ABC15 Investigation: AZ mental hospital fails to investigate, protect patients from sex abuse

ABC15 TV has been investigating the Arizona State Hospital, and here is the tip of a very big iceberg. There is much more in the original and related reports. What we share below is merely a highlight.

The Arizona State Hospital has failed to protect vulnerable patients from sex abuse and dangerous sexual activity; and in several cases, officials have failed to investigate serious allegations, according to a two-year ABC15 investigation.

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The ABC15 Investigators reviewed thousands of pages of hospital, police and court records to compile a list of sex crime allegations at the Arizona State Hospital. By cross-referencing the records, ABC15 was also able to identify repeat offenders and victims.

From 2012 through 2014, we found: 

• There were 63 allegations of sex crimes, including rape, sex abuse and molestation.
• ASH investigated 24 of those allegations.
• ABC15 could only confirm 10 allegations resulted in reports with Arizona Adult Protective Services (APS) or law enforcement.

State law states that APS or a peace officer be notified immediately if there’s a “reasonable basis to believe that abuse or neglect of the adult has occurred.”

But several hospital sources have told ABC15 incidents go unreported, and they fear retaliation if they do report incidents outside of ASH.

“Staff has been basically threatened that if they do contact APS that repercussions will happen,” said one hospital source. “It goes unreported because staff is in fear of their jobs.”

Unreported allegations and crimes by healthcare officials can be a serious matter.

Arizona State Hospital has a long history of problems, it is a target rich environment for investigators Here are some of the Videos related to this report

Third patient death in 13 months at boutique psychiatric rehab center Sierra Tucson

From an extended report from the Arizona Daily Star

Sounds like this boutique psychiatric center for the well to do has a history of grabbing for the money and cutting corners for fun and profit.

Many more details at the link

A third patient in 13 months has died while in treatment at the Sierra Tucson center north of Tucson, an autopsy report says.

The report from the Pinal County Medical Examiner’s Office released last week says a 55-year-old Pennsylvania man hanged himself with a belt in his room at Sierra Tucson on Jan. 23.

According to the report, the man had been on suicide watch and he left a suicide note inside a tote bag next to his bed. Witnesses told investigators that he was discovered in his room, “unconscious but still breathing,” two hours after staff began looking for him, the report says.

The suicide is the third patient death at Sierra Tucson since January 2014 and the fourth since August 2011.

Autopsies determined two of the patient deaths to be suicides and two as undetermined. The deceased patients, all male, ranged in age from 20 to 71.

[...]

The upscale, nationally known Sierra Tucson facility is situated on a 160-acre site at 39580 S. Lago del Oro Parkway along the Pinal/Pima County border. It has 124 beds, plus 15 acute level beds.

In the latest case a married father of two, who had checked into Sierra Tucson on Jan. 4 for severe depression and chronic pain due to neuropathy, was found dead in his room at 12:41 p.m. Jan. 23.

[...]

The facility has programs to help patients with addictions, mood disorders, chronic pain, eating disorders and trauma through its “Sierra Model” of integrating therapies such as massage, yoga and acupuncture with traditional psychiatry. Most patients are in their late 30s and early 40s. A majority of patients self-pay at a cost of about $1,300 per day.

[...]

The state has reprimanded Sierra Tucson numerous times since 2009 for failing to follow its own policies on patient care

Psychiatric Drugs are the New Opiate of the Masses.

We stumbled across an interesting post on the Intellectual Conservative political blog, entitled The Hard Truth about a Soft Science: Why Psychology Does More Harm Than Good, starting off with this sentence

If you convince people they’re not responsible for their actions, you’ve set the stage for great evil to occur, as they will be able to justify anything suiting their fancy.

It makes a number of interesting points. While we are not taking sides in terms of politics here, a lot of the observations are spot on, especially as they get to the conclusion of the article.

Yet the implications of this collective sense that we aren’t responsible for our actions and that they can’t be “wrong” anyway go far beyond the resulting social breakdown. They even go beyond the governmental response, which is to step in and control from without people who do not control themselves from within. For the truly scary implication under such a scenario is not just that people will not govern their impulses, but that they cannot do so.

After all, if we are merely organic robots, at the mercy of our genes (hardware), chemistry and upbringing (software), we have no free will. It then follows that we cannot choose among, well, call them what you will, God’s morals or man’s values, as we are directed by things beyond our control. This reduces us to animals. While Christianity teaches that the two things making us like God and separating us from the animal kingdom are intellect and free will – two qualities necessary to be fully human – this idea tells us that, bereft of the second quality, we are mere automatons.

Of course, if Freud et al. are correct, that is all we are, chemicals and water arranged in a most interesting fashion – with a good helping of illusion thrown in for good measure. Thus, insofar as psychology succeeds in convincing us that there is no accountability because there is no free will – no ability to choose sin because there is no sin, only disease – it dehumanizes us.

Perhaps this dehumanization is why psychiatry has quite a history of using humans as guinea pigs. There was Benjamin Rush (the father of American psychiatry) and his bloodletting; Nazi experiments; electric shock and lobotomies; our MK ULTRA mind-control program; and Canadian psychiatrist Heinz Lehmann, who illegally used Thorazine on subjects in the 1950s.

Etc.

Yet another in a number of articles showing the decline of psychiatry.

One last quote:

As to this, I recently read about psychiatrists who are labeling the desire to engage in excessive text messaging a mental disorder. Then there is “Muscle Dysmorphia,” or the obsessive belief that one isn’t muscular enough; “celebriphilia,” the strong desire for amorous relations with a celebrity; “Intermittent Explosive Disorder,” or road rage; “Sibling Rivalry Disorder;” “Mathematics Disorder;” “Caffeine Related Disorder;” and “Expressive Writing disorder,” to cite just a handful of the hundreds of made-up conditions in the DSM. And every time a new variety is conjured up, psychology’s market and earning potential increases. I have to wonder, though, what do they call the obsession with labeling behaviors mental disorders? Some might call it greed.

Yet, as ridiculous as this seems, it’s also very consistent and understandable. Whether a religionist or atheist, one can’t help but notice that these organic robots don’t operate the way most of us would like. The Christian explanation for this is that we’re all sinners, but this is religious terminology and quite inappropriate for a machine. So psychology says we’re all mentally ill; it’s just a malfunction in the CPU, you see. Then, because a machine cannot commit sins but can be “out of order,” it calls them disorders. Thus, a defiant child or employee isn’t ruled by pride but has “Oppositional Disorder,” a person with a lack of gratitude isn’t just that but one who suffers from “Chronic Complaint Disorder,” and a man who is shallow and vain isn’t just that but one plagued by “Muscle Dysmorphia.” So there is a limit to the number of disorders that can be “invented,” and it’s roughly equivalent to the numbers of ways in which people can sin.

This brings us to an irony. In a strange way, this “study of the soul” is aptly named, as in a great measure psychology has usurped the role of religion. It co-opts sins, renames them, and then takes credit for their discovery; you could call it spiritual plagiarism.

I also might say that mental health professionals have become the new priesthood. After all, whereas years ago people might have gone to a man of the cloth for guidance, now they are likely to lie on a therapist’s couch. The prescriptions they get are far different, too. A priest, minister or rabbi would usually render advice steeped in tradition and God-centered, but the psychologist is most likely to offer relativistic counsel, where the focus is on feelings and is thus self-centered.

And what happens when the matter of religion is raised? If you’re like many, including someone I know of, you may be told you’re taking your faith too seriously, that such devotion is akin to a mental illness. This isn’t surprising, I suppose. What future could a person have with an “illusion,” even the very attractive one that Freud seemed to believe was the opiate of the masses?

Yet, with over 20 million Americans, 40 percent of college students and 1 out of 9 schoolchildren on psychiatrist-prescribed psychoactive drugs, one is left to wonder what realm is truly most deserving of that title.

Ahhh yes, Psychiatric Drugs are the New Opiate of the Masses.

APA Fellow And President Of Arizona Psychiatric Society Gets Slap On Wrist For Patient Death

The following case was brought to our attention via email, with valuable links to internet references

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APA Fellow And President Of Arizona Psychiatric Society Gets Slap On Wrist For Patient Death

On December 16, 2007 the Arizona Medical Board reprimanded psychiatrist Stephen O. Morris for failure to diagnose and monitor a patient considered to be high risk for drug abuse; for inappropriate prescribing and for inadequate medical records.

Board documents allege that Dr. Morris’ “inappropriate and excessive prescribing” contributed to a 56-year-old patient’s overdose death.

Specifically, the documents state that Dr. Morris, who is a Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and President of the Arizona Psychiatric Society, “prescribed multiple psychoactive prescriptions often in higher than standard practice doses”; “wrote multiple prescriptions for the same class of medication”; “prescribed methyphenidate [Ritalin] for several months with a higher than necessary number of pills” and “wrote prescriptions too close together in time, indicating over-use or abuse.”

Further, Dr. Morris prescribed both a tricyclic (older generation) antidepressant concurrent with an SSRI (new generation) antidepressant whose interaction results in symptoms of “serotonin syndrome,” exhibited by increasing bodily tremors.

The Board charged Dr. Morris with deviation from the standard of care for failing to have the patient’s tricyclic blood levels monitored while concurrently on an SSRI and for prescribing a large quantity of tricyclic antidepressants and Ritalin to a patient who was a known overdose risk.

It lastly cites that Dr. Morris’ records contain no rationale for the high doses of potentially dangerous drugs he prescribed to the patient, why certain medications or types or combinations were used.

The Board found that his records failed to support diagnosis, justify treatment, accurately document results, indicate advice/cautionary warnings to the patient or provide sufficient information for another practitioner to assume continuity of the patient’s care.

Here is a link to the original Arizona Medical Board Finding

It looks like Psychiatrist Stephen Morris has not suffered any loss in professional status despite the death of his patient.

Psychiatrist Arrested for Drugs Falsified Records

From the Ashley County Ledger in Arizona

Ashley County Quorum Court members received an update of the circumstances that led to the hiring, termination and arrest of a former Ashley County Medical Center psychiatrist employed two weeks at the facility's Generations unit.

Hospital Administrator Russ Sword terminated Paul Jay Loop, 46, Monday, December 3, after Sword learned of Loop's drug abuse.

According to the ACMC hospital report presented to the court during its December meeting, Loop was terminated and his privileges to practice medicine at ACMC were revoked. The Crossett Police Department was informed of the situation, and officers arrested Loop on possession of crack cocaine in Sword's office. At the time of his arrest, six rocks of crack cocaine were found in Loop's possession. In addition to the cocaine, law enforcement officers found drug paraphernalia during a search conducted by the Crossett Police Department and the Ashley County Sheriff's Department of his hotel room at the Levee Inn.

"ACMC responded to the situation promptly and decisively and reported the matter to the Arkansas Medical Board," Sword said in its report presented to the court.

"All Arkansas hospitals, including Ashley County Medical Center, are required by state regulations to use the centralized credentialing services of the Arkansas Medical Board when reviewing physicians who are applying for hospital privileges. "

It further notes that during the medical board's review process, applicants' background, medical school, residency programs, as well as previous practices and other state medical board's recommendations are checked. "ACMC receives a written report from the Arkansas Medical Board before acting on a physician's request for clinical privileges," he added.

Although ACMC received a favorable report on Loop from the medical board, it is now known that Loop falsified his application to ACMC as well as information he submitted to the Arkansas Medical Board, according to the report.

The Arkansas Medical Board has suspended Loop’s license pending a hearing in February in regard to revoking his license.

ADHD misdiagnosis: Tonsil removal may 'cure' ADHD behavior in kids

What really seems to be happening is the ADD/ADHD is being misdiagnosed in cases where there is medical problem involving the tonsils. The condition causes lack of sleep, a low grade infection etc. which in turn causes the kid to 'act up' and this in turn earns the kid an ADHD diagnosis. Which is never really cured because the original medical condition is never addressed and the kid never really had ADHD.

As seen in this Report, with additional links to research items here and here. via Furious Seasons weblog

Extremely hyperactive, the toddler ran around in circles, destroying everything in his path. He choked the cat and dragged it by its tail. He bit the teacher and hit other kids. He got kicked out of day care and banned from friends' homes.

His own grandmother called the 2-year-old a "monster." Friends told his family that T.J. — short for Terence Johnson — was destined to be "the next serial killer."

"He was so out of control, I was at my wits' end," said his mother, Heather Norton. "It is hurtful to realize nobody likes your child. Even my family didn't want him to come to events or reunions. Everyone kept telling me he's got to get help."

That was then.

Today, as T.J. gets ready to turn 3, he is a changed boy. Lively, to be sure, but affectionate instead of mean and aggressive. He's allowed back into friends' homes. There are no more frantic calls to pick him up at day care. The cat has relaxed.

"It's a total turnaround — this is a different child," his mother said. "He's a normal, active toddler now. He responds to punishment for the first time. He gives us hugs. He says, 'I love you.' He's learning to share. Everybody notices the difference."

A frontal lobotomy? Electroshock therapy? Powerful drugs? No.

T.J. had his tonsils out.

As medical studies are beginning to confirm, the removal of a child's tonsils can, in some cases, significantly improve, even cure, severe hyperactivity often diagnosed as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD.

Now affecting more than 2 million U.S. children, ADHD most often is treated with controversial psychoactive drugs, sometimes taken for a lifetime.

But in a significant number of these children — as many as half of those with an ADHD diagnosis, in one study — simply removing the tonsils also has removed the diagnosis, by restoring normal behavior.

"Sometimes you get really great results, sometimes you see partial results in these children," said Dr. Damian Parkinson, a psychiatrist who has been working with T.J. at Pantano Behavioral Services. Parkinson was the first to suggest T.J.'s terrible behavior might be related to his tonsils.

The key to making that connection is how the child sleeps. Snoring, restlessness, apnea, and gasping for breath during the night are clearly linked to hyperactive daytime behavior in very young children. And enlarged or infected tonsils and adenoids — immune-related tissue masses in the back and upper throat — most often are the cause of what's known as "sleep-disordered breathing."

"What I look for is the child who comes in with typical ADHD symptoms — he's hyper, not listening, acting impulsively, hitting other kids — but who also has trouble sleeping," Parkinson said. "If the parents notice, and the child is congested and breathing through the mouth, that makes me wonder if the tonsils are the source of the whole problem."

That's pretty much the story of T.J.'s young life.

"He never slept through the night, since he was a baby," his mother said. Once he was walking, he'd get up and wander through the house, even into the street, in the middle of the night, forcing his parents to lock him in his room at night, for his own safety.

Always, T.J. snored — so loudly his older brother had to move out of his room — and had a chronically runny nose. But never in her wildest dreams did his mother think any of this was linked to T.J.'s behavior.

"He would snore, and choke, and wake himself up," she said. "But I thought it was normal. His dad snores."

Unlike older children and adults, this lack of restful sleep — and resulting oxygen deprivation — does not produce daytime sleepiness and fatigue in very young kids. It tends to make them hyper.

"Chronic loss of sleep can drive kids crazy, and the less sleep they get, the more crazy they get," said Dr. Brice Kopas, T.J.'s
pediatrician. "T.J. was impossible. He just could not sit still, for even a second or two."

But what has been less clear, until recently, is the direct effect of tonsil and adenoid removal on easing, even eliminating, full-fledged ADHD, in children who have sleep problems.

In one recent study, at the University of Michigan, 22 children with ADHD and sleep-disordered breathing had adenotonsillectomies. After one year, 11 no longer battled ADHD.

"These improvements are remarkable because hyperactivity and inattention generally are expected to be chronic features in affected school-age children," the researchers wrote in a report published last year in the journal Pediatrics.

As a result of this and other recent studies, "doctors conducting healthy-child checkups should always ask about snoring, poor sleep, behavioral and learning problems, and look for physical signs such as enlarged tonsils and adenoids," reads a summary of the issue published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in June.

And if all those signs converge, surgery is really the only option, said Dr. Sanford Newmark, a Tucson pediatrician who practices integrative medicine, using both mainstream and alternative therapies.

"There really is no other way to deal with it. The tonsils and adenoids are what obstruct the upper airway when a child lies down to sleep, so you have to get them out if that is happening."

But he doubts most busy doctors today are up to speed on this childhood medical issue.

"They have too little time with patients. I think many doctors miss it," he said. "Sleep problems are really underdiagnosed today, at all ages."

But missing this in young children can mean profound, even life-threatening effects — including heart and lung damage, and permanent cognitive deficits — if disrupted sleep persists for five years or longer.

"That's what clinched it for us. As soon as we heard that, we knew we wanted the surgery for T.J.," Norton said.
And so, the "little tyrant," as he was sometimes known, had his tonsils and adenoids out in April at University Medical Center. His surgeon, Dr. David Parry — Tucson's only pediatric ear, nose and throat specialist — had found them "grossly enlarged."

Tonsils and adenoids swell when they mount an immune response to fight germs.

"Once that is done, they should go back to normal size, but in some kids they don't," Parry said. "That may be the result of a chronic low-grade infection that goes undetected."

The surgery was painful for such a young boy, and T.J. remained at UMC for two nights. But the positive effects showed up almost immediately, his mother said.

"Right away, he started sleeping through the night, for the first time in his life. No snoring, no gurgling, no sleeping all over the bed," she said.

"When his behavior changed, we just didn't believe it at first. We thought it had to be the pain medicine. But it's four months later now.

"He's a normal child."

Death of impaired woman: Another psychiatric clinic drops the ball

A sad tale in which the experts at a state psychiatric institution screw up and cause the death of an impaired woman. via KVOA

A woman who died in a Flagstaff jail wasn't supposed to be behind bars at the time of her death, and may not have died in the first place if jail staff had known about her serious medical condition, according to police and investigative reports.

Lindsey G. Chewning, 23, died of complications from morbid obesity in the Coconino County Detention Facility in November, according to an autopsy report.

Other reports obtained by the Arizona Daily Sun show Chewning had sleep apnea and was not given the oxygen she needed while she slept.

Jail staff said they were never told Chewning had sleep apnea, and that if they had known, they would have been able to help her.

Chewning had been transferred to the jail after police records show she bit a staff member at the Guidance Center, a mental health clinic. Chewning was mentally ill and had the mental capacity of a child.

Jay McCarthy, attorney for the Guidance Center, declined to comment on the case.

But police reports show Flagstaff officer Michael Lavelle responded to the Guidance Center on Nov. 11 after receiving a call about an assault.

Staff in the psychiatric acute care unit told Lavelle that Chewning, angry over not being able to watch "The Little Mermaid," had bitten one of the staff members, leaving a mark and bruising. A supervisor requested that Chewning be taken to the jail.

Lavelle did just that. He later told an investigator that staff at the Guidance Center never told him about Chewning's condition.

The nursing staff at the jail also said they were not told of Chewning's condition, even after they called the Guidance Center for more information about Chewning, according to Coconino County Sheriff's Office reports.

Department of Economic Security investigator Mark Adams interviewed Guidance Center staff responsible for Chewning's care. They could not recall if they had told the jail or arresting officer of Chewning's sleep apnea, according to Adams's report.

Guidance Center CEO Linda Cowan declined to comment about Chewning's case.

Reports also show Chewning was supposed to be released from the jail three days before her death, when a judge had decided that no charges would be filed against her.

But rather than being sent back to the Guidance Center, where Chewning was to await a transfer to the Arizona State Hospital in Phoenix, a Guidance Center psychiatrist decided it would be best for Chewning to stay in the jail, according to Adams's report.

The psychiatrist, Christopher Linsky, told Adams he didn't want to needlessly stress Chewning.

Chewning was to be transferred to the state hospital the day after she died.

Sheriff Bill Pribil said that jail was no place for Chewning or any other acutely mentally ill person. But, he said the Guidance Center wouldn't take Chewning back.

"One alternative was to let her out the front door, but because of her issues, that would have put her in harm's way, and she probably would have committed another crime," Pribil said. "We were trying to do the best thing for her."

April 2007 Big Pharma Litigation Update - Drugs (Part II)

From the Lawyers and Settlements website

The anti-epileptic drug, Depakote (valproate), marketed by Abbott Laboratories, is one of the most heavily prescribed medications for off-label use. Experts say the evidence of harm caused by Depakote is just beginning to emerge.

According to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania psychiatrist, Dr Stefan Kruszewski, a recognized expert on psychotropic drugs, "we can anticipate a continuing series of tragic outcomes from the massive overuse of Depakote, secondary not only to birth defects and death, but also due to anemias, hepatic disease, obesity, diabetes type II, pancreatitis and other serious systemic and neurological dysfunctions."

Bayer is under fire for hiding the adverse effects of the anti-clotting drug, Trasylol, used in heart surgery, and will no doubt be hit with plenty of lawsuits in the not to distant future, considering that Dr Dennis Mangano, the lead author of new study in the February 7, 2007, Journal of the American Medical Association, says that the Trasylol may be responsible for 10,000 deaths over five years.

On December 15, 2006, the FDA announced new labeling for Trasylol, and said a study suggests that, in addition to serious kidney damage, Trasylol may increase the chance for death, congestive heart failure (a weakening of the heart), and strokes.

Because Trasylol is administered during surgery, many victims may not even realize they have been injured by the drug. But plenty have, according to Dr Mangano, who says that in 2006, Trasylol, was administered to 246,000 patients.

Another drug on the legal chopping block is the Parkinson's drug, Permax. As far back as December 2002, doctors at the Mayo Clinic reported heart valve disease in 3 patients who had been taking Permax, similar to damage caused by the Fen-Phen combination.

In 2004, HealthDay News reported that a study had confirmed previous findings that the drug could damage heart valves and surgery would be needed to correct it. Two new studies in the January 4, 2007, New England Journal of Medicine, report that the number of Permax patients who have developed valve damage is higher than expected.

One study, which included 155 patients taking various Parkinson's drugs, and 90 healthy patients in a comparison group, and found moderate to severe valve problems in more than 23% of the patients on Permax, compared to less than 6% in the comparison group.

The second study found Permax users were 5 to 7 times more likely to have leaky heart valves than patients taking other types of Parkinson's drugs, and patients taking the highest doses of Permax had a 37 times greater risk.

"This is not a rare side effect," says Dr Bryan Roth, a professor at the University of North Carolina, who wrote an editorial accompanying the reports in the NEJM.

"That's an extraordinarily high incidence," he warns. "That makes this a serious problem."

Heart valve damage is a life-threatening condition and costly to treat. Replacement requires open heart surgery, where the breastbone is divided, the heart is stopped, and blood is sent through a heart-lung machine, according to the Texas Heart Institute. No drug can reverse valve damage, making replacement surgery the only option. Medical experts are advising all Permax patients to undergo testing for valve damage.

The drug was introduced to the US market by Eli Lilly, but Valeant Pharmaceuticals now sells Permax. On March 29, 2007, Permax was pulled off the market after the FDA reviewed new information that associates it with heart problems.

During the last 2 decades, the antidepressants, known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, have been prescribed for more unapproved uses than any other class of drugs in history. A June 2005, study in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, found that 75% of SSRI prescriptions written were for unapproved uses.

SSRIs have now been linked to suicidality, extreme violence and homicide, several life-threatening birth defects, abnormal uterine or gastrointestinal bleeding, a decrease in bone mineral density, fertility problems, sexual dysfunction, and a severe withdrawal syndrome.

On April 10, 2004, the British Medical Journal, criticized the authors of studies on SSRI's for exaggerating the benefits and downplaying the harm, including suicidality, and discussed a study of 93 children on Paxil that produced 11 serious adverse events, including 7 hospitalizations, compared to only 2 in children in the placebo group.

The Paxil suicide risk is not limited to children. An August 22, 2005, study by Norwegian researchers of over 1,500 adults, found 7 Paxil patients attempted suicide compared to only 1 attempt in the group on a placebo, and recommended that warnings not to prescribe Paxil to children should also apply to adults.

According to Forest Lab's Annual Report filed on June 14, 2006, the company is a named defendant in approximately 25 lawsuits, with the majority involving the company's top selling SSRI drugs, Celexa or Lexapro, for inducing suicidality.

A wrongful death lawsuit was filed in September 2005, by the Pogust & Braslow law firm in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, on behalf of the family of 32-year-old man who unexpectedly committed suicide soon after being prescribed Lexapro.

A steady stream of lawsuits have been filed against GlaxoSmithKline over Paxil, stemming from the company's concealment of the drug's link to suicide, birth defects, violence and withdrawal syndrome.

On March 23, 2006, the California-based Baum Hedlund law firm filed a national class-action lawsuit against Glaxo on behalf of the mother of an 11-year old Kansas boy who committed suicide, and a teenager in Texas who attempted suicide while taking Paxil.

She says, Baum Hedlund has documents obtained in litigation that show there was an awareness of the suicide risk as far back as the late 1970's, a decade before the first SSRI was approved for sale in the US.

A new round of Paxil lawsuits began on October 16, 2006, when Baum Hedlund filed a case alleging that Paxil use during pregnancy resulted in an infant being born with a life-threatening lung disorder, PPHN. Between 10% and 20% of infants born with PPHN end up dying, even when they receive treatment.

On July 28, 2006, Baum Hedlund also filed a lawsuit on behalf of the parents of an infant who was born with congenital heart birth defects as a result of his mother taking Paxil during pregnancy. Since birth, the child has undergone 3 open-heart surgeries and will likely have to undergo more and possibly a heart transplant at some point in the future.

Based on the company's legendary history of concealing adverse effects, the lead attorney on the case, Karen Barth Menzies, says believes Glaxo has known about these risks and should have warned prescribing doctors and consumers about these birth defects long ago.

The Houston law firm of Robert Kwok & Associates is handling a Celexa birth heart defects case in Kentucky. The mother was prescribed Celexa during pregnancy, and her baby was born with Shone's Complex, a form of congenital heart disease that consists of defects that lead to the obstruction of blood flow from the heart to the body.

Legal analysts are predicting that SSRI makers will offer early settlements in cases involving birth defects to avoid having these families appear before a jury.

Pfizer is still being sued left and right over adverse effects related to the epilepsy drug Neurontin. In 2004, the company pleaded guilty to charges involving a massive off-label marketing scheme and agreed to pay the second-largest settlement ever in a health care fraud prosecution of $403 million. By 2002, a full 94% of Neurontin sales were for off-label use, according to the August 16, 2004 USA Today.

Many private lawsuits involve Neurontin-induced suicidality. The Pogust & Braslow law firm is handling a case for Natalie Biedenbender, whose husband committed suicide at age 39, after being prescribed the drug off-label for back pain.

"Although Neurontin is prescribed for scores of off-label indications," Attorney Derek Braslow reports, "since 1999, the off-label use continues to be most common in the areas where the company focused its illegal marketing efforts, such as bipolar disorder, peripheral neuropathy, and migraine."

Two lawsuits were recently filed against Novartis and Astellas Pharma, the makers of the topical skin creams, Elidel and Protopic, used to treat eczema. Alan and Dayna Thomson filed a lawsuit in December 2006 after their daughter Haley died after using Elidel, and Ashley McDonald filed a lawsuit in January 2007 after being diagnosed with lymphoma following her use of Elidel.

In another case, Traci Reilly, of Naperville, Illinois, developed breast cancer after applying Protopic and Elidel for a condition that caused patches of discolored skin on her breast.

Protopic and Elidel belong to a class of drugs known as calcineurin inhibitors, so called because they reduce immune activity by inhibiting the activity of the enzyme calcineurin in organ transplant patients. Use of these drugs has long been known to increase the risk of cancer, and the drugs were labeled accordingly for use in transplant patients.

Protopic and Elidel have only been on the market for about 5 years and together have already been prescribed to more than 7 million people. In 2006, the FDA added a black box warning to the skin creams about the cancer risk.

On February 21, 2007, Tom Moore, the author of several books on the pharmaceutical industry, told CBS News that he had studied about 1,200 cases of suspected injuries pertaining to Protopic and Elidel reported to the FDA through 2005 and found more than 100 potential cancer cases in children and adults, with most involving lymphoma or skin cancer.

Goverment Nightmare Sentences Man to Hell in a Psych Ward

As seen in this editorial

Charles Haroutunian’s ordeal is a classic illustration of the road to hell being paved with good intentions, and how much worse that hell can be once too many well-intentioned government and legal agencies enter the fray.

After a 2002 suicide attempt, the Sun Lakes resident found himself at the mercy of no less than four government agencies or contractors, each of whom had a role to play once the suicidal 76-year-old man had been transferred from another hospital to Maricopa Medical Center, and his family had decided to have him committed to a mental institution.

This became possible when one of two court-appointed psychiatrists testified he met the criteria, and the other failed to show up. Once the process was set in motion, nobody seemed to want to be at the steering wheel. Value Options, which handles the county’s mental health care services, claimed it was responsible for outpatient treatment only, ceding the job to the county hospital, which in turn deferred to the Veterans Administration, who would be footing the bill.

The VA would only pay for him to be sent to a Tucson nursing home for the severely mentally ill; Haroutunian, now 80, wasn’t in any shape to protest.

“I just thought I had my 180 days of punishment for breaking man’s law and God’s law for trying to take my life,” he told the Tribune’s Gary Grado, in a story that ran Tuesday.

In reality, he faced a potential life sentence, after his case was never transferred into the Pima County supervision it needed, but instead was mistakenly closed out by a Value Options employee. It was only the arrival of a sympathetic psychologist at the nursing home and having the means to hire a lawyer to track his case down that saved Haroutunian. Even then, it took four years for him to receive any compensation for having spent months in a locked ward with about 30 other patients who were not capable of communicating with him in any way other than spitting in his food.

The $310,250 court award, reached in October, divvied up the blame among two agencies — as much an indictment of an overgrown state that cannot keep track of which paperwork went down which rabbit hole, as anything else.

The process of this and so many other tasks, jury-rigged like a computer with a spaghetti nest of wires underneath it, must be streamlined. There is an agency, the Maricopa County Public Fiduciary, responsible for protecting the rights of vulernable adults, and it was found by the trial jury to be relatively less liable for Haroutunian’s treatment.

The map needs be redrawn so the agency that has the ultimate responsibility can’t credibly pass the buck to another entity, particularly a government contractor. This isn’t about paperwork, it is about people, and they should be treated better if for no other reason than they need someone to look out for their best interests, not create more problems for them.

Looking for millions in public money to keep psych hospital open

Pima County [Arizona] Administrator Chuck Huckelberry will ask the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday to approve up to $3.2 million in contracts for professional help at Kino Community Hospital where a psychiatric patient died in July while being restrained.

Huckelberry wants the board to approve a $1.7 million contract with Horizon Mental Health Management, a Texas-based company, to run Kino's psychiatric unit. He also asked for $750,000 to hire four private firms to supply "travel" nurses from out of the community to staff the psychiatric unit, and $826,000 for Oakland, Calif.-based Health Care Financial Solutions to help hospital officials prepare correction plans to satisfy state and federal health-care regulators that patients can safely be treated at Kino.

The July 15 death of Wendy Gazda, 32, sent state health inspectors to Kino a few days later. They found numerous deficiencies in policies and procedures, enough to threaten the hospital's status with the Center for Medicare Services in San Francisco and the reimbursements for Medicare patients, without which Kino cannot survive financially.

The Pima County Medical Examiner's Office ruled Gazda's death a homicide last week, saying she died as a result of being restrained. The Arizona Attorney General's Office is deciding whether to file criminal charges against any of the hospital mental health workers or private security guards involved.

Looks like it is in line to join the many other psych hospitals that have closed, all due to abuse of patients and public funds.

External management of Kino Psych Unit

Horizon Mental Health Management is being considered to take over day-to-day operations of the psychiatric unit at Kino Community Hospital in order to deal with myriad problems since the July 15 death of Wendy Gazda.

Wendy Gazda died while being restrained by hospital mental-health technicians and security guards for a private company.

No charges have been filed against the employees.

The problem of murder

As seen in this story about a murderer named "John Doe"

In 1994, Doe brutally murdered a family member with a knife in Maricopa County. He plead guilty except insane and was sent to the Arizona State Hospital to be restored to sanity. Pleading guilty to the murder of his relative, Doe would have spent 25 years to life in prison. But by pleading guilty except insane, Doe was sent to the state hospital. And instead of spending 25 years in custody, Doe is now out of the state hospital and back into society a mere eight years later.

[...]

The Flagstaff resident is a relative of Doe, who plead guilty except insane soon after the law was created. He does not want to use his name or Doe's real name for fear Doe will read about himself, recognize it is him and possibly retaliate against the family. "We were led to believe by the prosecution and defense that he would remain at the state hospital for the remainder of his sentence," the relative said. "And if he were to be restored to sanity, he would be returned to the jurisdiction of the justice system."

That is not what happened.

Has a promise of justice been broken?