Vista Del Mar Hospital Employee Arrested For Sexual Assault Of Psychiatric Patients

A Report from KEYT TV3 news

Police arrested 37-year-old Juan Pablo Valencia of Ventura Thursday on charges of sexual assault and rape of hospital patients.

Victim after victim came forward since the first incident was reported in October 2014—each with almost the same story. They were psychiatric patients at Vista Del Mar Hospital in Ventura and say Valencia sexually pursued them and continued to do so after their release.

The first victim reported the assaults occurred in 2013, with the rest of the victims coming forward in February 2015.

Valencia was initially arrested on January 2015 on the 2600 block of N Ventura Avenue. He was again arrested Thursday on the 600 block of Count Square Drive.

He is being held at Ventura County Jail under numerous sexual assault charges including rape of an intoxicated and institutionalized person.

The investigation is ongoing and anyone with information regarding sexual misconduct by the suspect is urged to contact the Ventura Police Department at 805-339-4328.

N.J. medical bribe scheme reached grand scale

Selections from the extensive report on NewJersey.com

The first hint of the vast bribery scheme came with the arrests of a North Jersey doctor and three businessmen who, authorities said, found a way to turn a diagnostic lab with offices in Parsippany and Garfield into a virtual gold mine.

Two years later, federal prosecutors in Newark have racked up convictions of 38 people, including 25 doctors from New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, in what is believed to be one of the largest — if not the largest — laboratory bribery prosecutions in the United States, both in terms of money and the number of physicians caught with their hands out.

“To our knowledge, this is the largest number of medical professionals ever prosecuted in the same case,” U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman said last week.

“It shows how pervasive this practice can be. It has also made people in the profession sit up and take notice and made the deterrent message that much louder,” he said.

In recent weeks two doctors, one weeping and both remorseful, have been sentenced after helping prosecutors catch others in cases that add to the broadening panorama of corruption.

By the numbers

• 25 doctors and one physician’s assistant pleaded guilty to accepting bribes.
• 16 of the doctors live in New Jersey; seven in New York; and two in Connecticut. The physician’s assistant is also from New Jersey.
• 12 other defendants who worked at Biodiagnostic Laboratory Services have pleaded guilty.
• The amount of bribes pocketed by individual doctors ranged from $10,500 to $1.8 million.
• In return for bribes, the doctors referred over $100 million in blood tests to the lab.
• So far, 12 doctors have been sentenced to terms ranging from one year of probation, for a cooperator, to more than three years in federal prison and fines of up to $75,000.

The government is seeking a combined forfeiture of more than $87 million from the 38 defendants, including $50 million from former BLS owner and president David Nicoll and $25 million from his brother, Scott Nicoll.

And it’s not over. Additional arrests of doctors who profited from the scheme are anticipated, prosecutors say.

Here is the section we are interested in from this extensive report on this large and complex scheme

A psychiatrist from Fort Lee, who practiced in Paterson, and a doctor from Ramsey are among 12 physicians who have already been sentenced. The psychiatrist, Claudio Dicovsky, admitted accepting $220,000 from BLS, but put a halt to the payments long before the feds came knocking. In January, he was placed on probation for three years, including one year of house arrest with electronic monitoring, and ordered to perform 1,500 hours of community service.

Edward Hallowell, noted Boston area psychiatrist, charged with indecent assault

report from Boston's Channel 5

A noted specialist in the fields of attention deficit disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is facing charges related to the alleged groping of a woman.

Dr. Edward M. Hallowell, who was in Waltham District Court on Monday for a hearing on the charge of indecent assault, is accused of squeezing the buttocks of a makeup artist last October. Hallowell, a psychiatrist and instructor at Harvard Medical School, was videotaping an interview in Watertown. The woman, whose name was redacted from the police report, filed the charges about a month after the alleged incident.

She said that Hallowell put his hand on her shoulder and touched her. "He followed my shape and he took his time," the police report says.

When interviewed, police said he called the incident a "terrible misunderstanding." “My client has a long and distinguished record in his field," said William Crowe, Hallowell's attorney. "It was not his intention to offend anyone and he is troubled his actions were perceived in any way as inappropriate. We are confident that Dr. Hallowell will be cleared and this matter will be resolved in his favor," Crowe said.

Hallowell is the founder Hallowell Center for Cognitive and Emotional Health in Sudbury.

Psychotherapist accused of sexually assaulting court-referred patient

From the report on Michigan Live

A Flint-area psychotherapist is behind bars after authorities claim he sexually abused a patient who was referred to him by the court. Hugh McQuade of Burton was arraigned Wednesday, April 29, on 14 counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct. Authorities claim he coerced a Genesee County probationer into sex acts.

Genesee County Sheriff Robert Pickell said the 46-year-old victim was on probation following her conviction on a felony cocaine charge and was ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation. Pickell said the woman, who is not being named because she is the victim of an alleged sex crime, went to McQuade, who practiced at the Oakland Psychological Clinic, to fulfill the terms of her probation.

McQuade, 67, allegedly exposed his genitals to the woman while at the clinic, according to Pickell. The actions then allegedly evolved into groping and oral sex, the sheriff said. Pickell said he believes there were at least 14 separate incidents of inappropriate sexual contact between McQuade and the victim."She was forced into doing it," Pickell alleged.

Representatives from the clinic declined to comment on the case. The clinic's website lists McQuade as a staff member at its 2222 S. Linden Road location in Flint Township.

Pickell said his office became aware of the allegations after the victim was arrested for violating her probation by having a drug relapse. The sheriff said McQuade was arrested within two hours of the victim notifying his office of the incident. The victim is still in custody for the suspected probation violation.

A search warrant was executed and Pickell claimed his investigators discovered sexually explicit photos and videos involving McQuade and the victim. There was no attorney listed on file for McQuade.

The incident remains under investigation, and Pickell said he believes at least one other woman may have been victimized. "He's a wolf in sheep's clothing," Pickell said of McQuade. McQuade is held on $20,000 bond for each count. The charges carry a mandatory 15-year minimum prison sentence if convicted. Pickell said roughly half of McQuade's patients were court-referred.

[...]

The rest of the article was an attempt at damage control regarding court appointed psychotherapists.

Child molestation case against child psychologist Kenneth McPherson is moving out of limbo

From the Augusta Chronicle (See the link for a photo)

Psychologist Kenneth McPherson, 58, was named in two indictments that accuse him of committing acts of child molestation in 2005, 2008, 2010 and 2011. McPherson has pleaded not guilty in Richmond County Superior Court.

Since 2011, the criminal cases have been placed on trial calendars but later postponed. In January, Assistant District Attorney Rex Myers and attorney Kirk Gilliard presented an order to Chief Judge J. Carlisle Overstreet to put McPherson’s cases on the dead docket because the prosecutor could not find several necessary witnesses.

Although the order was signed and dated Jan. 12, it wasn’t filed with the clerk’s office until Wednesday, when a motion requesting the cases be removed from the dead docket was also filed. According to the motion filed by Assistant District Attorney Natalie Paine, the witnesses have been located and interviewed.

Although McPherson wasn’t indicted until 2011, parents of some of his patients warned authorities that something was wrong in 2005. The mothers of two boys reported inappropriate sexual behavior that the children said they learned at McPherson’s office. But one of the boys was unable to communicate with a forensic child interviewer, and the second child’s statement was not thought to be strong enough to file charges.

In early 2011, however, more specific allegations were brought forward and sheriff investigators obtained search warrants for McPherson’s Central Avenue office. Investigators reported finding sexually explicit materials and a photograph of a child dressed only in underwear that had been taken in the office.

McPherson was indicted June 7, 2011, on seven counts of child molestation and one count of sexual exploitation of a minor. Overstreet, who is assigned to preside over the case, granted McPherson’s release on a $200,000 bond Aug. 16, 2011.

McPherson was licensed in 1990 in Georgia to practice psychology. His license expired Dec. 31, 2012, according to the Secretary of State’s office.

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

From the Texas Tribune. More information in the original report

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

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

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

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

Universal Health Services says it's under criminal investigation

From a Report in the Philadelphia Inquirer

Individual hospitals in the behavioral health unit of Universal Health Services Inc. have long been dogged by federal investigations into their billing practices, but the King of Prussia company disclosed Tuesday in a regulatory filing that it was under criminal investigation at the corporate level.

The Securities and Exchange Commission filing updated legal matters noted in UHS's Feb. 26 annual report.

"UHS and its subsidiary facilities have cooperated with the investigating agencies and will continue to do so," the company said in a statement. "Due to the pendency of this matter, we are unable to make any comments about specific matters."

In the SEC filing, the company said it was not clear if the investigations would result in financial penalties.

UHS shares closed down $2.26, or 1.9 percent, to $117.71 on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday.

In the Philadelphia region, UHS owns Brooke Glen Behavioral Hospital in Fort Washington; Fairmount Behavioral Health System and Friends Hospital, both in Philadelphia; the Horsham Clinic in Ambler; KeyStone Center in Chester; and Hampton Behavioral Health Center in Westhampton, according to its annual report.

Friends Hospital, on Roosevelt Boulevard, is the only local facility listed as under investigation in UHS's annual report. The 219-bed facility, which UHS acquired in 2010 when it bought Psychiatric Solutions Inc. for $2 billion, received U.S. Department of Justice subpoenas in 2010 and 2011, covering periods before UHS ownership.

In addition to disclosing that the investigations of Hartgrove Hospital, in Chicago, and others now includes UHS, the company's SEC filing said that in March two additional hospitals that treat people for addiction, depression, and other mental illnesses had received subpoenas,

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General issued the latest subpoenas for certain documents covering the period since 2008 to Central Florida Behavioral Hospital and University Behavioral Center, both in Orlando.

Twenty-Three Defendants – Including Nine Doctors – Charged With Enterprise Corruption in Massive $7 Million Medicaid Fraud

From this press Release from the BROOKLYN DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE in the State of New York

Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson, together with United States Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General New York region Special Agent in Charge Scott J. Lampert, New York City Human Resources Administration Commissioner Steven Banks and the New York State Acting Medicaid Inspector General Dennis Rosen, today announced that nine doctors are among 23 defendants named in a 199-count indictment that alleges they participated in a massive scheme in which they lured people recruited from low-income neighborhoods, homeless shelters and welfare offices to corrupt medical clinics for unnecessary tests with the promise of free footwear such as sneakers, shoes and boots. District Attorney Thompson said, “These defendants allegedly exploited the most vulnerable members of our society and raked in millions of dollars by doing so. The many poor people who were allegedly targeted at homeless shelters, welfare offices and soup kitchens and referred to as ‘guinea pigs’ by the defendants were exploited for hours, if not days, just because they needed a pair of shoes. That so many doctors allegedly participated in this elaborate scheme to defraud a health care system designed to help the poor is truly disgraceful.” [...] In some cases, the patients were referred for psychiatric care or pain management. These referrals would then generate recurring visits for which they could bill. [...] It is further alleged that Herbert Meadow, MD, Renee Denobrega, NP, and physician’s assistant Matthew Jordan provided psychiatry services to patients, and charged inflated fees for abbreviated patient visits. They also referred patients to others in the enterprise for costly, frequent and unnecessary tests and procedures. Meadow was the owner of record for Community Medical Disorder P.C., and Vainer opened and was the sole signer of its bank account initially. Meadow is presently the sole signer, and both shared the profits generated by the billings.

This is a very large and complex investigation, and a lot of people were involved

Congressional hearing reveals 4 more deaths at Tomah, Wisconsin, VA Hospital

Selections from this report on the Reveal website

Four more veterans died under suspicious circumstances than previously reported at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Tomah, Wisconsin, under the leadership of its chief of staff, psychiatrist Dr. David Houlihan. The deaths, revealed in a rare congressional field hearing today in the small Wisconsin town, bring to 33 the number of unexpected deaths The Center for Investigative Reporting has found occurred during Houlihan’s decade at the helm. The medical center became known as “Candy Land” for the ease with which narcotic painkillers were prescribed.

They include Kraig Ferrington, a 45-year-old Army veteran and union plasterer who died of an overdose of seven medications prescribed by Houlihan in 2007, and three veterans that a VA pharmacist told lawmakers died in the VA parking lot in 2008 and 2009.

“We are doing everything we can to make sure these tragedies don’t happen to others,” Sen. Ron Johnson, chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, told a packed audience of 400 veterans and family members at the Cranberry Country Lodge. The hearing brought together many of the people who had suffered and complained for years about Houlihan’s practices to no avail. Members of Congress from both parties made the trip to the rural community, which had until recently been more famous for cranberries and cheddar cheese than notorious for narcotic painkillers.

[...]

Today’s hearing marked the sixth congressional hearing where overmedication and abuse of authority at the Tomah VA have been discussed since CIR revealed the problems in a story published Jan. 8.

[...]

Within a week of that story’s publication, Houlihan and Frasher were removed from their positions pending the completion of an internal investigation.

On March 10, they were placed on administrative leave after a preliminary review found that Tomah patients were 2.5 times more likely than the national average to receive high doses of opiates. On March 20, the VA told Congress that Houlihan’s boss, Tomah hospital Director Mario DeSanctis, had been “reassigned to a position at the Great Lakes Health Care System network office, a position outside of the medical center.”

The VA Office of Inspector General, the Wisconsin Department of Safety and Professional Services and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration also have opened fresh investigations of Houlihan and the Tomah VA.

Throughout the three-hour hearing, lawmakers expressed exasperation that few alternatives to narcotics are being offered. Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minn., an Army veteran, said he had been pressing the VA to adopt a more nuanced approach to pain management since 2008. [...]

Witnesses included Ryan Honl, a Gulf War veteran and West Point graduate; Noelle Johnson, a pharmacist who was fired in 2009 after she refused to fill prescriptions for high doses of morphine that she believed were unsafe; and family members of those who died, including Heather and Marvin Simcakoski, the widow and father of Jason Simcakoski, a 35-year-old former Marine who died of an overdose in the Tomah VA psychiatric ward in August.

Five arrested in East Cove Psychiatric Services investigation

As seen here

Agents with the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation executed search warrants Tuesday morning at a Kinston psychiatric facility. That afternoon, authorities arrested East Cove Psychiatric Services’ owners and operators Joanna Wolicki-Shannon and Walter Shannon. Shannon, 64, faces 12 felony counts of obtaining a controlled substance by fraud or forgery and received a $180,000 bond. Wolicki-Shannon, 50, received charges of six felony counts of obtaining a controlled substance by fraud or forgery and took a $90,000 bond. According to the SBI, “The doctors wrote bogus prescriptions for phentermine, hydrocodone, Percocet, Adderall, vyvanse and Ritalin using their psychiatric practice employees and members of the office staff’s families to submit them to pharmacies to be filled. The employees picked up the prescribed drugs and delivered them to the doctors.” Agents arrested three others in connection to the case. Lisa Renay Lankford, 53, faces 18 felony counts of obtaining a controlled substance by fraud or forgery and received a $279,000 bond. Candice Raegan Hill, 35, and James Howington, 31, were charged with 10 felony counts each of obtaining a controlled substance by fraud or forgery along with 10 felony counts of trafficking opium. Hill received a $650,000 bond, while Howington received a $659,000 bond. Hill and Lankford are both former office managers at East Cove, and Howington is Hill's boyfriend. East Cove’s main office is located in the 1300 block of North Queen Street, while an additional facility is open Thursdays on Limehouse Road in Kenansville. East Cove serves Eastpointe region clients who require mental health, developmental disability and/or substance abuse services. State agents are being assisted by the FBI in the case. Throughout the day Tuesday the Lenoir County Sheriff’s Office also lent assistance at the scene. The suspects should make their first appearance in Lenoir County District Court on Wednesday.

Crime, Drugs And Dead Amish Baby: How A Criminal Underground Is Linked To Harmful Prescriptive Practices At A Wisconsin Veterans Affairs

An excellent report by Benjamin Krause of DisabledVeterans.org

Investigative reporter Aaron Glantz just released the results of his damning investigation into harmful Veterans Affairs prescriptive practices linked to the death of a little Amish baby.

Glantz’s investigation revealed the story of little Ada Mae Miller. A stoned veteran driving home following treatment at Tomah VA struck her and her Amish family. The family was driving to the store in their buggy when struck by Marine Corps veteran Brian Witkus.

Baby Ada Mae and her mom were thrown from the buggy by the impact. Ada Mae was crushed under the weight of her mother, who landed on her. Her autopsy listed the cause of death as “crush injury to the chest.”

Witkus was a known drug addict receiving treatment from Tomah VA and the now infamous psychiatrist named Dr. David Houlihan. Witkus hit the Miller family while stoned on painkillers and tranquilizers from the Tomah VA. He was convicted and served three years in prison following a conviction for homicide.

The death of Ada Mae is but one example of criminal conduct linked to harmful prescriptive practices at VA that gave rise to crimes such as drug dealing, vandalism, burglary and more. Local law enforcement knew men and women committing these crimes by the nicknames “Turtle,” “Airman,” “Black Mark” and “Detroit.” On the inside, these patients of the Tomah VA facility were known as “Houlihan’s Hooligans.”

The scope of the drug problem in the sleepy town of Tomah, Wisconsin is truly shocking. According to Glantz’s report:

“In recent years, hospital staff have discovered younger veterans stealing from elderly patients and others dealing VA-prescribed painkillers and shooting OxyContin and heroin on hospital grounds. Inside the hospital, VA police reports document the fallout: strung-out veterans tossing wheelchairs across rooms and a trash can out of a window, setting fire to magazines, wielding a meat cleaver.

“A search of Tomah police records by The Center for Investigative Reporting and the La Crosse Tribune found that employees at the Tomah VA had called 911 more than 2,000 times in the past five years, seeking local law enforcement help with cases of battery and burglary, an attempted kidnapping and 24 unexpected deaths.”

This report is a must read for any veteran advocate or veteran concerned about doping practices at Veterans Affairs facilities across the nation. Glantz covers the soup-to-nuts implications of the harmful practices at the Tomah VA facility and digs deep into the criminal underbelly of Tomah, Wisconsin.

READ IT: The death of baby Ada Mae and the tragic effects of addicted veterans

The Myth of the Chemical Cure: The Politics of Psychiatric Drug Treatment

Video presentation by UNE Center for Global Humanities and its founding director, Anouar Majid, host Joanna Moncrieff on "The Myth of the Chemical Cure: The Politics of Psychiatric Drug Treatment." Just under 1.5 hours

How the American opiate epidemic was started by one pharmaceutical company

An extended article investigating a corrupt pharmaceutical company Here are some snippets. Well

The state of Kentucky may finally get its deliverance. After more than seven years of battling the evasive legal tactics of Purdue Pharma, 2015 may be the year that Kentucky and its attorney general, Jack Conway, are able to move forward with a civil lawsuit alleging that the drugmaker misled doctors and patients about their blockbuster pain pill OxyContin, leading to a vicious addiction epidemic across large swaths of the state.

A pernicious distinction of the first decade of the 21st century was the rise in painkiller abuse, which ultimately led to a catastrophic increase in addicts, fatal overdoses, and blighted communities. But the story of the painkiller epidemic can really be reduced to the story of one powerful, highly addictive drug and its small but ruthlessly enterprising manufacturer.

On December 12, 1995, the Food and Drug Administration approved the opioid analgesic OxyContin. It hit the market in 1996. In its first year, OxyContin accounted for $45 million in sales for its manufacturer, Stamford, Connecticut-based pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma. By 2000 that number would balloon to $1.1 billion, an increase of well over 2,000 percent in a span of just four years. Ten years later, the profits would inflate still further, to $3.1 billion. By then the potent opioid accounted for about 30 percent of the painkiller market. What's more, Purdue Pharma's patent for the original OxyContin formula didn't expire until 2013. This meant that a single private, family-owned pharmaceutical company with non-descript headquarters in the Northeast controlled nearly a third of the entire United States market for pain pills.

[...]

Starting in 1996, Purdue Pharma expanded its sales department to coincide with the debut of its new drug. According to an article published in The American Journal of Public Health, “The Promotion and Marketing of OxyContin: Commercial Triumph, Public Health Tragedy," Purdue increased its number of sales representatives from 318 in 1996 to 671 in 2000. By 2001, when OxyContin was hitting its stride, these sales reps received annual bonuses averaging over $70,000, with some bonuses nearing a quarter of a million dollars. In that year Purdue Pharma spent $200 million marketing its golden goose. Pouring money into marketing is not uncommon for Big Pharma, but proportionate to the size of the company, Purdue’s OxyContin push was substantial.

[...]

The state of Kentucky's lawsuit against Purdue Pharma is not the first legal trouble the company has run into. In 2007, in United States of America v. The Purdue Frederick Company, Inc., Purdue and its top executives pleaded guilty to charges that it misled doctors and patients about the addictive properties of OxyContin and misbranded the product as "abuse resistant." Prosecutors found a "corporate culture that allowed this product to be misbranded with the intent to defraud and mislead." Purdue Pharma paid $600 million in fines, among the largest settlements in U.S. history for a pharmaceutical company.

[...]

Kentucky is filing a total of 12 claims against the company, including false advertising, Medicaid fraud, unjust enrichment, and punitive damages. In total the suit could cost Purdue Pharma $1 billion (which is just one-third of its annual revenues from OxyContin).

No state has been more devastated by the nationwide opiate problem than Kentucky. Much of the eastern part of the state and the Appalachians has watched as men, women, and teenagers fell victim to the potent pain pills. There were several different gateways — back injuries, operations, parents' medicine cabinets — but all of them led to an implacable addiction that rivals that of the hardest street drugs. And that’s the rub. Because there was simply so much OxyContin available for over a decade, it trickled down from pharmacies and hospitals and became a street drug, coveted by teens and fiends and sold by dealers at a premium (prices often shot up well over $1 a milligram, pricing the popular 80mg tablets at over $100 for a single pill).

Whatever the gray areas on OxyContin's many paths to perdition, the statistics on the first decade of this century bear out a staggering epidemic. From 1999 to 2010, the sale of prescription painkillers to pharmacies and doctors' offices quadrupled. In the exact same time span, the number of overdose deaths from prescription painkillers also quadrupled, rising to almost 17,000.

To call this a coincidence would be analogous to declaring no connection between loosening enforcement on drunk driving laws and observing a sudden increase in deaths caused by drunk driving. It goes almost without saying that these figures dovetail seamlessly with the release of OxyContin and Purdue's marketing timeline, which hit hardest in the early 2000s.

Big Pharma Is America’s New Mafia

We just came across this well documented column in the Daily Beast

Here's a snippet:

“Much of what the drug industry does fulfills the criteria for organized crime in US law,” Dr. Gotzsche said in a recent interview. “And they behave in many ways like the mafia does, they corrupt everyone they can corrupt, they have bought every type of person, even including ministers of health in some countries… The drug industry buys the professors first, then chiefs of departments, then other chief physicians and so on, they don’t buy junior doctors.”

Gotzsche isn’t the only one accusing pharmaceutical companies of wrongdoing beyond the marketing malfeasance they’re famous for. In Australia, during the Vioxx class action suit brought against Merck, company emails were released revealing that Merck employees planned to “neutralize” and “discredit” doctors who criticized the drug. “We may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live,” a Merck employee wrote, according to The Australian. Apparently, uncooperative physicians were targeted to lose academic appointments and research funding for telling the truth about the negative side effects they observed.

This is troubling—but even more so in light of the fact that it’s now widely accepted that prescription drugs can be dangerous and over the years dozens have been recalled. “Our prescription drugs are the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer. Our drugs kill around 200,000 people in America every year, and half of these people die while they do what their doctors told them—so they die because of the side-effects,” said Dr. Gotzsche in his recent interview. “The other half die because of errors—and it’s often the doctors that make the errors because any drug may come with 20, 30 or 40 warnings, contraindications, precautions…and then the patients die.”

This is a hard pill for any of us to swallow. We should be able to trust our doctors, who should in turn be able to trust “the science.” As amusing as Oliver’s “epic takedown” of doctors was, the trouble isn’t physicians prescribing a new drug because a drug rep brings us a platter of tacos, the problem is whether the drugs we have to choose from are truly safe and effective in the first place.

Psychiatrist William Lewek Pleads Guilty to Hiding Matthew Straton's Body

As reported by Time Warner Cable News in Rochester, NY.

A guilty plea today from the Rochester psychiatrist accused of hiding the body of Matthew Straton in his backyard.

William Lewek, 62, pleaded guilty to tampering with physical evidence and driving while ability impaired.

Lewek was arrested in January of 2014 after investigators found the body of Matthew Straton partially buried in the backyard of his Rowley Street home. Straton dissappeared in October of 2013. Today's plea follows months of legal proceedings including an application for Lewek to enroll in a Judicial Diversion Program for drug treatment.

The trial was scheduled to begin Monday.

Jurors to decide fate of South Florida psychiatrist, others in Medicare fraud trial

Highlights from an extended report in the Miami Herald

Barry Kaplowitz was a psychiatrist with a “robotic” signature who signed off on thousands of bogus treatments at a Hollywood psychiatric facility that bilked Medicare for millions — even when he was out of the country, prosecutors say.

“It’s not just any kind of signing; it’s robo-signing,” Justice Department prosecutor Andrew Warren declared during closing arguments at his Miami federal trial.

[...]

On Tuesday, Miami federal jurors resumed deliberating the fate of Kaplowitz, 54, an Aventura psychiatrist who worked part-time as the medical director of Hollywood Pavilion’s outpatient facility, and two other defendants on charges of conspiring to defraud Medicare and related offenses.

[...]

The other defendants are Melvin Hunter, 63, a Broward resident who worked as an admissions supervisor for Hollywood Pavilion’s inpatient facility, and Tiffany Foster, 49, an Alabama resident accused of taking bribes to refer mental health patients.

A fourth defendant, Christopher Gabel, 62, of Davie, the former chief operating officer, pleaded guilty in November to conspiring to commit healthcare fraud and pay kickbacks to patient recruiters. Gabel, who is serving a six-year prison term, testified that Medicare beneficiaries — including drug addicts with disability status — were admitted regardless of whether they qualified for treatment or even saw a doctor.

The latest trial followed the 2013 conviction of Hollywood Pavilion's chief executive officer, Karen Kallen-Zury, of Lighthouse Point, who was found guilty along with three other employees of conspiring to bilk $67 million from Medicare by filing phony claims for mental health services from 2003 to 2012. Medicare was tricked into paying $40 million to Hollywood Pavilion. Of those defendants, Kallen-Zury received the longest sentence: 25 years.

During the six-week trial, prosecutors presented evidence showing that Kaplowitz generated $6.5 million in false claims for Medicare patients who did not need psychiatric treatment, resulting in $3 million in tainted income for Hollywood Pavilion between 2008 and 2011. The psychiatrist was paid $1,250 a month over that period for showing up one day a week to sign charts and other paperwork to justify 2,800 false claims to Medicare, prosecutors said.

[...]

The prosecution of Kaplowitz, Hunter and Foster was the latest crackdown by the Justice Department and U.S. attorney's office against operators of mental-health facilities accused of fleecing the Medicare program.

Three previous major prosecutions led to the convictions of about 100 clinic operators, doctors, therapists and patient recruiters at American Therapeutic, Biscayne Milieu and Health Care Solutions Network in South Florida.

Several of those convicted defendants testified at the latest trial. Among them: Dr. Alan Gumer, a former medical director at the Hollywood Pavilion facility who is serving a 21/2-year sentence in the American Therapeutic case, and Keith Humes, a Hollywood Pavilion patient recruiter who is serving a seven-year prison sentence stemming from another Medicare fraud offense.

Psychiatrist Dr. Francisco J. Pages Called 'Clueless' About Drugs

As reported by WUSF News

Another corrupt shrink on the drug company payroll

A long-time Miami-area psychiatrist who prescribes heavy-duty drugs in abundance has not been doing it safely, the Florida Board of Medicine said Friday.

Dr. Francisco J. Pages, charged with mismanaging the care of nine patients, needs to be evaluated to see what his knowledge level is, the board decided at a meeting in Stuart. Pages needs training to make up the deficits and close supervision by another psychiatrist for at least two years, the board said.

“I’m not sure this physician understands the multiple medications he’s prescribing,” said board member Dr. Bernardo Fernandez of Coral Gables. “Some of these patients are on seven, even 10 medications. Sometimes he prescribes a medication that counteracts the medications (the patient is) already on.”

Dr. Zach Zachariah of Fort Lauderdale pulled no punches. “If you look at this case, it portrays a physician who is clueless, absolutely clueless,” he said.

Pages said very little, leaving that to his attorney.

“Uninsured, homeless citizens rely on Dr. Pages. He sees the patients no one else truly wants to see,” the lawyer, Philip Goss, said.

Goss said that while his client was “embarrassed” to be called before the Board of Medicine, he sees his problems not as lack of skill but as “improper record-keeping and lack of attention to detail.”

The Board of Medicine didn’t buy it. “It’s not inattention to detail,” said Dr. Sarvam TerKonda of Jacksonville. “It’s inappropriate prescribing.”

Regardless of their status, patients deserve the proper medicine, said Dr. Fernandez.

[...]

The board rejected a settlement negotiated between Pages and the Florida Department of Health as being insufficient. To the original terms -- a reprimand, $25,000 fine, some courses and two years’ probation – the board added an evaluation of Pages’ skills by a special team from University of Florida.

Technically, the psychiatrist could reject that offer and insist on a formal hearing, but attorney Goss said after the hearing that Pages would probably accept it.

The psychiatrist, who used to have an office, now practices only in hospitals, Goss said. He did not say which ones. The state DOH web site lists him as having privileges at six hospitals, but the list is clearly out of date since one of them has closed.

Pages was reported to DOH by the state Agency for Health Care Administration after his Medicaid prescribing patterns caused alarm, state records show. Pages lost the right to participate in the Medicaid program.

But not Medicare. Pages showed up as a fairly prolific prescriber for Medicare patients in ProPublica’s "Dollars for Docs” project, in which reporters analyzed the prescriptions filled for Medicare patients in 2012. ProPublica's searchable database shows Pages was responsible for about 15,000 claims for about 1,000 patients at a cost of $3 million. Among Florida psychiatrists, some wrote more prescriptions, but only one cost taxpayers more.

Pages is among the doctors who received money as a consultant for pharmaceutical companies, according to the ProPublica database. His two largest benefactors were Eli Lilly, which paid him about $20,000 for speaking in 2009-10, and Pfizer, from which he received about $16,000 in 2010 and smaller amounts in recent years, since the state investigation of his prescribing patterns began.

Man sentenced to 17 years in prison for childmolestation of his own daughter. Judge outraged at the man's psychiatrist

As reported in the Daily Telegraph

The Judge in the case had especially harsh words for the psychiatrist assigned to the case.

A truck driver will spend at least 17 years in jail for the sexual abuse of his daughter in one of the longest sentences handed down to a paedophile father in Australia.

In sentencing the 49-year-old man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his daughter, Judge Paul Conlon said it was what the community expected.

[...]

Judge Conlon, who has a ­reputation for handing down tough sentences to child sex offenders, said the truck driver had exploited her youth “in the worst possible way”.

“He has groomed his own daughter, turning her into his sexual play thing,” the judge said.

He was critical of psychiatrist Dr Olav Nielssen who told the court the repeated sexual abuse over seven years had been “opportunistic”.

Judge Conlon said the psychiatrist had seemed to treat “without any critical evaluation” the man’s comments that he had trouble “showing his feelings” to his daughter and had not known how to express himself.

“In my view, it is inappropriate to use the word ‘opportunistic’ when dealing with persistent sexual abuse of a child over a period of seven years. I am unable to have much confidence in this future risk assessment,” Judge Conlon said.

His daughter, now 28, went to Queensland police in 2007. The ­father was sentenced in Queensland to a maximum of four years with a non-parole term of just one year four months after telling the psychiatrist that “he and his daughter had a very close and open relationship and that he really loved her”.

He had pleaded guilty to three counts of raping his daughter.

[...]

The U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois filed a single felony charge against Dr. Michael Reinstein, a Chicago psychiatrist took kickbacks for prescribing an antipsychotic drug

As reported on ProPublica

Be sure to the original for many extar links related to the story

A former Chicago psychiatrist who was the nation's top prescriber of the most powerful and riskiest antipsychotic drug intends to plead guilty to a federal felony charge of taking kickbacks from its manufacturer in exchange for prescriptions, court records show.

The U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois filed a single felony charge against Dr. Michael Reinstein this week for taking $2,000 in November 2009 from drugmaker Teva "in return for Reinstein's referrals of patients" for clozapine prescriptions.

Clozapine, also known as Clozaril and FazaClo, is approved to treat schizophrenia patients who don't respond to other medications. But it can have dangerous side effects, including seizures, inflammation of the heart muscle, and a drop in white blood cells. The drug is considered particularly risky for elderly patients.

A note in court records says that Reinstein intends to plead guilty at his arraignment next Friday. The action was first reported by the Chicago Tribune.

Reinstein's prescribing patterns have been detailed in two ProPublica reports.

In 2009, ProPublica and the Chicago Tribune reported how in one year Reinstein prescribed more of the antipsychotic clozapine to patients in Medicaid's Illinois program than all doctors in the Medicaid programs of Texas, Florida and North Carolina combined. Autopsy and court records showed that at least three patients under Reinstein's care had died of clozapine intoxication. At that time, Reinstein defended his prescription record, arguing that clozapine is effective and underprescribed.

Then, in 2013, as part of a ProPublica investigation into Medicare's failure to monitor problem prescribers, we reported that Reinstein prescribed even more clozapine in Medicare's prescription drug program for seniors and the disabled. Medicare continued to let him prescribe in the program even after the U.S. Department of Justice accused him of fraud and Illinois' Medicaid program suspended payments to him.

The U.S. Attorney's office declined to discuss Reinstein's upcoming plea. Reinstein's attorney, Terence Campbell, did not immediately return a phone call from ProPublica seeking comment. He told the Tribune on Thursday that Reinstein was "working toward resolving the issues raised by the government and hopes to put this episode behind him soon."

The Tribune reached Reinstein, as well, yesterday. He would not discuss the criminal case but denied any payments from Teva, clozapine's manufacturer, were for prescribing the drug. The doctor instead said the money was for lectures he gave.

In November 2012, the federal government filed a civil fraud lawsuit against Reinstein, saying he "received illegal kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies and submitted at least 140,000 false claims to Medicare and Medicaid for antipsychotic medications he prescribed for thousands of mentally ill patients in area nursing homes."

Last August, Illinois medical regulators indefinitely suspended Reinstein's medical license after determining that Reinstein received " illegal direct and indirect remuneration" from the maker of generic clozapine, did not consider alternative treatments for his patients, and disregarded patients' well-being. In response to the medical board's accusations, Reinstein's lawyers invoked his right against self-incrimination.

Early last year, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., the maker of generic clozapine, agreed to pay more than $27.6 million to settle state and federal allegations that it induced Reinstein to prescribe the drug.

Reinstein's prescribing of clozapine appears to have declined after our 2009 articles about him. From 2007 to 2009, he wrote an average of 20,000 Medicare prescriptions annually for clozapine and the brand-name version, FazaClo. That figure dropped to about 8,000 in 2012, according to data obtained by ProPublica.

Judge ponders psychiatrist's admission that he helped bury the body.

From a Report from New York's Democrat and Chronicle

Much more information and video at the link

Monroe County Court Judge Christopher Ciaccio has postponed a decision on the admissibility of statements Dr. William Lewek gave to Rochester police.

The psychiatrist is awaiting trial on accusations that he buried the body of Matthew Straton, 32, in the backyard of Lewek's home on Rowley Street in October 2013. Lewek, a certified addiction counselor, allegedly told Rochester police that Straton, 32, died in the home.

At issue in court Wednesday was the admissibility of statements Lewek, 63, gave to police. Police investigator Nicholas Mazzola previously testified that Lewek led police into his backyard on Jan. 15, 2014, pointed out a mound of debris and dirt and said that beneath that mound was the dead body of Straton.