My son died in a mental health facility. If we keep protecting dangerous hospitals, he won’t be the last.

From the Washington Post. Full article at the link

On Nov. 23, I received the call no parent wants to get – my only son was dead. My beautiful, 24-year-old boy was gone. It is a nightmare I have yet to wake up from; one I will never wake up from.

I could barely hear the words from the other end of the line; my cries were drowning them out. I was driving when I received the call, and had to pull over to call my son’s father. Then I had to drive home to deliver the news to my daughter, Paris. How I made it home without getting in a wreck is a mystery to me.

Two-and-a-half months prior, my ex-husband, Kristoff St. John, and I had placed our son, Julian, at Telecare’s La Casa Mental Health Rehabilitation Center in Long Beach, Calif. on a 72-hour involuntary psychiatric hold. Julian had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia when he was 17 and had become suicidal while off his medication and on a powerful substance – meth. The staff upgraded him to a 14-day hold, and then lengthened it again for an indefinite period, to give him adequate time to get off of meth.

Like many parents of children with mental health issues, our goal was to find help for our son who suffers from a horrific illness for which there is no cure. We knew that, with proper medication and therapy, Julian had a chance of living a comfortable life. So we sought help from Los Angeles County’s Department of Mental Health, which referred us to Telecare’s facility. The county says it pays Telecare $17 million per year to contract 190 beds at La Casa. We had hoped that the facility would help him withdraw from meth and get back on his meds, and that within the year, Julian would come home – alive.

But we made a fatal mistake placing our son in the care of La Casa, one of many mental health facilities in this country that contracts with state and local governments. Like many before him, Julian didn’t make it out alive.

Of course, the problem is that these people are trusted to do things the are not capable of doing.

Paul Corona, 'Guru' doctor of mood-stabilizing drugs on probation for second time

From the Orange County Register

A doctor who described himself in an Orange County Register investigation as the “guru” of mood-stabilizing drugs has been put on probation for the second time by state medical regulators.

The Medical Board of California put Laguna Niguel physician Paul Corona on a five-year probation Friday for gross negligence in treating five patients and failing to maintain adequate medical records. He was also put on probation in 2009 after suffering a psychotic breakdown.

Corona, who described himself to the Register as the most prolific prescriber of mood-stabilizing drugs anywhere, is prohibited from supervising physician assistants during his probation.

Jodi Barber, whose son, Jarrod, overdosed in 2010 on a mixture of drugs, some prescribed by Corona, said the state was too lenient. “This is ridiculous. Remove his license permanently. How many slaps on the hand is he going to be given?” said Barber of Laguna Niguel. Her son did not appear to be one of the victims in the state complaint.

Corona was the subject of a 2011 investigation by the Register into how doctors overprescribed to teens, fueling a rise in Orange County overdoses. Coroner records show accidental fatal overdoses have risen steadily from 130 in 2003 to 291 in 2013. Corona preached the use of psychotropic drugs to remove the mental traumas that feed drug addiction.

“I am the top prescriber of psychotropic medications around,” Corona said. “Ninety-five percent of my patients are very happy.”

But drug addiction experts questioned Corona’s tactics, saying it didn’t make sense to use drugs to fight drugs. Dr. Harry Haroutunian, physician director at the famed Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, told the Register in 2011 it is especially dangerous to prescribe drugs with sedative qualities when treating addicts in an outpatient setting, where they might score more drugs on the street.

“If he is telling you he is the highest prescriber,” Haroutunian said, “that would be a dubious distinction by my measuring stick.”

Corona first came under the state’s attention after Orange County sheriff’s deputies were sent to his Laguna Niguel home in 2007 to investigate reports of a man having a psychotic breakdown and threatening suicide, according to a medical board accusation.

“Respondent was acting bizarre and was very aggressive, yelling and screaming incoherently. The officers had to taser respondent several times in order to subdue him,” said the report by the medical board. Corona was hospitalized for nearly a month for psychological observation.

It was the same year that he published a book about treating mood disorders, entitled “Healing the Mind and Body.” In a 2008 interview with the medical board, Corona said he suffered an episode of hypomania three years prior. State documents say that he was prescribed Seroquel by his psychiatrist, but he admitted to self-medicating from his sample drugs after his psychiatrist moved away.

“His disorder has impacted his ability to practice safely and led to his hospitalization for a psychotic breakdown,” the state complaint said. He was put under suspension for five years in June 2009.

Under the latest probation, Corona must take courses in prescribing practices, medical record keeping, medical ethics and clinical education. He must also find another physician to monitor him, according to medical board documents.

California suspends license for Fairfield psychiatrist

From a much larger report in the Daily Republic

The state has temporarily suspended the license for Dr. William Munn after the Medical Board of California said the psychiatrist, in private practice since 1972 at his Travis Boulevard office, put public health at risk by excessively prescribing drugs to five patients.

Munn disputes any risk to public health and says his suspension is detrimental to his 250 patients, who can’t be absorbed by the limited number of psychiatrists in private practice in Solano County.

The Monday suspension follows a hearing in Oakland and the filing by the state Attorney General’s Office about Munn’s prescriptions for the five patients.

Munn referred to providing one patient “telephone psychotherapy,” said the state filing, which describes the therapy as consisting almost entirely of the psychiatrist refilling prescriptions for large quantities of hydrocodone, a semisynthetic narcotic analgesic, as well as amphetamines and alprazolam, often sold under the trade name Xanax.

Another patient was prescribed large doses of alprazolam even though the doctor saw the person only once and continued to prescribe the drug for almost two years, according to the state.

Treatment of the five patients includes numerous extreme departures from the standard of care, added the state, which sought the license suspension until the Medical Board can ensure Mann safely practices psychiatry.

Santa Cruz mental health specialist arrested on child sex assault charges

As reported by KSBW

A 56-year-old man who works as a mental health specialist for Santa Cruz County was arrested Thursday morning.

Christopher McCauley is a well-known mental health specialist and community liaison at the county's Health Services Agency. According to his Facebook page, he works with children for the Health Services Agency. He was booked into jail on suspicion of sexually assaulting a child who is younger than 11 years old. His bail was set at $100,000.

Sheriff's deputies said Child Protective Services agents alerted them about McCauley's inappropriate behavior. McCauley was arrested by sheriff's deputies at 1400 Emeline Ave., where he works in the county health department's building. McCauley is the first person who schools are instructed to call under the Santa Cruz County School Emergency Mental Heath Response Protocol.

Rayne Marr, Public Information Officer for Santa Cruz County, issued the following prepared statement to KSBW:

"This morning a county mental health client specialist in the Health Services Agency was arrested. The county is cooperating fully with law enforcement officials and remains steadfast in our commitment to providing a safe and secure environment for our clients. As you know, the employee does have a right to privacy and the county cannot comment on an ongoing law enforcement investigation," Marr said.

When asked if McCauley worked with children for the county, she declined to comment. Calls to McCauley's work phone number were not returned.

The Sheriff’s Office believes that there may be more victims. Anyone with information pertaining to this investigation is asked to contact the Santa Cruz Sheriff's Office Sexual Assault Unit at 831-454-7630.

During A Raid on A Psych Hospital, The FBI has a hard time getting Pizza Delivery

Although everyone thinks of this as a joke, it has been verified by Snopes as a real event

FBI agents conducted a "search and seizure" at the Southwood Psychiatric Hospital in San Diego, which was under investigation for medical insurance fraud. After hours of poring over many rooms of financial records, some sixty FBI agents worked up quite an appetite. The case agent in charge of the investigation called a local pizza parlor with delivery service to order a quick dinner for his colleagues.

The following telephone conversation took place:

Agent: Hello. I would like to order nineteen large pizzas and sixty-seven cans of soda.
Pizza man: And where would you like them delivered?
Agent: To the Southwood Psychiatric Hospital.
Pizza man: To the psychiatric hospital?
Agent: That's right. I'm an FBI agent.
Pizza man: You're an FBI agent?
Agent: That's correct. Just about everybody here is.
Pizza man: And you're at the psychiatric hospital?
Agent: That's correct. And make sure you don't go through the front doors. We have them locked. You'll have to go around to the back to the service entrance to deliver the pizzas.
Pizza man: And you say you're all FBI agents?
Agent: That's right. How soon can you have them here?
Pizza man: And you're over at Southwood?
Agent: That's right. How soon can you have them here?
Pizza man: And everyone at Southwood is an FBI agent?
Agent: That's right. We've been here all day and we're starving.
Pizza man: How are you going to pay for this?
Agent: I have my check book right here.
Pizza man: And you are all FBI agents?
Agent: That's right, everyone here is an FBI agent. Can you remember to bring the pizzas and sodas to the service entrance in the rear? We have the front doors locked.
Pizza man: I don't think so.

Click.

As Snopes explains:

Origins: The above-quoted tale about FBI agents trying to arrange for pizza delivery to a psychiatric hospital is one of those pieces that serves to remind us that no matter how bizarre, far-fetched, or incredible a story may seem at first glance, it should never be entirely discounted without at least some effort being made to verify it.

This anecdote began circulating on the Internet in 1995, often attributed to a "Center for Strategic and International Studies report on GLOBAL ORGANIZED CRIME" or "a talk by R. James Woolsey, Director of Central Intelligence, given at a conference on global organized crime." We initially reproduced it on our site with no judgment as to its truth or falsity, expecting that it would eventually be revealed as a work of creative fiction by some Internet prankster. To be thorough, we sent a routine inquiry to the FBI's San Diego office about the story and then promptly forgot about it, assuming that the FBI had much better things to do than spend their time debunking silly tales spread via e-mail.

We were quite surprised, therefore, when several weeks later we received a response from FBI Special Agent Wayne A. Barnes, who confirmed for us that the incident described was real and supplied us with additional background detail about it.

In 1993, the FBI was assisting the Department of Health and Human Services in investigating health care fraud. A medical organization that operated psychiatric hospitals in nine different cities had come under suspicion, and law enforcement agencies had scheduled coordinated raids on all nine of those facilities to take place on the same day (so that none of the hospitals could alert the others). The unexpectedly high volume of records seized in a morning raid on the Southwood Psychiatric Hospital in Chula Vista, California, meant that the investigation there turned into an all-day affair. When the agent in charge of the operation realized his men were running on empty after long hours with no food, he attempted to order pizza from a local delivery outfit, placing the call now immortalized in this piece. Contrary to what is stated in most versions of this piece, though, the FBI was not taping all of the hospital's calls that day; the conversation reproduced above was reconstructed from the memories of agents present at the event.

And yes, the FBI men did get their pizzas, but the food was not delivered to the hospital — several agents had to drive over to the restaurant and pick up their pies.

"Psychiatry has destroyed my life"

A 4 part series in the Canada Free Press about the devastating effect of the Marketing of Abilify

Part 1: “Psychiatry has destroyed my life”
Part 2: A medicinal lobotomy
Part 3: “Works like a thermostat”
Part 4: “Chemically lobotomized”

Snippet from the series

“Psychiatry has destroyed my life in so many ways.”

So says Jarrett, a young man from Orange County, who for the past three and half years has been taking a cocktail of various psychiatric medications, including America’s best-selling drug, Abilify.

Less than four years ago Jarrett was a newly minted university graduate with a bright future ahead of him. But he hit a bit of a rough patch. Discouraged by his failure to find a job, he went into counseling, which dredged up some painful memories he now believes would have been better left alone. He confronted his father one night with some old hurts, in his own recollection tearful and angry and out of control, and his father called the police. Jarrett was taken away in handcuffs to a mental hospital, where he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and prescribed Risperdal and BuSpar.

Jarrett was subsequently released but found his depression worsening. He checked himself back into the mental hospital, and this time he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and placed on BuSpar, Seroquel, Geodon, and Celexa. Shortly after his release, he attempted suicide (he says he had never experienced suicidal ideation or behavior before starting psych meds) and was hospitalized for the third time. This time his doctor doubled the dose of Seroquel, replaced the Celexa with Lexapro, and added Depakote and Cogentin. He also discontinued the Geodon and, at Jarrett’s request, prescribed a new drug Jarrett had learned about from watching television.

“It was that cartoon commercial with the woman who says her antidepressant isn’t working,” Jarrett recalls. “She went to her doctor and her doctor said there’s a medication you can take with your antidepressant that can really help.”

And that was how Jarrett became one of untold thousands who succumbed to the siren call of the advertising copywriter to “Add Abilify.”

California Lawmakers blast overuse of psychiatric drugs on foster kids

from this report in the Tribune in San Luis Obispo

California lawmakers on Tuesday blasted the overuse of psychiatric drugs on the state's foster children and pledged to improve the lives of thousands of vulnerable teens after more than a decade of government inaction.

"We can't let another decade go by without creating a system of care, a system of care that is capable of helping kids heal from the challenging experiences they have lived through or protecting them from further harm," said Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, in opening a joint Senate Human Services Committee and Senate Select Committee on Mental Health.

Advocates said the state's foster children are being prescribed psychiatric drugs at three times the rate of other youth. Since 2006, the use rate of psychotropic medications has nearly doubled, McGuire said. He noted that it's costing taxpayers millions of dollars through the state's low-income health program Medi-Cal.

Iris Hoffman, a member of the California Youth Connection in Sonoma County, told lawmakers how she spent her childhood in juvenile homes, group homes and treatment centers while heavily medicated on the anti-psychotic drugs Abilify and Seroquel. She and other foster children were fearful of retribution if they refused drugs that made them drowsy in class, Hoffman said.

"When you're in those situations, there's all kinds of punishments and things you have to be fearful of if you are to refuse medications prescribed to you by a psychiatrist that only meets with you for an hour a month," she said.

Democratic lawmakers are proposing several pieces of legislation to improve oversight after an investigation by the Bay Area News Group found that thousands of vulnerable teens in foster care are being prescribed antipsychotics that could trigger diabetes, tics, weight gain and drowsiness.

Sen. Jim Beall, D-San Jose, said Tuesday that the hearing at the Capitol is only a step in determining whether the drugs are being administered as part of a therapeutic regimen or "being used as a chemical straitjacket solely to control their behavior."

Beall and Sen. Holly Mitchell, D-Los Angeles, have proposed SB238, which would alert caretakers when drugs are overprescribed and warn of dangerous drug interactions.

Beall also plans to introduce two other bills — one calling for public health nurses to oversee the medical monitoring of children's medication, and the other to establish treatment protocols and oversight in group homes.

Lawmakers on Tuesday heard from medical professionals, child welfare directors, family service advocates, foster youth and officials from California's health and social services agencies.

The use of psychiatric drugs has increased even though the state's foster care population has dropped. As a result of reforms that emphasize keeping children with their families whenever possible, the number of children in foster care has dropped from 103,000 in 2000 to about 55,000 in 2013.

Lawmakers say nearly a quarter of adolescents in California's foster care youth system are prescribed powerful psychotropic drugs. According to the National Center for Youth Law with data provided by the state, 36 percent of them are taking multiple medications that carry harmful side effects.

Antipsychotics, antidepressants, ADHD drugs, anti-anxiety medications and mood stabilizers are some of the psychotropic drugs.

Sides discussing settlement in lawsuit over busing of Nevada mental patients

From a Report in the Las Vegas Sun

be sure to check out the link for more information

Settlement talks have emerged in a class action lawsuit accusing Nevada of misusing public funds for busing mentally ill patients to California.

The talks are the latest in a 16-month legal battle between Nevada and the city and county of San Francisco. A successful negotiation would end one of three busing-related lawsuits facing Nevada. Any money would compensate California for harboring indigent patients who were discharged from Nevada psychiatric facilities and given one-way bus tickets with directors to seek help in California. The settlement also would aim to outline new rules for transporting patients across state lines.

California officials say the busing cost San Francisco at least $4 million to treat 21 patients from Nevada, according to legal documents in a San Francisco district court. The San Francisco City Attorney’s Office said it has the names of 500 patients who traveled to California from Las Vegas’ Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital between 2008 to 2013. It’s unclear how many of the 500 sought treatment once they arrived in California.

Officials from both states declined to comment on the details of the settlement negotiations — a standard practice during legal settlements.

“Those are confidential by mutual agreement,” said Matt Dorsey, spokesman in the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office.

Officials in Nevada’s Attorney General’s Office declined to comment for the story.

[...]

The news first broke after the Sacramento Bee newspaper uncovered that James Flavy Coy Brown, a Rawson-Neal patient, was sent on a 15-hour bus ride to Sacramento with no arrangements for care, housing or treatment. Hospital staff allegedly gave Brown a one-way bus ticket, peanut butter crackers and a three-day supply of medication to treat his schizophrenia, depression and anxiety. He had no family or friends in the area and was reportedly told to call 911 when he arrived.

[...]

They solved their budget problems by shipping the patients out of state.

Nevada tried to save money by bussing psych patients out of state for treatment

As reported in the Las Vegas Sun

Nevada is shelling out big money to defend itself in a class action lawsuit alleging the Department of Health and Human Services misused public money and jeopardized the lives of nearly 500 mental health patients in what’s known as the Greyhound busing scandal.

The state’s board of examiners will vote today to approve a $400,000 contract extension between Nevada and a California-based law firm Bingham McCutchen to fight claims that mental health patients were discharged from hospitals, ushered onto buses and transported to various cities in California to pass off the cost of treating mental health patients.

The contract highlights the cost the state must endure in and out of the courtroom.

If approved, the contract extension will mean the state has allocated more than $1.9 million to defend itself in the suit, which was filed by the City and County of San Francisco on behalf of more than 50 California towns that were harbors for Nevada mental health patients between 2008 and 2013.

Nevada needs a California-licensed attorney to fight the case in that state, said Jennifer Lopez, a spokeswoman for the Nevada Attorney General’s Office. State officials made their case for the expense to the Legislature’s Interim Finance Committee on Monday. The committee approved the appropriations, signaling that the board will follow suit.

Court filings show that Nevada has aggressively tried to quash the case since it was first filed in September 2013.

“It was the individuals, and not the Nevada State Defendants, who took the (intervening) steps to reach California and, allegedly, seek additional medical care,” Nevada’s legal counsel wrote about the discharged mental health patients in legal filings.

Court filings also show that Nevada said that the mental health patients made “unilateral” decisions about where to go.

But a trial court and a state court of appeals said San Francisco does have the authority to charge Nevada. Nevada’s legal counsel then appealed to the California Supreme Court, which hasn’t stated whether it will hear the case.

In court filings, a San Francisco County judge painted Nevada as a state trying to save money by shifting costs to California. It said some patients were medicated when they were given bus vouchers and instructions to call emergency rooms, shelters and other treatment facilities when they arrived in California.

Between July 2007 and March 2013, Southern Nevada health officials had a policy to “assist patients” back to their home communities as a way to “remove the burden of treatment from the State of Nevada,” according to legal filings from John Munter, a San Francisco County judge.

The state was having budget problems. The Southern Nevada psychiatric hospital, Rawson-Neal, was consistently filled to capacity and understaffed. There was tremendous pressure to discharge patients, according to Munter’s filings.

Munter also wrote that Nevada “expressly targeted” California to achieve a result that would “impose financial burdens on California communities.”

“At least to some discharged patients, [Nevada] did not give [patients] any meaningful choice other than to go to California or any meaningful options to remain in Nevada,” Munter wrote. “In some instances, defendants gave referrals to medical care and housing facilities in California but not in Nevada, and advice that follow-up care was available in California but not in Nevada.”

The lawsuit alleges that Nevada’s busing practice forced California to misappropriate resources.

It cost the City of San Francisco $4 million to treat 21 Nevada patients who were bused into the state.

Of those 21 patients, more than half had no prior relationship with the state of California, according to court records.

And San Francisco wasn’t alone. Patients popped up in Sacramento and 50 other California cities.

The total cost for the whole state is still unknown.

At home, Nevada has done its best to repair the state’s mental health system.

From 2007 to 2011, the Legislature cut $80 million from the mental health budget.

Gov. Brian Sandoval has made efforts to make up for the losses and the nefarious spotlight that flung to the state when the busing scandal first made headlines. He’s done so alongside Mike Willden, Sandoval’s current chief of staff and former health department director listed as a defendant on the lawsuit.

They have boosted mental health funding by at least $30 million, and Sandoval signed an executive order to create the Behavioral Health and Wellness Council to oversee state programs and make recommendations. Since June, it has advocated for and Sandoval has awarded at least $3.5 million in state funding. More than 100 beds for mental health patients have been added to hospitals statewide.

Regulation needed to curb overprescribing of drugs for children, say advocates

A Report from the LA Daily News

Scrutiny of doctors who prescribe psychotropic drugs to California foster children intensified this week, with growing calls for regulators to consider whether financial relationships with pharmaceutical companies may be driving the excessive use of medication.

The outcry came from a leading consumer advocacy group as lawmakers stepped up their efforts to rein in reckless prescribing and the California Medical Board vowed to widen its investigation in response to this news organization’s ongoing series “Drugging Our Kids.” On Sunday, the news organization reported that prescribers in the foster care system received more than twice as much as the typical California doctor in payments from big drug companies for meals, gifts, travel, speaking and industry-sponsored research. The news organization also found that last year doctors who prescribed the most to California foster youth, on average, accepted almost four times as much as those who fell in a lower-prescribing group.

“We’ve known for years that the problem of drug manufacturer payments to doctors appears to have an outsize influence in their prescribing practices,” said Carmen Balber, executive director of the nonprofit group Consumer Watchdog. “But this investigation was particularly disturbing because of the patients it affects. The conflict of interest is clear in these cases and we think that action is long overdue.”

In a letter to the California Medical Board sent earlier this week, Balber’s Santa Monica-based organization called on the state licensing agency to expand its current investigation of doctors who may be overprescribing to foster youth “to determine if children are inappropriately being prescribed or overprescribed because of drug manufacturer payments to their physicians.” Balber said the prescribing has not only cost taxpayers millions of dollars in payments for possibly unneeded drugs, but has also put the children’s health at risk. The news organization’s report on industry ties, she added, “makes clear that the state has failed to take the steps necessary to protect children.”

Kimberly Kirchmeyer, executive director of the California Medical Board, noted there is no law prohibiting doctors from accepting drug industry promotional funds. The news organization found pharmaceutical companies spent more than $14 million to woo foster care prescribers from 2010 to 2013.

But the payments may constitute “unprofessional conduct,” Kirchmeyer added, and that could warrant additional scrutiny. She said the agency plans to look into whether these doctors “have a reason to prescribe, are they appropriately prescribing, or are they prescribing medication inappropriately to support the pharmaceutical company?”

The medical board has been looking into whether specific doctors are over-prescribing psychotropic medications to foster youth since the news organization published its first installment of “Drugging Our Kids’’ in August, which revealed that almost one in four foster teens are prescribed psych meds. Many of the drugs are being prescribed to control troublesome behavior instead of the severe mental illnesses they are approved to treat. They can have debilitating side effects, such as rapid weight gain, higher risks of diabetes and severe lethargy.

The news organization’s original findings drove state Sen. Jim Beall, chairman of the Senate Human Services Committee, to push for more detailed information from the state Department of Health Care Services on prescribing practices to foster youth.

On Monday, Beall, D-San Jose, met with California’s director of social services, Will Lightbourne, to discuss the request he and Los Angeles Democratic state Sen. Holly Mitchell submitted to health care officials last week.

The two senators have called on Health Care Services Director Toby Douglas to release geographic and demographic information on prescribing patterns, including tallies of foster children on multiple medications and high doses, as well as those being prescribed drugs for conduct “disorders” — more information than the state has been willing to release so far.

Beall said he will use the data to draft legislation aimed at improving the oversight and monitoring of psych medication use in foster care. The bill could require regular reports and analysis of county-level prescribing trends and establish a hotline for lawyers, judges, doctors and other caregivers who need guidance on medication. On Monday, after the news organization’s latest report, Beall said he also wants doctors’ interactions with drug companies to be better monitored.

“The Social Services Agency should take all steps to ensure that there’s no conflict of interest in medical care for any of our foster kids — and if that’s happening right now, we’re going to take action in the Legislature to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Beall said.

State Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Redondo Beach, who in August called for a state investigation into psychotropic drug prescriptions for minors in the wake of the initial series of news reports, echoed the more recent calls by his fellow state legislators to make the additional information public.

“I’m pleased that the California Medical Board had initiated an investigation, but now has expanded it,” said Lieu, who was just elected to Congress. “I believe the investigation by the newspaper has raised some very troubling questions about how psychotropic drugs are being administered to foster youth.”

Marilyn Benoit — the former president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and current chair of the academy’s task force that proposed guidelines on relations with drug companies — said the news organization’s unique look at foster care prescribers’ link to drug companies is “concerning.”

“This is a capitalistic country — you’re supposed to market and advertise the products you make — there’s nothing wrong with that,” said Benoit, a child psychiatrist who oversees a Pennsylvania-based behavioral health center that treats foster youth. “But as prescribers, we have to be more scrutinizing and understand the difference between marketing and real scientific information about the medication we use.”

Yet Benoit cautioned that although “research clearly shows that doctors can be influenced by gifts,” her organization is advisory only, and has no enforcement capabilities. She said doctors must take personal responsibility to draw the line. “When you’re tied to the pharmaceutical industry,” Benoit said, “then there could be a conflict of interest in your prescribing behavior.”

Court expert for the Los Angeles Unified School District argues that a girl with low IQ may suffer less after sex assault

As Reported on 89.3 KPCC Radio

A psychologist hired by the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) testified last year that a 9-year-old girl's low IQ provided a "protective factor" that could reduce the amount of emotional stress she experienced from a sexual assault, according to court records examined by KPCC.

Dr. Stan Katz made the statements during the May 2013 trial over how much in damages the girl was entitled to after being repeatedly sexually assaulted by a boy at her school. The girl has an IQ between 64 and 70; the boy who assaulted her was not developmentally disabled, according to court transcripts.

The abuse happened at various spots around the school campus, according to David Ring, the girl's attorney. Her family sued LAUSD, arguing the girl needed financial compensation because she suffered significant trauma and would need long-term therapy.

"Protective factor"

At trial, Ring asked Katz what he meant when he had testified that the girl's mental disability "acts as a protective factor." According to the court transcript, Katz answered, "There's a relationship between intelligence and depression. What happens is the more you think about things, you can ruminate, you can focus on things, you can look at the complexities of the matter and become more depressed."

Following up, Ring asked, "So because she may be less intelligent than a general education student, she's going to suffer less depression because of it?" Katz replied, "Very possible, yes."

Katz didn't deny that the girl had suffered, and he said she would require therapy to deal with the trauma.

The assaults against the girl occurred in 2010, when she was 9 years old. Katz testified that when he interviewed the girl in April 2012, whatever emotional problems she may have had at the time were a result of not having her father in her life and her mental disability, not the molestation.

"I have handled hundreds of cases where the experts have given depositions, and I've never heard [the protective factor argument] in the way it was said" in this case, said Ring.

Two experts in the field reviewed Katz's testimony and said there is no science to support his assertion about the protective factor.

"I have never seen developmental disability in a child that age used as a protective factor with respect to how they handle trauma," said University of California San Francisco psychiatrist Dr. Lynn Ponton. "In fact," she added, "developmental disability quite often puts them at risk for this type of trauma."

Dr. Steven Berkowitz, an associate professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, agreed.

A mentally disabled person who has undergone a traumatic experience may have a "compromised" ability "to fully understand why something may have happened" or "the consequences for themselves and others," said Berkowitz, who is also director of the Perelman school's Penn Center for Youth and Family Trauma Response and Recovery. That person may also have difficulty with "decision making or problem solving around the use of coping strategies to assist them in dealing with the stress or trauma," he said.

Asked about Dr. Katz' protective factor argument on behalf of the school district, LAUSD Associate General Counsel Greg McNair said he hadn't read the trial transcripts, but added, "I don’t know anything about that. I would not agree with that. I think anyone who has been involved in a traumatic event would suffer tremendously."

Katz did not return repeated calls seeking his comment.

"The jury was offended"

The jury in the case awarded the girl $1.4 million in damages, far more than the $10,000-$12,500 LAUSD attorney Keith Wyatt argued she needed for therapy sessions.

"The jury was offended, they were disgusted and they thought it was unbelievable that an expert witness could come in and say something like that," Ring said, referring to post-trial conversations he had with jurors.

Members of the L.A. Unified Board of Education did not respond to requests for comment, although it's unclear how familiar they are with the details of the case. According to LAUSD counsel McNair, the board does get a brief, called a trial informative, at least thirty days before a trial, which describes the facts of the case and the positions of the district and plaintiffs, but daily briefings are unusual.

"It's a rare case when we would provide a daily update to the board on a case," said McNair. "I get daily updates on every trial that takes place," he said, adding that he's typically tracking about 100 lawsuits "more or less" at any one time.

Marci Hamilton, a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York, believes it's important that LAUSD keep its board well informed about ongoing litigation.

"What I wonder is whether or not the LAUSD actually knows what its experts and its lawyers are arguing, because this is beyond the pale for any school district that is supposed to be, under law, caring for children,"​ said Hamilton.

Even though Katz's comments on the protective factor were just a small part of his testimony in this case, Hamilton expressed concern that L.A. Unified might try to use the same argument in future lawsuits, a prospect she found "disturbing."

Katz has become something of a celebrity through his appearances on several reality TV shows, including "It's Complicated" with actress Denise Richards. But he said in court that most of his time is spent as an expert witness and mediator in child custody disputes. For the past ten years, he's worked on several cases, including some LAUSD child abuse cases, with Wyatt's firm of Ivie, McNeill & Wyatt.

Dr. Katz is consulting on another child abuse case involving a former teacher from Hamilton High school. That case is scheduled to go to trial in February and Ivie, McNeill & Wyatt has been retained to defend LAUSD, district officials said. Keith Wyatt will not be the lawyer from his firm trying the case because the district said he will no longer represent it in any lawsuits following remarks he made to KPCC about his handling of another sex abuse suit.

Drugging our kids: RX alliance rewards doctors as drug companies get richer

An Investigative report by the Los Angeles Daily News

The following is from a much larger article well worth reading:

An investigation by this news organization has found that drugmakers, anxious to expand the market for some of their most profitable products, spent more than $14 million from 2010 to 2013 to woo the California doctors who treat this captive and fragile audience of patients at taxpayers’ expense.

Drugmakers distribute their cash to all manner of doctors, but the investigation found that they paid the state’s foster care prescribers on average more than double what they gave to the typical California physician.

The connection raises concerns that Hernandez and many other unsuspecting youth have been caught in the middle of a big-money alliance that could be helping to drive the rampant use of psychiatric medications in the state’s foster care system.

“It sucks that the people marketed it that way, but that’s not that shocking. I’m more mad at the doctors for just going along with it,” said Hernandez, 22, who was prescribed as many as four of the drugs at a time as a foster youth in Southern California.

Overall, drugmakers reported payments to 908 doctors — well over half of those who prescribed psych medications to the state’s foster children, according to this news organization’s analysis of prescribing data and four years of pharmaceutical company payments compiled by the public interest journalism nonprofit ProPublica. And those who prescribed the most typically received the most, the analysis found.

The results provide the most comprehensive look to date at the pharmaceutical industry’s influence on the doctors who treat the 60,000 kids in the country’s largest foster care system — a lucrative target because Medi-Cal pays the bill with little scrutiny.

One Sacramento doctor raked in more than $310,000 in four years to give promotional speeches and an extra $8,500 in meals, records show. Another 224 doctors each got more than $500 in meals, and two of them each received more than $20,000 for travel. The biggest payments went for research, with two Southern California doctors each receiving more than $2 million to conduct drug company-sponsored trials.

Doctors who accept the drug companies’ offerings say they aren’t influenced, and the pharmaceutical industry defends its partnerships as a necessity for developing the lifesaving drugs of tomorrow.

“The kind of medical innovation that we have in this country wouldn’t happen without a robust dialogue between industry and physicians,” said John Murphy, assistant general counsel for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.

But critics say the drug companies are disguising investments in the name of science to reward doctors who in turn boost the industry’s bottom line.

“These figures suggest these doctors are not looking out primarily for the kids’ interests,” said UCLA social welfare professor David Cohen, who has studied medication use in the foster care system and drug company influence. “They suggest many doctors are looking out for their financial interests, and we should all be wary.”

The findings are especially disturbing because of the growing evidence that psychiatric drugs are being overprescribed to California’s foster children despite their significant side effects, the subject of this news organization’s yearlong investigation “Drugging Our Kids.” The news organization previously reported that almost 1 in every 4 adolescents in California foster care has been prescribed psychotropic medications, often to manage troublesome behavior rather than treat the severe mental illnesses for which they are approved.

While the federal government has cracked down in recent years on how drug companies market powerful antipsychotic drugs to the elderly and children, the industry’s investment in courting doctors appears to still be paying off: California taxpayers spend more on psychotropic drugs than on any other kind of medication prescribed to foster children, according to a decade of Medi-Cal spending data revealed by this news organization in August.

This is only the tip of the iceberg

How the LA Daily News investigated financial ties between drug manufacturers and doctors who prescribed psychotropic medications to California foster children from July 2009 to July 2014

According to their report

The news organization analyzed financial ties between drug manufacturers and doctors who prescribed psychotropic medications to California foster children from July 2009 to July 2014.

The Prescribers: We started with a list of prescribers obtained through a public records request from the state Department of Health Care Services. The list identified prescribers’ names, addresses and whether they wrote more than or fewer than 75 prescriptions for psychotropic medications each fiscal year. The state did not provide data to show precisely how many prescriptions each individual wrote.

The Dollars: We matched the 1,647 prescribers with physicians in a database of drug company payments, compiled by the journalism public interest nonprofit ProPublica, called “Dollars for Docs” — http://projects.propublica.org/docdollars.

The organization has built the most comprehensive public database to date of drug company spending on doctors and health care institutions, with more than $4 billion in payments nationwide.

The Limitations:The news organization’s analysis doesn’t catalog all spending on prescribers because in the four years examined just 17 drug companies and not the entire industry revealed what they spent on doctors, many under corporate integrity agreements with the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The Analysis: Because of the limitations of the drug company reports, the news organization considered a four-year period of spending instead of a year-by-year analysis.

The Matching: There were some inconsistencies in the way drug companies reported doctors’ names. Sometimes doctors were listed as payees. Sometimes a related entity, such as a clinic, was listed as the payee with the doctor shown as affiliated with the entity.

The news organization aggregated totals for all payments to doctors and related entities under the doctor’s name. Part of the total may represent payment to others for the doctor’s services.

Local Doctors Accused of Abusing Drugs, Alcohol and Over-Prescribing in Some Cases Killing Patients. California Prop 46 calls for Drug Testing for Doctors

As seen in this report

Local Doctors Accused of Abusing Drugs, Alcohol and Over-Prescribing in Some Cases Killing Patients

Of particular intere is California's propostion 46

Proposition 46 calls for random drug and alcohol testing of California doctors who work at hospitals or have hospital admitting privileges. It would also require doctors to submit to substance abuse testing if a patient under their care suffers medical harm.

Click here to see the complete voters guide on Proposition 46 from California’s Secretary of State Office.

Of course doctors are opposed to this.

there is a video report as well


What do you think?

Thousand Oaks psychiatrist arrested twice for DUI; patient death probed

As seen in this report from Los Angels' ABC7 News

A Thousand Oaks doctor arrested twice for DUI is now under investigation in connection with the death of a patient.

Dr. Daryl Westerback, 55, was arrested on June 5 for driving under the influence of prescription drugs after he was spotted on the road by a narcotics detective.

Westerback is now being investigated for overprescribing drugs to his patients. Authorities are looking into at least one death related to his practice.

"We began looking into him and found that one of his patients last year died of a fatal overdose, so we're now opening the case and investigating that death," said Capt. Don Aguilar with the Ventura County Sheriff's Department.

Westerback, a psychiatrist, is also accused of treating patients while he was impaired by prescription drugs.

"We started watching him and found that he was also under the influence of opiates while seeing patients. We found that he was operating a psychiatry office and was treating pain-management patients without an exam room, without all the typical methods of good medicine," said Aguilar.

Officials say they are investigating at least 10 doctors for operating criminally in Ventura County. They say these doctors appear to be nothing more than drug dealers peddling prescription medications for profit.

Ventura County sheriff officials say federal law enforcement is helping with a special task force to crack down on the growing illegal use of prescription drugs like Oxycontin, Vicodin and more.

"This has been created out of a prescription drug problem we've been seeing in the county, specifically in East County," said Aguilar.

Detectives said Westerback's license to prescribe medication has been suspended and he remains free on bail.

Westerback was also arrested for driving under the influence of drugs and felony child endangerment after being involved in a car crash in Thousand Oaks on March 8, according to Ventura County Assistant Sheriff Gary Pentis.

Attorneys begin closing arguments in William Ayres trial

As reported in the San Mateo County Times

Closing arguments are expected to conclude today in the trial of Dr. William Ayres, the once-prominent child psychiatrist accused of lewdly touching half a dozen boys under the guise of medical necessity.

Prosecutor Melissa McKowan and defense attorney Doron Weinberg began their closing statements Monday in San Mateo County Superior Court. Ayres, 77, faces nine counts of lewd and lascivious conduct with a minor younger than 14. The charges are based on the accusations of six former patients who argue that they were molested by Ayres between the ages 9 and 13.

McKowan said Monday that a 10th charge had been dropped during the course of the trial that stemmed from the accusations of a man referred to in court as Eric B., who testified that Ayres masturbated him during a physical exam when he was 13. He originally was going to testify that a second incident had occurred, McKowan said.

She told the jury Monday that Ayres performed physical and genital exams exclusively on male patients because he is a pedophile — a psychiatrist who desired to undress, touch and see the bodies of young boys. She referred to the exams he conducted as "sloppy, drop your pants and sit on the table" procedures.

"If genital exams are necessary in the diagnosis of adolescent children with psychological or mental health issues, why would you only conduct those exams on boys?" she asked the jury.

McKowan urged the jury to consider why Ayres kept poor notes of the exams and the unusual conditions under which he gave them. She also pointed out that no witness ever testified for the defense that Ayres taught the importance of physical exams at UC San Francisco, something he told the court last week that he had done.

Judge Beth Freeman issued jury instruction before closing arguments. She told the jury that four former patients who accused Ayres of molesting them but whose charges fall outside the state's statute of limitations can be considered in deciding if Ayres has a disposition to commit sexual offenses, or if their testimony can show that Ayres had a plan to lewdly touch the in-statute accusers.

Weinberg told the jury that there is simply no evidence Ayres committed a crime. He said the case rests entirely on memory, asking jurors to recall the testimony of memory expert Dr. Elizabeth Loftus.

"This case is about memory and memory alone," Weinberg argued. "There is no physical evidence."

[...]

Trial for psychiatrist Dr. William Ayres, accused of molestation begins

Report from the San Mateo County Times

After two years of events worthy of a prime time legal drama, embattled child psychiatrist Dr. William Ayres will finally stand trial Monday. He is accused of molesting seven of his young male patients.

Ayres, 77, was a prominent member of the San Mateo medical community and served as president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

He also performed physical examinations and inspected the genitalia of many of his juvenile psychiatric patients.

The once well-respected doctor was arrested in April 2007 and charged with 14 counts of lewd and lascivious acts with three victims, ages 9, 11 and 12 at the time of the alleged abuse.

The case's publicity brought forward four more accusers, bringing the number of Ayres' felony molestation counts to 20. He was freed on $750,000 bail.

The shocking story made international headlines, and the trial beginning Monday is expected to draw more public attention.

"We are exceedingly pleased that we are now on the doorstep of getting justice," San Mateo County Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said Friday.

A trial judge will be selected by Judge James Ellis in San Mateo County Superior Court in Redwood City on Monday morning.

Wagstaffe predicted jury selection and pretrial motions would take two weeks, but that the entire trial would last eight to 10 weeks.

Ayres practiced for decades in San Mateo County, seeing patients referred to him
through local school districts and the county's juvenile court, in addition to his private practice.

[...]

Police first began investigating him in 2002 after being told by a man who was a patient of Ayres in the 1970s that the doctor had molested him on multiple occasions. But the case had to be dropped after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling effectively changed the statute of limitations on such cases.

Childhood molestation can only be brought by victims who are younger than 29 or whose alleged abuse occurred after Jan. 1, 1998.

The San Mateo Police Department reopened the case in March 2006, at the urging of a friend of one of the victims to seek out other possible victims who fell within the legal statute of limitation.

That friend was New York-based freelance writer Victoria Balfour, who made it a personal crusade to unearth possible molestation victims of Ayres and help authorities build a case against him.

A search warrant was executed for Ayres' records, and a list was compiled of more than 800 patients.

Prosecutors believe they know of at least 39 former patients of Ayres who had been molested by him, but most did not fall under the state's statute of limitations.

After seven months of exhaustive and painful interviews with patients on the list, police took Ayres into custody at his San Mateo home on April 5, 2007.

Ayres' medical license was suspended, and has since expired.

On April 28, 2007, the child psychiatrist accused of molesting dozens of pre-adolescent boys in San Mateo County for decades declared his innocence of the multiple counts against him.

Now, more than two years later, the once-prominent child psychiatrist's fate will likely be left to a jury.

[...]

Ayres was known nationally as one of the country's top child psychiatrists; he was just as well respected on the Peninsula where he ran a private practice for decades.

He was probably one of fewer than 10 San Mateo County psychiatrists with a subspecialty in child and adolescent psychiatry, according to San Mateo County Medical Association Executive Director Sue Malone.

He told colleagues he performed medical examinations because that was the way he had been trained. He had done his residency in the early 1960s at the Judge Baker Center in Boston, one of the country's premier centers for the study of child psychology.

While most child psychiatrists admit that administering physical exams to patients is uncommon today, many professionals defend the practice as another instrument in a psychiatrist's toolbox.

A spokeswoman from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, of which Ayres was president for more than a decade, told MediaNews that performing physicals on patients in a psychiatric setting can be "consistent with good medical practice."

Wagstaffe said he expected attorneys on both sides to present expert opinions on the matter.

While the passing of time between charges and trial can often damage prosecutors' cases, Wagstaffe said all their witnesses were ready to go.

"This case is more than ripe for trial," he said.

Anna Nicole's doctors Sandeep Kapoor and Khristine Eroshevich charged in her death

As reported in the Independent, psychiatrist Khristine Eroshevich has been charged with others for misconduct in the death of Anna Nicole Smith. Documents obtained after Smith's death showed Eroshevich authorized all 11 prescription medications found in the model's hotel room the day she died. Most of the drugs were prescribed in the name of Stern, her lawyer-turned-companion, and none were prescribed in Smith's own name.

Anna Nicole Smith's boyfriend Howard K. Stern and two doctors have been charged with giving thousands of prescription drugs to the former Playboy Playmate in the years leading up to her fatal drug overdose in 2007.

Stern and doctors Sandeep Kapoor and Khristine Eroshevich were each charged yesterday with three felony counts of conspiracy and several other charges of fraudulent prescriptions. Prosecutors said the doctors gave the drugs — including opiates and sedatives — to Stern, who then gave them to Smith.

The prescriptions were issued between June 2004 and January 2007, just weeks before Smith's death.

"These individuals repeatedly and excessively furnished thousands of prescription pills to Anna Nicole Smith, often for no legitimate medical purpose," California Attorney General Jerry Brown said in a statement.

Brown's spokesman, Scott Gerber, told The Associated Press that Stern and Kapoor surrendered last night and posted $20,000 bond, and that Eroshevich will surrender Monday. An arraignment date was not set.

The medical examiner's office has said Eroshevich, a Los Angeles psychiatrist and friend of the starlet's, authorized all the prescription medications found in the Hollywood, Florida, hotel room where the 39-year-old Smith was found unresponsive shortly before her death in Feb. 8, 2007.

Eroshevich's attorney, Adam Braun, acknowledged his client wrote some of the prescriptions using fictitious names for Smith, but said that the intent wasn't to commit fraud.

"It was done for privacy reasons," Braun told the AP. "She did the best she could under difficult circumstances in the best interest of the patient."

Braun said Eroshevich began treating Smith following the death of the playmate's son in September 2006. The doctor traveled on several occasions over a six-month period to the Bahamas where Smith was living with Stern and wrote the prescriptions.

The criminal complaint also alleges Kapoor wrote prescriptions for Smith under a patient alias Michelle Chase. Prosecutors allege the doctor gave her excessive amounts of sleep aids, opiates, muscle relaxants and methadone-like drugs used to treat addiction, knowing she was an addict.

Messages left with attorneys for Stern and Kapoor were not immediately returned.

Brown said Eroshevich and Kapoor "violated their ethical obligations as physicians, while Mr. Stern funneled highly addictive drugs to Ms. Smith."

The criminal complaint includes eight other felony charges, including obtaining fraudulent prescriptions and unlawfully prescribing a controlled substance. In all, Stern faces six felonies and the doctors each are charged with seven. Prosecutors did not immediately know how many years in prison they faced if convicted.

Rumors swirled for weeks after Smith's death, but police cleared those around Smith of any wrongdoing and the medical examiner's probe deemed it an accidental overdose.

Because the playmate was found unresponsive in a hotel on American Indian land, the case was handled by tribal police and their exemption from public records laws kept most of the investigation from being made public.

Documents obtained by The Associated Press after Smith's death showed Eroshevich authorized all 11 prescription medications found in the model's hotel room the day she died. Most of the drugs were prescribed in the name of Stern, her lawyer-turned-companion, and none were prescribed in Smith's own name.

The quantity was staggering. More than 600 pills — including about 450 muscle relaxants — were missing from prescriptions that were no more than five weeks old. Ultimately, it was a syrup — the powerful sleeping aid chloral hydrate — blamed with tipping the balance in the toxic mix of drugs and causing her death.

Stern, who initially claimed he was the father of Smith's infant daughter, Dannielynn, appeared distraught as he spoke last year at a memorial marking the one-year anniversary of Smith's death.

"Few people who knew Anna might not realize how smart she actually was because unless she wanted you to know you didn't know," Stern said.

Stern, who came to the Bahamas with Smith during her pregnancy in 2006, gave up custody of Dannielynn in spring 2007 after DNA tests proved Smith's ex-boyfriend Larry Birkhead was the father.

Dannielynn has been named the sole heir of her late mother's estate, with Birkhead and Stern as co-trustees. Dannielynn could inherit millions of dollars if the estate wins an ongoing court fight over the oil fortune of Anna Nicole's late second husband, J. Howard Marshall.

3 Skilled Nursing Facility staff arrested for drugging deaths of patients

Report from thje Kern Valley Sun

Attorney General Jerry Brown today announced the arrests of a nurse, physician, and a pharmacist of the Kern Valley Healthcare District's Skilled Nursing Facility for “forcibly administering psychotropic medications for their own convenience, rather than for their patients’ therapeutic interests.” The Attorney General said these actions are alleged to have resulted in the deaths of three residents.

Taken into custody earlier today, Feb. 18, by California Department of Justice special agents were Gwen Hughes, the former Director of Nursing at the Skilled Nursing Facility of the Kern Valley Healthcare District in Lake Isabella, on charges of elder abuse and assault with a deadly weapon; Debbi Hayes, the former pharmacist at KVHD, on charges of elder abuse and assault with a deadly weapon; and Dr. Hoshang Pormir, a staff physician at Kern Valley Hospital, who was serving as the medical director of the Skilled Nursing Facility, on charges of elder abuse.

“These people maliciously violated the trust of their patients, by holding them down and forcibly administering psychotropic medications if they dared to question their care,” Attorney General Brown said. “This is appalling behavior, which amounts to assault with a deadly weapon.”

According to the statement issued by the Attorney General's office, Hughes, upon taking over as Director of Nursing in September 2006, ordered that Alzheimer’s and other dementia patients be given high doses of psychotropic medications to make them more tranquil and easy to control. It goes on to say, “She ordered the administration of these medications to patients who argued with her, were noisy, or who were otherwise disruptive.” Two patients who resisted were held down and forcibly given injections.

The complaint also alleges that Hughes directed Debbi Hayes, the hospital pharmacist, to fill prescriptions for these psychotropic medications. Hayes wrote and filled these prescriptions without first obtaining a doctor’s approval, the complain said.

According to complaint, Pormir approved these psychotropic medications only some time after they had been administered and without examining the patients first and determining whether these psychotropic medications were medically necessary.

Investigators allege that several of these patients had medical complications as a result of being given these psychotropic medications, including lethargy and the inability to eat or drink properly. It is believed that that three patients died and one patient suffered great bodily injury as a result.

The case came to the attention of authorities in January 2007, when an ombudsman reported to the Bakersfield office of the California Department of Public Health that a patient in the Skilled Nursing Facility had been held down and given an injection of psychotropic medication by force.

The Department of Public Health immediately sent an investigative team with a doctor, a nurse, and a doctor of pharmacology. They determined that 22 patients, including some who were suffering from Alzheimer’s at the Skilled Nursing Facility, were being given high doses of psychotropic medication not for therapeutic reasons, but to simply control and quiet them for the convenience of the staff.

The Department of Public Health issued a Certificate of Immediate Jeopardy which resulted in the immediate dismissal of the Ms. Hughes. The matter was then turned over to the California Department of Justice, Bureau of Medi-Cal Fraud and Elder Abuse.

Special Agents from the Bureau of Medi-Cal Fraud and Elder Abuse began a year-long investigation, with the co-operation and assistance of the Department of Public Health and the administration of the Kern Valley Healthcare District.

Pamela Ott, CEO at the time, left the district in May 2007. Current KVHD Board of Directors Chair Kay Knight said, “A lot of people don't understand that this happened more than two years ago and is not going on now.”

Chet Beedle, Chief Financial Officer, reported that CEO Rick Carter and Board of Directors spokesperson Victoria Alwin were unavailable. He added that he was prohibited from commenting on the arrests and that a formal statement was coming.

A search warrant was served on the facility in August 2008, resulting in the seizure of 36 patients' medical files and records.

Criminal charges were filed in Kern County Superior Court and the defendants are being held in Kern County Jail in Bakersfield. Pormir is charged with one felony count of causing harm/death of an elder of dependent adult. He is being held on $400,000 bail. Hughes and Hayes are each charged with two felony counts, one count of causing harm/death of an elder of dependent adult and another felony count of assault with a deadly weapon other than a firearm of great bodily force. The trio will be arraigned in Superior Court in Bakersfield Friday morning. If convicted, the defendants could face up to 11 years in prison.

The case is being prosecuted by the Attorney General’s Bureau of Medi-Cal Fraud and Elder Abuse, with the co-operation and assistance of the Kern County District Attorney’s Office.

Medical board seeks to yank license of former UCSC psychiatrist over sex acts

A Report in the Mercury News

The state medical board is seeking to revoke the license of a former UC Santa Cruz psychotherapist who authorities say admitted to having a brief sexual relationship with a 21-year-old student whom he was treating for relationship issues and an eating disorder.

Milton Peechuan Huang, 45, of Scotts Valley, was a staff psychiatrist at the Student Health Center during the alleged affair that began in November 2007 and ended the next month, according to a complaint filed by the California Attorney General's Office. Huang resigned his half-time post with UCSC in February after the university launched an investigation that resulted in the medical board probe.

The Medical Board of California is expected to hold a hearing to determine if Huang crossed professional boundaries of therapy and committed unprofessional conduct. If found guilty, Huang's license could be revoked or suspended, or he could be placed on probation.

A spokeswoman with the Attorney General's Office said she did could not say how the university came to learn of the alleged impropriety, and a university spokesman could not immediately provide information about the case. Authorities have not identified the patient.

"We obviously take these allegations very seriously, and have cooperated fully with the state Medical Board during its investigation into this accusation," campus spokesman Jim Burns said Monday.

Huang could not be reached Monday, and an attorney who represented Huang
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during the medical board's investigation did not return several messages. Huang, who worked 5 1/2 years for the university, has maintained a private practice in Santa Cruz, but it's unclear if he is still seeing patients.

A recent posting on Jobster.com indicates Huang is "job hunting." Huang's profile on that site, as well as his own Web site, said that he is interested in the connections between technology, science and emotions.

"This includes learning something about sociology, anthropology, religion, mathematics, cognitive science, neurobiology and philosophy," his site says. "It also includes working on being more true to myself and despite failings, striving to live a better life. I practice tai chi and being a father. I continue to look at how I can best pursue creating change in myself and my personal relationships."

According to a Nov. 6 complaint signed by Barbara Johnston, executive director of the medical board, Huang admitted in an July 29 interview with the agency that he had sexual contact on at least two occasions with the patient, who was first referred to him in January or February 2007. On one occasion, he said the patient told him she was sexually attracted to him.

Students being seen by campus psychotherapists have to transfer treatment to the chief psychiatrist or be referred to a private practice over the summer, so the woman asked to be transferred to Huang's private care in July, the complaint says. After several months of weekly appointments, Huang said the two began sharing "each others' thoughts and emotions" during a Nov. 2 session he described as one of "self-revelation."

The complaint said Huang acknowledged that session was "his first boundary crossing," and said the two started talking to each other on the telephone and exchanging text messages, though he resisted physical contact for two more weeks. During a Nov. 16 session at his office, however, Huang said they both disrobed and touched each other.

At the following session, Huang said he handed his patient a booklet titled "Professional Therapy Never Includes Sex," to which he said she replied, "Shouldn't we have sex first?" The doctor described the next two sessions as "emotionally tense" as they discussed possibly ending their relationship.

Still, Huang said he agreed to the patient's request to hold their Dec. 21 therapy session in her Santa Cruz apartment, where he said they exchanged gifts before entering her bedroom. Huang told the medical board the patient performed oral sex on him and snapped a photo of him standing by her car before he left, after which he said the two did not speak again.

Huang said he did not bill the patient for that session or the preceding one because they were "informal," but all others, including the Nov. 16 session when the two disrobed in his office, were billed for 50 minutes of time.

Since July 2007, the medical board has filed 240 cases of alleged physician misconduct, according to the Attorney General's Office. Thirty-two of the licenses were revoked, but 91 doctors were placed on probation and 87 others were subject to various forms of reprimand.