charges.

Berlin said Kessler has "a sexual disorder characterized by exhibitionism and an urge to be seen masturbating by young males," but that Kessler at the time was being adequately treated for the disorder.

Psychiatrist Marc Reubins testified Kessler has "a systemic disorder characterized by anxiety and depression," while psychiatrist Seymour Block agreed with the anxiety assessment.

Deeming Berlin's testimony the most convincing, the board in February 2003 found Kessler's actions constituted "fraudulent practice" and "moral unfitness to practice medicine," and revoked his New York license.

Kessler then became a licensed life, accident and health insurance broker in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. He went to work for a New Jersey firm specializing in minimizing health insurance cost increases related to disease management.

He also gave monthly free seminars in New York for high school students and parents on maximizing college financial aid, and prepared state and federal income tax returns for people and businesses.

Meanwhile, the first criminal case against him was finally dismissed in June 2003.

In September of that year, the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine moved to take disciplinary action against Kessler's Massachusetts license based on the conviction in the remaining criminal case and his New York license revocation.

In November 2004, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court overturned the criminal conviction.

Despite this, the Board of Registration in Medicine in July 2006 revoked Kessler's right to renew his Massachusetts license.

The board found he had "undermined public confidence in the integrity of the medical profession, lacked good moral character and had been disciplined by another state for the capacity to deceive and defraud."

After moving to Pennsylvania, Kessler in November 2006 applied to practice medicine in this state.

The Board of Medicine in January 2007 denied his application based on the New York and Massachusetts license revocations.

Kessler and Reubins, the psychiatrist who had testified on his behalf before the New York board, appeared at an October 2007 appeal hearing.

Reubins told the Board of Medicine that Kessler had been in no further trouble since 2001, was getting treatment for his anxiety and wanted to get back into medical practice.

Agreeing with Reubins that Kessler should have another chance to practice medicine, the board in December 2007 granted Kessler a five-year probationary license with terms and conditions, including the successful completion of a board-approved clinical skills evaluation/remediation program.

From October 2008 to June 2009, Kessler worked at ISL Psychiatric Services in Stroudsburg, and then as associate medical director for a school-based partial hospitalization program in Monroe and Northampton counties from July 2009 to May 2011.

He traveled among area schools, treating children with various mental illnesses.

From 2010 until March 2011, Kessler covered for the staff psychiatrist at Shawnee Academy in Shawnee-on-Delaware, a residential treatment facility for children with severe mental illnesses.

He was then at Pocono Psychiatric Associates in Smithfield Township.

But trouble again surfaced in November 2010, when Kessler for the third time was charged with lewdness.

Three juvenile males allegedly saw him masturbating in a vehicle at the Sutton Park Mall in Flanders, N.J.

Kessler in March 2011 pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 90 days in county jail and fined $1,000. This led to his Pennsylvania license eventually being revoked in July 2012.

It's unknown how or if Kessler was employed when charged Friday in the current criminal case.

He was placed in Monroe County Correctional Facility in lieu of $50,000 bail and will appear in district court at a future date.

Disciplinary Hearing of Florida Psychiatrist Ronald Kurlander

As seen in the description on YouTube

On April 5, 2013 in Deerfield Beach, Florida psychiatrist Ronald Kurlander was disciplined by the Florida Department of Health. He was accused of prescribing drugs to people he had never examined or even met. The father of one of Kurlander's patients gave testimony as to the extensive damage caused by these drugs to his son. Kurlander is the one with the moustache and goatee with wire frame glasses seated to he left. He was fined over $30,000.00, given a reprimand, ordered to take a law and rules course, a drug course and a medical records course. Additionally, he has to undergo a risk management assessment.

Why the University of Minnesota psychiatric research scandal must be investigated

As writen by Carl Elliot, and Published on the MinnPost Website

Carl Elliott is a professor in the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota.

Three former editors of the New England Journal of Medicine have called for an investigation. So has the scholar who uncovered the Guatemala syphilis studies. The former Health and Disability Commissioner of New Zealand has called the conduct of the researchers “unethical,” pointing out the need to “put in safeguards in place to prevent a similar tragedy from happening again.” A recent Medical Journal of Australia editorial compared it to the exploitation of poor black men with syphilis in Tuskegee, Ala. Yet the University of Minnesota, where the research scandal occurred, simply keeps repeating, “Nothing to see here, folks. Just move along.”

The research abuse in this case is so stunning that when I first learned about it I could scarcely imagine it happening anywhere, much less at the university where I work. In late 2003, psychiatric researchers at the University of Minnesota recruited a mentally ill young man named Dan Markingson into a profitable, industry-funded research study of antipsychotic drugs. The researchers signed him up over the objections of his mother, Mary Weiss, who did not want him in the study, and despite the fact that he could not give proper informed consent. Dan was acutely psychotic, plagued by delusions about demons, and he had repeatedly been judged incapable of making his own medical decisions. Even worse, he had been placed under an involuntary commitment order that legally compelled him to obey the recommendations of the psychiatrist who recruited him into the study.

For months, Mary tried desperately to get Dan out of the study, warning that he was getting worse and that he was in danger of committing suicide. But her warnings were ignored. On April 23, 2004, she left a voice message with the study coordinator, asking, “Do we have to wait for him to kill himself or someone else before anyone does anything?” Three weeks later, Dan committed suicide in the most violent way imaginable. His body was discovered in the shower of a halfway house, his throat slit so severely that he was nearly decapitated, along with a note that said, “I went through this experience smiling.”

Conflicts of interest, other issues

As outrageous as that sounds, there is more. The psychiatrists had financial conflicts of interest from their work with the pharmaceutical industry. The study sponsor also provided financial incentives for the researchers to keep subjects in the study as long as possible. Last fall, the state Board of Social Work found that the study coordinator had falsified the initials of doctors on study records, failed to warn Dan of new dangers of the study drugs, had been given medical responsibilities far beyond her training as a social worker, and had failed to respond to Mary’s warnings that Dan was in danger of killing himself.

After Dan’s suicide, it got even worse. When Mary’s lawsuit against the university was dismissed on technical grounds of “sovereign immunity,” the university lawyers filed a legal action against her called a “notice to assess costs,” demanding that she pay them $57,000 in legal fees. Yes, you read that correctly: The U tried to force the mother of a suicide victim to pay it $57,000.

None of this is a secret. The case has generated international outrage. Yet for three years the University of Minnesota has managed to bluster and stonewall its way through all the criticism, insisting that it has already been exonerated. Even when the state Legislature passed “Dan’s Law” in 2009, banning psychiatrists from recruiting mentally ill patients under an involuntary commitment order into drug studies, the university continued to insist it had done nothing wrong.

A petition to Gov. Dayton

Two weeks ago, as a last resort, Mary Weiss, the mother of Dan Markingson, and her friend Mike Howard started a petition to Gov. Mark Dayton. Their request is simple: Please appoint an external, impartial panel to investigate the scandal. More than 1,200 people have signed, including well over 150 academic experts. Many University of Minnesota alumni have joined as well. A typical but telling comment: “I am ashamed of my alma mater right now.”

This is not an issue from the distant past. We do not know if other research subjects have died, or if they have been injured or mistreated. We do not even know if mistreatment is still continuing today. That may well be the most compelling reason for Minnesotans to sign the petition. If a case of research abuse this brazen can be sanctioned and defended by the university, there is no way to feel confident that other research subjects are being protected. In 2004 it was Dan Markingson. But it could have been any of us.

Abbott and Costello at the Psychiatrist's Office

A small amount of Satire

California Psychiatrist Suspended for Missing his Own Mental Exam

As seen in this report from The Marin Independent Journal

The state medical board suspended the license of a Mill Valley psychiatrist Thursday for failing to show up for a mandatory psychiatric examination. The board ordered Dr. Brent Taylor Cox to get the test last year after a complaint that he "may be suffering from a substance addiction disorder and/or other mental impairment that may affect his ability to practice medicine safely," according to board documents. The board said Cox did not arrive for his scheduled exam, even though it sent him notices by certified and first-class mail to three addresses and emailed the notice to his Gmail account. The board also sent an investigator to his addresses to serve the letter, but "no one answered the door," board documents said. Regulators moved to discipline Cox, and he appeared for a hearing in November with his attorney, Mitchell Green of San Francisco. Cox agreed to a settlement in which the board suspends his license and gives him 30 days to get the psychiatric testing. Green said the whole dispute exists because Cox never received the initial order to get the psychiatric exam. Cox was in the middle of changing his office location at the time and was no longer using the same Gmail address, but he neglected to update his email address with the board, Green said.

Hat tip to PsychSearch.net for the story

High-Prescribing Chicago Psychiatrist Faces Federal Fraud Suit

As Reported by ProPublica

The U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois filed a federal fraud lawsuit today against a Chicago psychiatrist profiled by ProPublica and the Chicago Tribune in 2009 for his voluminous prescribing of antipsychotic drugs to nursing home patients.

In a news release, the government says that Dr. Michael Reinstein “received illegal kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies and submitted at least 140,000 false claims to Medicare and Medicaid for antipsychotic medications he prescribed for thousands of mentally ill patients in area nursing homes.”

ProPublica and the Tribune reported in 2009 that Reinstein prescribed more of the risky antipsychotic clozapine to patients in Illinois’ Medicaid program in 2007 than all of the doctors in the Medicaid programs of Texas, Florida and North Carolina.

The government accuses Reinstein of billing Medicare and Medicaid for managing his patients’ medications, “knowing that he did not engage in substantive evaluations of his patients’ medical and psychiatric conditions to properly manage their medications,” the U.S. attorney’s office said in its release. “Instead, he allegedly prescribed medications to his patients based on his receipt of kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies.

Prosecutors allege that Reinstein’s prescribing decisions were motivated by money and perks from pharmaceutical companies. He allegedly switched patients from one brand of clozapine to another based on money and other enticements he received from a pharmaceutical maker.

Before August 2003, thegovernment alleged, Reinstein prescribed Clozaril, brand name for clozapine made by Novartis, which paid him to promote the drug.

When the drug went off patent in 1998, the lawsuit says, Reinstein resisted attempts to switch his patients to cheaper, generic versions. But when Novartis stopped paying Reinstein in 2003, the lawsuit says, he switched his patients to a generic version made by IVAX Pharamceuticals.

That company had agreed to pay him a consulting fee, pay his nurse to speak on the drug’s behalf and fund a research study at an affiliated institute, according to the lawsuit.

“While generally only four percent of schizophrenia patients who were prescribed antipsychotics received clozapine, during the time Reinstein was allegedly accepting kickbacks from IVAX, more than 50 percent of his patients were prescribed IVAX’s clozapine,” the U.S. Attorney’s office said in its news release. “At one nursing home, Reinstein had 75 percent of the 400 residents on IVAX’s clozapine.”

Ivax paid other perks to Reinstein and his associates, including airfare, entertainment expenses, a fishing trip, a boat cruise and a golf outing, the lawsuit says.

In 2006, Reinstein began switching to clozapine made by a different company but moved some patients back when he received additional perks and funds, the lawsuit says.

In an interview, federal prosecutor Eric Pruitt would not comment on whether his office would pursue criminal charges against Reinstein or whether any legal action would be taken against the pharmaceutical companies that allegedly paid the physician kickbacks.

A call left at the office of Reinstein’s attorney was not immediately returned.

The 2009 investigation by ProPublica and the Tribune showed that Reinstein’s high prescribing had serious consequences for his patients. Autopsy and court records showed that by 2009 at least three patients under Reinstein’s care had died of clozapine intoxication. One of them, a 50-year-old man, had five times the toxic level of clozapine in his blood when he died, according to his medical records.

Reporters determined that, based on his Medicaid prescribing alone, Reinstein he would have to work 21 hours a day, seven days a week to see each of his patients for 10 minutes. Research has found that the typical U.S. psychiatrist sees about 35 patients per week; Reinstein was seeing 60 each day, he wrote in an audit report in 2007.

In the 2009 investigation, Reinstein strongly defended his reliance on clozapine, saying the medication is underprescribed and is the most effective in its class for schizophrenic patients.

Big Pharma's Newest Money-Making Scheme: Adult ADHD

Evelyn Pringle has brought us another expose of disease mongering by the psych drug industry. Here's a snippet. Please visit the original post for all of the details

By Evelyn Pringle and Martha Rosenberg

Who belongs to this “untapped” market? Just about anybody.

There is good news and bad news about attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) -- that is, if you’re a drug company. The bad news is the kid market has peaked out with 4.5 million U.S. children now carrying the label. The good news is adult ADHD is an emerging market. In fact, adult ADHD, with symptoms similar to pediatric ADHD such as impulsivity, distractibility and difficulty paying attention, following instructions and meeting deadlines, is the next big thing.

"Immature adult market continues to offer greatest commercial potential," read a 2008 press release to the pharmaceutical industry from the market research agency Datamonitor: "Estimated to be twice the size of the pediatric ADHD population, the highly prevalent, yet largely untapped, adult ADHD population continues to represent an attractive niche to target."

Also seen on Alternet here

10 Mind-Boggling Psychiatric Treatments

As posted on Mental Floss

Nobody ever claimed a visit to the doctor was a pleasant way to pass the time. But if you're timid about diving onto a psychiatrist's couch or paranoid about popping pills, remember: It could be worse. Like getting-a-hole-drilled-into-your-skull worse.

Gems include Insulin-Coma Therapy, Malaria Therapy, Chemically Induced Seizures, and of course, Lobotomy Check out the link for the full article

Dr. Khristine Eroshevich, Beverly Hills Psychiatrist Who Treated Anna Nicole Smith, Has License Suspended

As Reported in the Huffington Post

LOS ANGELES -- State medical board officials say a Beverly Hills psychiatrist who treated Anna Nicole Smith has had her license suspended for a criminal conviction involving the Playboy Playmate.

The March 30 decision by the Medical Board of California did not name any patients in the case against Dr. Khristine Eroshevich, but the filing listed the court number of the Smith case.

Eroshevich's license was revoked, but the revocation was stayed.

Instead, Eroshevich's license will be suspended for 90 days and she will be placed on five years of probation by the state licensing agency for wrongly prescribing opiates and other misconduct.

As terms of her probation, the board ordered Eroshevich to take classes on prescribing practices, ethics. She must also undergo psychiatric and medical evaluations. When she returns to practicing medicine, it will be under the supervision of a monitor approved by the state's licensing agency.

Eroshevich was with Smith when the former Playboy Playmate checked into the Florida hotel, where she later died of an accidental overdose.

According to the medical examiner's office in Florida, Eroshevich authorized all 11 prescription medications in the Florida hotel room where Smith was found unresponsive shortly before her death on Feb. 8, 2007.

More than 600 pills – including about 450 muscle relaxants – were missing from prescriptions that were no more than five weeks old.

Eroshevich was initially convicted of two felonies in the drug trial involving the treatment of Smith. One was later thrown out and the other was reduced to a misdemeanor. The misdemeanor is under appeal.

According to the medical board filing, Eroshevich admitted misconduct in signing off on two workers' compensation and disability claims without actually examining the patients.

The examinations were done by Eroshevich's colleague in 2004 and 2006.