Parents sue University of Colorado over death of son, implicate Psych Medication

As seen in the Colorado Daily News

Ben Stattman was one month shy of graduating from CU-Boulder when he was found dead in his apartment on April 13, 2005.

The 28-year-old molecular biology major bled to death from self-inflicted wounds.

Now his parents are suing Wardenburg Health Center, saying the CU health center misdiagnosed their son's mental illness and prescribed pills that pushed him over the edge.

In October, Ken and Carol Stattman of Colorado Springs filed a malpractice suit against CU in Boulder County District Court, claiming Wardenburg wrongly diagnosed their son with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and prescribed medication that led to his suicide.

CU will file a formal response to the suit early next week.

The university was “heartbroken when Ben Stattman took his life,” said CU System spokesperson Michele McKinney, but is not responsible for his death.

“The university believes that its health-care providers are not responsible for his tragic suicide and will be asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit in the upcoming weeks,” said McKinney.

Ken Stattman says Wardenburg's alleged misdiagnosis and prescription led to Ben's downward spiral.

“They were treating him for a condition he never had, which in our view caused him to have this breakdownŠ” said Ken Stattman.

The “breakdown” Ken is referring to happened six months before Ben's suicide, when Ben was hospitalized at Boulder Community Hospital for three to four days.

According to Ken, BCH found that Ben had a psychotic disorder.

But after Ben was released from the hospital, Wardenburg continued to treat him for ADHD, not psychosis or depression, according to Ken.

McKinney says Ben wasn't a Wardenburg patient in the year before he killed himself.

“In April 2004, the Wardenburg Health Center discharged Benjamin as a patient,” said McKinney.

Ken says Ben continued to fill a prescription from Wardenburg.

“His medication is more recent than that,” said Ken.

Wardenburg had prescribed Ritalin and Straterra for Ben's ADHD diagnosis. Bottles of the prescription pills were found next to his body.

Toxicology reports showed Ben “did not have anything elevated (in his blood stream) other than what was prescribed,” at the time of his death, said Ken.

The family's attorney Tom Beltz contradicted earlier reports that said the Stattmans are asking for more than $100,000.

“At this point there's not a specified amount that we're requesting,” Beltz said.

Beltz said that some Colorado law provisions place a cap on the amount of claims that can be made against a government entity, and he's investigating whether or not those provisions apply to CU.

A lifelong resident of Colorado Springs, Ben served in the Navy for three years immediately after high school, touring through the Mediterranean, the Baltic and the Caribbean. He moved back to Colorado Springs after his service and lived with his parents while pursuing a general studies associate degree at a local community college.

Ken said he never saw any signs of depression or mental illness in Ben when he lived at home.

After graduating from community college, Ben came to CU-Boulder to complete an undergraduate degree.

“He performed very well at school and worked in the summer,” said Ken. “He didn't appear to be out of the norm in any way.”

Ken declined to say what triggered Ben's first visit to Wardenburg.

Ben lived alone in an apartment on Aurora Avenue, where he was found dead.

He had been scheduled to graduate that May.

Had he lived, he planned on working in a biology research lab while pursuing an advanced degree, said Ken.

Ben's parents continue to live in Colorado Springs. His sister Rachel, who is one-and-1/2 years older, lives in Lakewood, Colo.

Ken said that filing the lawsuit - and re-hashing the past - has been emotionally draining.

“We're not trying to remember this, we're trying to get over it,” he said. “It's very difficult to lose a child.”

Doctor accused of trafficking psychiatric and street drugs from home

As seen ion the Dallas Morning News

A 53-year-old doctor being investigated by police on allegations of running a makeshift pharmacy out of his northeast Dallas home was arrested on charges that he was growing marijuana in his back yard.

Dallas police removed about 100 tablets of nearly two dozen drugs from the home of Paul Halebian. Texas Medical Board records list his home in the 4400 block of Abrams Road near Mockingbird Lane as his primary practice site.

When police, acting on a tip that Dr. Halebian was trafficking in illegal prescriptions, arrived at his home Nov. 7, they saw marijuana plants in his back yard "tall enough to be seen from the alleyway," the police report states.

Dr. Halebian was arrested on charges of felony possession of marijuana between 5 and 50 pounds and was released after posting $1,500 bond the next day, county records show.

When confronted by a television news crew Tuesday afternoon, he denied that he was operating an illegal pharmacy.

"That is a lie," Dr. Halebian said. "That is not true."

Police said the house, where the doctor lives with his wife, was cluttered with evidence, including prescription pads in the doctor's name, as well as prescription bottles labeled with various people's names. They also found copies of prescriptions he apparently had already filled.

Police found whipped cream canisters and evidence that he had been inhaling the vapors to get high. While police were talking to the doctor, he removed two such whipped cream canisters from his pockets.

"When confronted about these, suspect wasn't sure how they ended up in there," the police report said.

Among the drugs seized were Cialis, Ritalin, Ambien and various antibiotics and other common medications for a variety of ailments.

"You can't operate a retail pharmacy out of your home," said Jane McFarland, chief of staff for the Texas Medical Board, which regulates Texas physicians.

A doctor practicing out of his or her home is rare but not unheard of, she said.

Ms. McFarland said that she could not comment on any ongoing investigations of the doctor but that his record included no disciplinary actions.

"When a physician gets into the criminal justice system, it would be something that the board would open a high-priority investigation on," she said.

Cleo Halebian, 80, the doctor's mother, lives a few blocks from her son's home. She said that she didn't know anything about illegal drugs at the home and that her son "goes to work every morning," although she couldn't say where.

"My children are pretty much grown, so I let them do what they're going to do," she said.

Dr. Halebian interned at what is now Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York after graduating from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, records show.

Supplier to settle Medicaid fraud case for $49.5 million

As reported in the Chicago Tribune

One of the nation's leading suppliers of pharmaceutical services to the elderly has agreed to pay $49.5 million to settle large-scale Medicaid fraud claims, federal officials announced Tuesday.

The fraud claims were contained in lawsuits filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago by the federal government and two whistleblowers who formerly were employees of Omnicare Inc., based in Covington, Ky.

The lawsuits charged that Omnicare gave Medicaid patients Ranitidine capsules instead of less expensive tablets of the same drug; Fluoxetine tablets rather than cheaper Fluoxetine capsules; and two 7.5-milligram Buspirone tablets instead of the less costly single 15-milligram tablets.

Switching the form of the drugs increased the amounts Omnicare charged Medicaid by millions of dollars, officials said.

Ranitidine is generic Zantac, an antacid, and Fluoxetine is generic Prozac, an antidepressant. Buspirone is generic Buspar, an anti-anxiety medication.

U.S. Atty. Patrick J. Fitzgerald announced the settlement, saying that with heavy financial penalties and "the increasing willingness of corporate insiders to report fraud, companies that cheat federal and state governments risk, at a minimum, potentially crippling financial losses."

Omnicare said in a statement that it had "cooperated fully with the review of these matters" and that it was "pleased that the matter has been resolved." It said safety was never an issue in the dispute.

Omnicare, a Fortune 500 company traded on the New York Stock Exchange, said that there had been no finding or admission of wrongdoing and that it had agreed to settle "to avoid expensive and time-consuming litigation."

The $49.5 million settlement amount was to be divided between the federal government and 42 states. Illinois is to receive $2,568,762, according to the U.S. attorney's office.

2nd International Psychiatric Convention to be held in Katmandu

As seen in this report

The 2nd International Convention of the Psychiatrics is to commence in Kathmandu from November 17.

The three-day Convention with the motto of 'Social Conflict and Psychological Health: Challenges for the Psychiatrics' is being organised by the SAARC Psychiatric Federation.

According to the spokesperson of the Convention Dr. Saroj Prasad Ojha, the Convention will focus on issues related to possible effect of the decade-long conflict in the social live and the ways of prevention.

A 15-member managing committee constituted under the convenorship of Senior Psychiatrist Prof. Dr. Mahendra Kumar Nepal of the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital has completed all necessary preparation for the Convention.

Various international officials including President of the World Psychiatrist's Association Prof. Juan E. Mezzich will be taking part in the programme to discuss on the possibility of their role in present pretext of Nepal.

A total of 200 Psychiatrist's from the USA, European Union, Australia and SAARC countries are expected to participate in the Convention.

This would seem to be one way to avoid those pesky protesters that seem to manage to show up is slightly less remote places. But you never know ....

Foster Kids Medicated For Money?

From CBS2 out of Los Angeles

"I think I was on about maybe 20 medications," said former foster child Trayvon Walker.

"Ten years ago if you had given a 3-year-old or a 5-year-old or even a 12-year-old an anti-psychotic, you'd lose your license,” said Dr. Elizabeth Roberts, Child Psychologist.

"I was on 20 drugs at the same time,” Foster Child Alexandra Lee said.

"Today it's standard practice," Roberts said.

Trayvon Walker is trying to recall all of the medications he was given as a foster kid. This list is long.

"I was on Depakote, Respirdal, Wellbutrin, Tripital, Clonidnine, Dispar," Walker said.

And he's not alone.

"In one day I would say probably 20 different medications," Lee said.

All three are current or former foster kids. All of them claim they're victims of overmedication.

"It caused me to have kidney renal failure,” Walker said.

The past three months, we've reviewed confidential medical records of some of L.A.'s foster youth. And what we found is disturbing.

A 9-year-old taking four medications at the same time… A 6-year-old on Prosac.

And there's this -- a 3-year-old on the anti-schizophrenic medication ability.

"It's become completely out of control."

This veteran social worker, who would only talk if we concealed her identity and disguised her voice, says in her opinion the drugs were not always given for medical reasons. Sometimes for convenience...

”It's just shutting them up and shutting them down. That's it. It's just a chemical restraint. We don't know what else to do with you.”

And sometimes for money… Because most foster kids who receive drugs are classified as problem children and by contract, group homes get paid more for those kids.

"When you have a group home full of kids sleeping, you don't have to deal with them," Walker said. "It's a good thing for them, they get paid, they get a nice fat paycheck."

"I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised," Roberts said.

Dr. Elizabeth Roberts agrees. She's a child psychiatrist, who treats foster children.

"Everybody's winning and they get a higher paycheck and if the kid gets a social security check on top of that well that's all the better," Roberts said.

In L.A. County the number of medicated foster kids runs anywhere from three to 6,000 depending on who you talk to. Statewide, no one seems to know the exact numbers. But they have jumped considerably in the past five years.

There are built-in safeguards. A judge has to approve medications.

We showed the 3-year-old’s medical record to Judge Michael Nash, whom presides over L.A.'s family dependency court. He didn't handle this case and says he may have done it differently.

“A 3-year-old would cause me much more cause for concern and I would not automatically sign that with out further inquiry,” said Judge Michael Nash, Family Court.

But we uncovered audits of L.A.'s foster youth group homes where dozens of kids we found to be medicated without court authorization or with little doctor oversight.

“We've seen situations where that has in fact occurred and we have prohibited those doctors with working with those kids in the future,” Nash said.

But that's if their complaints are ever heard. Some fear foster kids are trapped in a system too quiet to be heard.

“Who listens to a foster kid,” roberts asked. “They're dismissed, they are a forgotten child in this equation.”

Their cries may soon be heard. State legislators are holding hearings to see how to better monitor the drugs. And Judge Nash told me that any allegations of overmedicating brought to his attention are fully investigated.

VIDEO: Grandfather speaks out against Mass Child Screening - Indiana

Quoted shamelessly from the Psych Data Website

Ed Sparks, an Indiana grandfather of a 6 year old 1st grader, is speaking out against Indiana's plan for mass mental screening of children.



See more information here:
http://www.psychsearch.net/teenscreen.html

Mr. Sparks had more to say.

You can find the rest of his speech here: http://www.edalert.com/edissues/TEENSCREEN/speech.php

If any of your friends, family or associates live in Indiana, they need to be informed of what is going on there .

FOR INDIANA RESIDENTS ONLY, please sign the Indiana petition which you can find here: http://www.jackiewalorski.com/

You can find out more about Teen Screen through this fine list of news articles

Psychiatrist charged in sex case

As seen in this report

A Wauwatosa psychiatrist has been charged with having repeated sexual contact with one of his patients.

Charles Michael Grade, 43, faces three counts of sexual exploitation by a therapist, a felony punishable by up to 12½ years in prison. County jail records indicated Friday evening that Grade was in jail and that no bail had been set.

Grade has been a licensed psychiatrist since 1991, according to state records. He did his residency at the Sinai Samaritan Medical Center and is listed as a consulting psychiatrist at the Marquette University Counseling Center.

He was arrested Wednesday, just hours after what a criminal complaint charges was his third sexual contact with the same patient. Grade's practice is listed at 1220 N. Dewey Ave. He lives in Milwaukee.

According to the complaint filed Friday, Grade had sex with a female patient shortly after she began seeing him in June 2005. She saw him as a patient once a month from then forward, the complaint says, and she told detectives that they had sexual contact "during a number of their therapy sessions," including occurrences in early October and again Wednesday.

The complaint also indicates Grade spoke with a detective Wednesday evening and admitted "a sexual conversation . . . that he knew was inappropriate," and touching his patient, that day.

This raises interesting questions, such as:

- What contact has Grade had with Marquette students?
- Has Grade ever been allowed to be alone with Marquette students?
- What is the hiring process and depth of psychological evaluation of Marquette counselors, not to mention staff in general?

Has there been an ongoing problem at the Marquette University Counseling Center?

Defense puts snag in 'Pill Doctor' trial

As reported in the Lowell Sun

A Superior Court judge will consider dismissing the case against former Lowell psychiatrist Dr. Michael Mavroidis -- charged with illegally writing prescriptions for drug addicts then billing Medicaid -- after his attorneys claimed Lowell police may have destroyed documents showing addicts were paid for information against the man known on the street as "The Pill Doctor."

In an 11th-hour motion that brought the Mavroidis' trial to a grinding halt Thursday, defense attorney Frank Reardon argued that prosecutors from the state Attorney General's Office may be guilty of "prosecutorial misconduct" for ignoring a 2003 court order to provide documents that show all payments to witnesses and those who were part of the two-year investigation.

Reardon suggested some of the documents may have been destroyed as part of "three-year rule" in which documents three years or older are shredded, but "I find it hard to believe they would destroy things in an ongoing investigation."

Reardon told Middlesex Superior Court udge Hiller Zobel that the documents are important so that he can impeach witnesses who may testify against Mavroidis at trial.

Assistant Attorney General John Clark told Judge Zobel, "We have no reason to believe that anything material in this case has been destroyed."

Lowell Police Captain William Taylor said Friday no documents have been destroyed.

"This is just a tactic the defense is trying to use, and that's OK," said Taylor. "We have all the documents and they will be given to the judge on Wednesday."

Clark explained that every year Lowell police spend "tens of thousands of dollars" usually in small bills for "drug intelligence." He said the money is spent on controlled drug buys and "gratuities" toward drug addicts who provide the police with information.

Two weeks ago Lowell police spoke to a new witness in the case who was given $40, Clark said. That information was provided to Reardon and sparked his inquiry.

Clark said he is not contesting the late disclosure, but noted "we could go forward without any of those witnesses. It does not go to the core of the Commonwealth's case."

But Zobel suspended the trial and ordered both sides to return next Wednesday Nov. 15 to provide a status on the documents.

"This may turn out to be absolutely nothing or something serious. It is not a frivolous motion," Zobel told the lawyers.

Investigators had alleged that Mavroidis had been supplying prescription narcotics and painkillers to street-level addicts for years. He is known to work with heroin addicts in Lowell who are taking methadone to treat their addiction, according to sources. On the street, Mavroidis was known as "Dr. Feel Good," or "The Pill Doctor," sources say.

Mavroidis, 58, of Campton, N.H., is on trial facing an initial 20 counts of a 66-count indictment for allegedly violating both the Medicaid False Claims Act and the Controlled Substance Act. Mavroidis was arrested in September 2001 after a two-year investigation after prosecutors accused him of writing medically unnecessary prescriptions for drugs such as Klonopin, Ativan, Xanax and OxyContin and then billing Medicaid for the costs. In one case, prosecutors allege Mavroidis used the drugs to extort oral sex from at least one patient.

Mavroidis, who owned the Lowell Psychiatric and Behavioral center at 817 Merrimack St. in Lowell, denies the allegations. Shortly after his arrest, the state Board of Registration of Medicine suspended his license and revoked his Drug Enforcement Administration number.

Blue Cross Blue Shield mental health self-assessment forms questioned

We are not so sure what to make of this report

The state's largest health insurer wants mental health patient to fill out a detailed self-assessment, including questions about their sleep patterns, sex lives and any suicidal thoughts.

The questionnaire from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts aims to assess a person's state of mind and the quality of mental health care the patient is receiving, The Boston Globe reported. But psychiatrists are questioning whether the forms are accurate or too intrusive.

"Who in their right mind would fill out such a form?" said Chatham psychiatrist Dr. Marc Whaley, president of the Southeastern Massachusetts Psychiatric Society. "It's just an intrusive invasion of privacy."

About 100,000 Blue Cross subscribers will receive the form, which was described in a mailing last week to psychiatrists and other mental health counselors. The questions address a range of emotions and conditions, from guilt and worry to substance abuse and sexual satisfaction.

The questionnaires are voluntary, though if a large number of a therapist's or doctor's patients decline to fill them out, the practitioner could fail to qualify for annual increases in Blue Cross reimbursement.

Questionnaires will only be seen by the patient's therapist and the insurer, Blue Cross officials said.

The insurer said it's trying to treat mental health care the same as other medical care, and needs ways to measure results. The company said the forms will eventually allow it to establish quality rankings for doctors and to reimburse providers based on performance.

The Massachusetts Psychiatric Society has raised concerns about using about patient answers about moods and feelings as the basis for quality rankings and reimbursement.

"We are skeptical that any measures they are going to do will be truly meaningful," said Dr. Eugene Fierman, president-elect of the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society. "In general medicine, you can measure deaths in surgery and adverse outcomes. It's very difficult to do that in mental health."

Elementary Student Threatened With Psychiatric Evaluation After Visiting 9/11 Websites

Yes, the website is political and opinionated. But the incident is an example of using psychiatry to enforce a political point of view.As seen in this report:

The fifth grade student who was recently disciplined for accessing 9/11 websites at school, such as Infowars.com, may now be forced to undergo psychiatric evaluation.

10 year-old Mark was not punished, the discipline report shows, for breaking school rules or being "off task," but rather because his principal says the webpages in his cache were "inappropriate."

Sites listed in the report include '9/11 Cover-Up', 'Alex Jones' Martial Law' and 'NY 9/11 Truth', among others.

According to the Steiner Ranch Elementary Student & Parent Handbook, students are restricted from accessing websites considered to be 'abusive, obscene, sexually oriented, threatening, harassing, damaging to another's reputation, or illegal'-- thus Infowars.com and other websites were not against school rules.

Instead, punishing "inappropriate" behavior is a subjective assault on the free speech of students like Mark. True free speech and any expression of alternate viewpoints is-- unofficially-- a threat to what schools have become.

According to Mark's father, he is being made "an example for not going along with the program."

While on Alex Jones' nationally-syndicated radio program today, Mark's father said the school approached him about a complete assessment of his son's psychological make-up.

After seeing some of the questions on the test, however, his father refused. "I'm not going to subject my son to this," he told Jones. "They are criminalizing normal behavior."

Mark's father says he was put on drugs when he was younger and it made him "a zombie." His mother realized the effects it was causing and took him off the medication-- for which Mark's father is grateful.

He admits that his son is not perfect, but thinks his son's punishment was out of line.

"He is curious; he's not a follower," said Mark's father. But he was "shocked" that Infowars.com was considered to be an 'inappropriate' website. "It's outrageous," he added.

Schools already set-up student computers with strict filters that block objectionable content. Why, then, was Assistant Principal Amy Moore shocked that a legitimate website like Infowars was not blocked by such filters?

Perhaps students are meant to be fearful that any website they visit could be randomly deemed 'inappropriate', regardless of its content.

Students are already enticed by the taboo concept of blocked content on the Internet-- and schools invite trouble by setting up open time for surfing the web, despite the protection offered by content filters.

Schools should be ready, then, to be flexible with what students might see in that setting.

Instead, they seem quite willing to build up an 'ad hoc' list of miscellaneous misdeeds students will not even recognize as 'misbehavior'. How, then, will such a student recognize the justification for his punishment?

Steiner Ranch Elementary student Mark was assigned to 'detention' during recess as punishment, after being sent to the principal's office and made to sit in the hall, all for looking up information on a '9/11 cover up.'

This is just an apt example in a nation-wide pattern wherein the Thought Police suppress student's thoughts, statements and politically incorrect views and demand simple obedience.

Here's a snippet from the original report:

A fifth grader named 'Mark' reported to Alex Jones' Infowars TV show by phone that he had been sent home with a disciplinary report for visiting 9/11 Truth websites such as Infowars.com.

The 10 year-old Steiner Ranch Elementary student-- in Leander I.S.D. near Austin, Texas-- says that he was browsing such sites during his Computer Lab class period when a fellow student informed on him-- as though he were doing something wrong.

"He just ran up to my teacher in front of the whole class, saying 'he's searching terrorist stuff about 9/11'.

His teacher was "all shocked" and said, according to the student, "Mark, you shouldn't have been looking at conspiracy theory websites."

Alex Jones has confirmed the student's story

Mark said, "I was just searching the government websites which tell the truth-- which they think is a conspiracy-- and I get in trouble for it."

The student was sent to the Principal's office to face disciplinary measures. Steiner Ranch Elementary Assistant Principal Amy Moore was reportedly surprised that the school's IP filters hadn't blocked the sites.

"They should have," the Principal said to Mark while at the office.

He says that his principal checked the web history in his school web account, and was 'surprised.'

"I was going to websites that tell the truth about 9/11. She thought it was all a conspiracy; I confronted her," Mark said. "'No, it's all the truth,' you know. Bush-- and its not just him, a lot of other people-- and they're just trying to cover it up."

The assistant principal then told the 10 year-old, "Don't talk back to me" before sending him to sit in the hall and later back to class.

Psychiatrist charged in sex case

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A Wauwatosa psychiatrist has been charged with having repeated sexual contact with one of his patients.

Charles Michael Grade, 43, faces three counts of sexual exploitation by a therapist, a felony punishable by up to 12½ years in prison. County jail records indicated Friday evening that Grade was in jail and that no bail had been set.

Grade has been a licensed psychiatrist since 1991, according to state records. He did his residency at the Sinai Samaritan Medical Center and is listed as a consulting psychiatrist at the Marquette University Counseling Center.

He was arrested Wednesday, just hours after what a criminal complaint charges was his third sexual contact with the same patient. Grade's practice is listed at 1220 N. Dewey Ave. He lives in Milwaukee.

According to the complaint filed Friday, Grade had sex with a female patient shortly after she began seeing him in June 2005. She saw him as a patient once a month from then forward, the complaint says, and she told detectives that they had sexual contact "during a number of their therapy sessions," including occurrences in early October and again Wednesday.

The complaint also indicates Grade spoke with a detective Wednesday evening and admitted "a sexual conversation . . . that he knew was inappropriate," and touching his patient, that day.

Formwr psychiatrist waives jury trial in prescription-fraud case

As seen in the Lowell Sun Online

A former psychiatrist, who was well-known as a doctor who treated drug addicts in Lowell, is on trial facing criminal charges for prescribing excessive amounts of OxyContin and other prescription drugs to his drug-addicted clients while allegedly bilking Medicaid for the cost.

After more than a day of tense negotiations, Dr. Michael L. Mavroidis, 58, of Campton, N.H., yesterday opted for a jury-waived trial before Middlesex Superior Court Judge Hiller Zobel on an initial 20 counts of a 66-count indictment for allegedly violating both the Medicaid False Claims Act and the Controlled Substance Act.

The indictments were the culmination of a two-year investigation by the attorney general's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, Lowell police and state police assigned to Middlesex County District Attorney Martha Coakley's Office.

Mavroidis, who has been a doctor since 1976 and a board certified psychiatrist since 1980, was the former owner the Lowell Psychiatric and Behavioral Center at 817 Merrimack St.

When Mavroidis was arrested in September 2001, prosecutors from the state Attorney General's Office accused him of extorting oral sex from at least one patient in exchange for various prescription drugs.

Mavroidis, through his attorney, has vehemently denied the allegations, stating that he used sound medical judgment in all his prescriptions.

Since his arrest, the state Board of Registration of Medicine has suspended Mavroidis' license and revoked his Drug Enforcement Administration number, which permits him to issue prescriptions.

Prosecutors allege that between 1997 and 2003, Mavroidis wrote medically unnecessary prescriptions for Klonopin, Ativan, Xanax and OxyContin to four patients then billed Medicaid for the costs.

Investigators had alleged that Mavroidis had been supplying prescription narcotics and painkillers to street-level addicts for years. He is known to work with heroin addicts in Lowell who are taking methadone to treat their addiction, according to sources. On the streets, Mavroidis was known as "Dr. Feel Good," or the "pill doctor," sources say.

In 2003, Mavroidis' former roommate, Carl Giannelli, filed a civil lawsuit against Mavroidis claiming Mavroidis failed to treat Giannelli's drug problem and even made it worse. But Giannelli's attorney said the lawsuit was dismissed.

Testimony in the trial is expected to begin today and continue for several weeks

Are Taxpayer-Paid Pharmaceutical Drugs Worth Dying For?

A Press Release from C.E.P.T.A.

At the recent Campaign for the Effective Prevention and Treatment of Addiction conference at Gatwick, Kenneth Eckersley, CEPTA’s CEO, launched a vigorous attack on “the real reasons underlying NHS overspending and prison over-crowding”.

He pointed out that more and more prescribed drugs are curing fewer and fewer illnesses, because of the current psycho-pharmaceutical policy of disease and addiction “management” instead of the seeking of actual cures.

Eckersley said that psycho-pharm marketing heads had recognised that every time a patient is cured of his illness or an addict is cured of his habit, the pharmaceutical company loses a customer for the drug they have been supplying. As a result, it was decided that “treatment” which brings “relief” or “support” or which “manages” the illness or habit essentially throughout the lifetime of the individual, could be vastly more profitable than getting rid of the illness or addiction by curing it.

He went on to point out that this ensures the numbers of patients rise year by year, so that we continuously need more hospital premises, more equipment, more staff and of course more taxpayer paid drugs - the proof of which is plain for all to see.

“However”, he said, “there is another sinister side to the selling of drugs through the NHS”. “If”, he continued, “you were told that over 3,500 people are killed annually in U.K. road accidents, would it persuade you to give up driving? Or would you say: ‘Don’t be daft. I could never do without my car’? But if you were told that, on average, six times as many U.K. patients are killed by the side effects of legally prescribed pharmaceutical drugs - which seldom result in a cure - what would be your reaction?”

He went on to say that when “poorly”, we are regularly faced with what the pharmaceutical industry calls: “the risk-benefit” trade-off. i.e. the choice between experiencing the full benefits of a drug or being one of the 21,000 who will die from adverse side-effects.

And of course in addition to the deadly side effects, there are also the hundreds of thousands of instances of other incapacitating side-effects such as diarrhoea, vomiting, skin disorders, loss of hair and sleep, constipation, panic attacks, fits, low energy, over-activity, internal bleeding, apathy, headaches, increased blood pressure, noises in the ears and nervousness, etc., suffered every year by nearly one percent of the patient population.

As a result, we have a much better chance of being afflicted with a pharmaceutical side-effect than we have of winning the National Lottery. In fact one delegate called it “the National Health Side-Effects Lottery” where every year most U.K. families have a very good chance of one of their members experiencing a debilitating side-effect.

“Furthermore”, Eckersley pointed out, “because drug companies are now selling prescription drugs to relieve the side-effects of other prescription drugs, there are even more chances of experiencing side-effects from the extra drugs sold to counteract the patient’s other drug side-effects, etc., etc.”

“This”, he said, “is called ‘maximising sales’, and is just part of the change which started to take place in the drugs industry immediately after the last war.”

The expansion of illegal ‘recreational’ drug sales, attracted pharma’s attention to the fact that their sale of drugs was being limited to sick people, and it was decided to explore the possibility of creating a market amongst the vast majority of us who are not actually ill – including our children.

Psychiatric proposals to concentrate on the relief of symptoms rather than the curing of causes were helped by the American Psychiatric Association which was busily inventing spurious new conditions which they publish in their ever expanding ‘Statistical and Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders’ that lists conditions such as ADHD, ADD & SAD, etc.

This also attracted pharmaceutical attention to the fact that they were limiting their offerings to bodily ailments and that there was a whole new field of mental illnesses for which drugs could also likely be prescribed by their psychiatric allies and probably also by local G.Ps.

But the wide variety of anti-depressants and other psycho-active drugs prescribed on a daily or weekly basis, have produced their own new forms of side effects. Taking a knife, but most often a gun, with which to start murdering family, friends, fellow pupils and colleagues is now increasingly revealed as a response to the ingestion of psycho-pharmaceutical drugs, or a response to trying to withdraw from such a drug. Hence the rise of Prozac Victims & Survivors Groups.

Developing from these sorts of considerations there has also arisen the idea of selling drugs to help you feel “normal”!

Implementation over the last half century, of new marketing policies, coupled with the adoption of psychiatry as the principle pusher of pharmaceutical drugs, has resulted in a plethora of drugs all competing for taxpayer funds, and thus increasing the escalation of side-effect incidents from year to year.

“So it is not just illegal and licensed drugs which deprive our population of the drug-free society it needs and expects. The psycho-pharmaceutical industries, their P.R. and lobbying agencies, and their influencing of physicians, politicians and civil servants already make prescription pharmaceutical drugs an equally devastating menace to our way of life and our country’s prosperity,” says Eckersley.

The conference concluded by unanimously approving the statement:
“Addicts are the underlying cause of increasing crime and the escalating need for more and more prison places. And addict numbers will increase in prisons, in hospitals and in our communities to the degree that drug companies succeed with their plans to put every citizen on a daily drug prescription – for life.”

About C.E.P.T.A.
To create a drug-free society we need only to cure existing addicts whilst ensuring that no more youngsters take up drug usage. This means developing and promoting EFFECTIVE prevention and EFFECTIVE cures.

C.E.P.T.A. came into being when studies revealed that effective prevention and treatment had already existed in various countries for over 50 years, but were being suppressed in Europe, not only by producers and traffickers of illicit drugs, but also by commercial interests whose production levels and profitability depend upon increasing the sale of all forms of drugs, with no regard to the increasing number of addicts thus threatening our society.

C.E.P.T.A. (The Campaign for the Effective Prevention & Treatment of Addiction) was therefore founded by concerned E.U. citizens for the purpose of contradicting and exposing vested interest political lobbying and misleading P.R. campaigns which deliberately hide the failure to cure of current psycho-pharmaceutical “treatments” whilst also promoting drug liberalisation via so-called “harm reduction” and related “drugs education” - instead of providing real prevention training.

For more information, contact:

Ken Eckersley
C.E.P.T.A.
The Campaign for the Effective Prevention & Treatment of Addiction

Phone & Fax: +44 01342 811099 – 24 Hour Answering Service.
e-mail: cepta@solutionstodrugs.com
Web: http://www.solutionstodrugs.com

So how can any child of four need happy pills?

A marvelous opinion piece, as seen in the Daily Mail. A solution so simple, it's child's play ...

Now if you're all sitting comfortably, let me tell you a story about little N Mollie Murphy. You see, four-year-old Mollie is feeling a bit sad.

She didn't get into the same school as her old friends from nursery and she misses them. She's struggling to make new friends and sometimes wets the bed.

Her little round face, surrounded by wispy blonde hair, should be as cheerful as the smiley badge embroidered next to the two owls on her school sweatshirt. Instead, Mollie looks close to tears.

So what should Mollie's mother do? In desperation, she decides to visit her local doctor for advice and - hey presto! - this is where the story takes a sinister turn.

The GP diagnoses that Mollie is suffering from stress and depression, and suggests she should be packed off to see a child psychiatrist.

Oh, and for good measure, her mother is advised that a course of anti-depressants might be in order - which would surely make Mollie the youngest of the 40,000 children and adolescents we put on these drugs every year.

If, at this point, you find yourself wondering what sort of society we have become when doctors are prescribing 'happy pills' to four-year-olds, you would not be alone.

When told of her daughter's 'depression' Mollie's mother's first response was: "How can a little girl suffer from that?" It's a good question.

For whether you call Mollie depressed or just sad, the answer to her problems is on that school badge, not on a medical prescription.

She needs some owl-like wisdom from her parents and lots of smiley faces from her school mates.

Instead, she's in danger of being taught a very dangerous lesson, before she can even read or write. It's a lesson that goes like this: Got a problem? Pop a pill. Finding life hard? Blame someone else.

Treating a little child with anti-depressants because she didn't get into the school she and her parents wanted is not just ridiculous and unnecessary, it is the most shocking example yet of a culture of dependency in which life's setbacks are not simply challenges to be confronted and overcome, but are medical conditions to be diagnosed and treated by 'professionals'.

I may not be a doctor, but this I can be sure of: little Mollie will get over her temporary sadness far faster without medical intervention. She needs a dose of good parenting and common sense, not Valium.

This isn't just conjecture, it's based on personal experience.

When my husband and I took our eight-year-old daughter out of her village school because we had moved seven miles away, she thought her world had fallen apart. She cried almost every night for the first term in her new school.

I felt enormously guilty; I wavered; I considered spending the next three years driving her to and from her old school, possibly with her younger brother and sister, which could have made it seven years in all - which was absurd considering we had two excellent primary schools within an eight-minute walk of our house.

"She will get over it," said everyone from her grandparents to my best friend. It was hard to believe them, because I felt I had never done such a cruel thing in my life.

"Stick it for a term and I'll buy you some furry-topped boots,"

I begged her.

"I don't even like furry-topped boots," she sobbed untruthfully.

If there's such a thing as a gradual miracle, that's what happened. By Christmas, Rosie had found a friend at her new school.

By the next school year, she had three really close friends whom she still sees more than three years after they all went to different secondary schools.

She even forgot to ask for boots, with or without furry tops. In other words, she got over it. So will Mollie - if her parents help.

Victoria Anderson and her partner David Murphy were no doubt disappointed that Mollie did not get into East Herrington Primary School in Sunderland, but for her sake they have to do what thousands of parents do every year.

They have to swallow the disappointment and say nice things about the school and the teachers Mollie did get.

If parents bad-mouth teachers and schools in front of their children, the children feel worried and unsettled.

They may even, as Miss Anderson says Mollie does, make themselves sick because they feel torn between home and school.

Mollie's mother needs to put her annoyance about the local author-ity's school placement system behind her.

A bit of enthusiasm about the books and paintings her daughter brings home and about the decorations on the classroom walls will do wonders.

Mollie will begin to behave like a happy four-year-old girl - skipping and gossiping with her friends in the playground and telling off the boys in the classroom - only if she feels allowed to by her parents.

Right now, she feels her school is just a big problem for everyone, so she's sad and she wets the bed. She isn't being given a chance to forget the disappointment and her old, loved nursery school.

Four-year-olds readily forget and move on if they are allowed to. But being taken to the doctor has confirmed to Mollie that there is a serious problem.

Worse still, it's a problem she and her family seem unable solve on their own, and at her age that's frightening.

She'll now be waiting for the next symptom, and every time she has a nervous tummy, she'll play up to it, insisting she's too unwell go to school.

Lots of children take a while to settle into a new school. My son used to say a grave goodbye at the door of the reception class and go and stand by the end of the bookcase, as far away as possible from the other children who were sitting on the carpet. He was pretending not to be there.

What can we do?' I asked the teacher after a few weeks. Funnily enough, she didn't prescribe Valium or recommend a toddler shrink.

"It's OK," she replied calmly. "He's moving along the front of the bookcase a bit more every day. He'll soon be with us."

And sure enough, by half-term there he was, listening to a story while sitting on the carpet with all the others.

I wonder what Mollie's teacher thinks? Whatever the teacher is doing to encourage her to play with the other children, it will count for nothing if all Mollie gets at home is bad vibes about school.

No, instead of resorting to the GP or trying to force the local authority to reverse its decision about which school Mollie can attend, her mum must concentrate on helping her to make new friends.

Of course, that may not be such an easy cure. In our work-dominated society, I know it can be a struggle for mothers of very young children to be around at 3.30pm to pick up their children and thus meet other mums outside the playground.

But it's a good network to get into if you can, and one Victoria Anderson must join for Mollie's sake.

Making Mollie happy will not take a prescription pad and a good psychiatrist, it will simply take a bit of time and thought from her parents.

It means taking responsibility and getting to know a few people. It means being grown-up enough to hold your tongue about your grievances and to put your child first, with a few cheerful words about her new school.

No doubt somewhere in Mollie's mum's mind, it seemed easier to dump the whole thing on the archetypal father figure, the harassed local doctor, and get him to lean on the local education authority. But the LEA is quite rightly refusing to be leaned on and says it will not be moving her.

Mollie is four. She has two parents, a brother and a sister. The only prescription she needs is new friends to play with.

The solution is so obvious, it's child's play.

Medical claims 'mined' to find fraud

As seen in USA Today. Although they need to look as the psych diagnosis a little more carefully.

Medicare investigators in Los Angeles, using sophisticated computer technology to sift through claims data, saw an unusual pattern: A single patient had apparently undergone a diagnostic rectal-probe procedure 118 times in a year — at 21 medical facilities.

"It's unlikely that could have occurred," says Kim Brandt, director of program integrity at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. "This person would not have been able to sit on a plane."

Borrowing techniques from financial and credit services, Medicare and private health insurers are increasingly "mining" claims data for suspicious patterns, comparing practitioners with their peers and larger databases of claims.

Medicare investigators found similar cases across a group of diagnostic testing companies, which used improperly obtained Medicare patient identification numbers to bill for the exams, which were likely never performed. Problems were found with other types of tests as well. As a result, 83 diagnostic centers this year lost their billing privileges, and $163 million in payments were denied.

Without the computer program, the fraud might have gone undetected.

"I call it spider-webbing: Find one common denominator (and follow the thread)," says Brandt.

Fraud is estimated to account for 3% to 10% of the nation's $2 trillion health care spending tab. Seeing a market opportunity, such companies as Fair Isaac, IBM, ViPS and Ingenix, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, have launched fraud-detection software and systems in the past few years.

Using such a system, Independence Blue Cross in Pennsylvania flagged claims from a psychiatrist who appeared to be seeing up to 63 patients a day. An investigation found that a former patient had stolen the doctor's billing identity, set up a counseling service and billed Blue Cross for more than $1 million in services.

Aetna, which processes 170 million claims a year, says its fraud-detection software helped save it more than $89 million last year.

"The most widespread and damaging schemes are committed by a very small percentage of dishonest health care providers," says Mike Stergio at Aetna.

Data mining has been likened to a "witch hunt" by some doctors because it looks at factors that can be subjective: Is the doctor overtreating? Seeing patients too many times?

"We have zero tolerance for intentional strategies to defraud insurance companies or public programs," says Edward Hill, the AMA's immediate past president. He says systems need to get better at distinguishing fraud from inadvertent billing errors or legitimate medical treatments.

Suspension of breast groping psychiatrist continues

Another report of a psychiatrist who can't keep his hands to himself

A psychiatrist who groped a nurse's breasts and bottom after a hospital Christmas party has been suspended for another year to protect the public.

Dr Idowu Otote, of Rutland Road, Southall, was banned for 12 months after he was found guilty of serious professional misconduct in 2003 for his shameful festive frolics at the Torbay Hospital in Devon.

The GMC heard that Otote, 41, attacked the shocked nurse yards from her boyfriend's door as she walked home on her own after the Torbay Hospital party on December 18, 1999.
continued...

He was later found guilty of groping the nurse's breasts and of inappropriate behaviour towards two other nurses.

Otote even told one she would be sacked if she did not escort him to the hospital party.

He was allowed to work again providing he kept to certain conditions after he promised the GMC he had taken steps to improve his skills.

In October last year he was told he could still work provided he stayed within the NHS, practiced under a consultant and avoided private locum work.

The GMC decided Otote should be suspended for another year after ruling he had failed to keep his skills up to date and had "no insight" into his conduct.

Chairman Dr Kevin Dalton said: "The panel has noted with concern Dr Otote's own evidence which demonstrated his refusal to accept that his clinical skills will have deteriorated as he has been out of clinical practice for several years.

"The panel takes the view that Dr Otote has not demonstrated that he has kept his medical knowledge and skills up to date and adequate for safe clinical practice."

Last September the doctor refused to have his practice assessed by the GMC because it was "unlawful".

He trained as a medical officer in Nigeria before moving to Scotland in 1997, starting as a senior house officer in Lanarkshire before working at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington.

Otote will have to return to the GMC in a year with proof he has maintained his skills before the panel will decide if he is fit to return to practice.

Psychiatrist suspended for spying on cop patient

As seen in this report Of course, it pays to remember that psychiatrists have no real objective tests for their catalog of diseases. The only reason the shrink would do this is because his diagnostics tools are inadequate for the job. Useless, in fact.

A psychiatrist who hired a private detective agency to spy on a police officer because he thought he was "faking" illness has been banned from practising for two months.

Nicholas Cooling, 50, of Arundel Close, Battersea, paid for a surveillance team to follow PC Robert Millar.

Dr Cooling had been recruited by the West Midlands Police Force to stamp out the high number of cops taking early retirement through ill health.

He saw Mr Millar three times following a car crash in the line of duty in 1998.

But Dr Cooling only diagnosed him with a low level of brain injury and became convinced that Mr Millar,now 35, was looking for an easy ticket out of the force and to receive a pension through injury.

In May 2002, he decided to have the officer filmed covertly and gave an agency details of the patient, including his address.

But the General Medical Council ruled that Dr Cooling had acted inappropriately by giving out such information and found his fitness to practise impaired. He was suspended for two months on Thursday.

Dr Cooling had admitted all the charges,but denied his fitness to practise was impaired.

PC Millar has since returned to work in a desk-bound role.

Allstate Insurance Company Seeks $2.6 Million From Michigan Psych Centers

As seen in this Allstate press release

Allstate Insurance Company has filed a declaratory judgment action (DJA) against New Start, Inc., Another Step Forward, The Healing Place, Ltd., THP Intensive Services, Roman Frankel, Bruce Lessien M.D. and Thomas Kane D.O. for $2.6 million. The DJA includes: fraud, misrepresentation, corporate practice of medicine, unjust enrichment, practicing psychology without a license and illegal fee splitting.

The investigation of the practitioners and corporations began in June 2003. Frankel and the corporations – New Start, Inc., Another Step Forward, The Healing Place, Ltd. and THP Intensive Services – were responsible for treating patients with substance addiction, traumatic brain injury and/or psychiatric illness. Insureds were placed in initial care under Bruce Lessien, psychiatrist and medical director of The Healing Place, Ltd., Insureds were later discharged to Another Step Forward and New Start, under the supervision of medical director Thomas Kane, D.O. Frankel would bill for his services in addition to fees generated for the above stated programs.

The DJA alleges the corporate entities owned by Roman Frankel were not properly licensed for the services they were providing. Further, the complaint alleges Frankel is not licensed to be a psychologist in the state of Michigan nor is his degree recognized by the state. Accordingly, Allstate has filed this action to recover the money improperly collected by the defendants.

“In reviewing our records with Mr. Frankel and corporate entities doing business with him, Allstate has uncovered alleged improper billing procedures of services for which they were not licensed. As a commitment to our Allstate customers, we will diligently pursue this issue for timely resolution,” said Edward Moran, Allstate assistant vice president for Special Investigations.

Allstate alleges that fees paid to the corporations for services were to be provided to their insureds under the No Fault Act, which states automobile insurers are responsible to pay for all reasonable and necessary medical services for insureds.

As such, the DJA will demand reimbursement in excess of $25,000 as allowed by Michigan Statute for payments issued by Allstate Insurance Co. Payments issued by Allstate total $2.6 million. There have been a total of 15 claimants. Allstate filed the declaratory judgment action on Oct. 25 in Oakland County Circuit Court.

British doctors urge 'active euthanasia' for disabled babies,

While not strictly a psychiatry story, still worth noting. A data point in the debate over the question, "What is the value of a Human Being?" in Britain As seen in this Report

Doctors are urging health regulators to consider allowing the "active euthanasia" of severely disabled newborn babies.

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecology has put forward the option of permitting mercy killings of the sickest infants to a review of medical ethics.

It says "active euthanasia" should be considered for the overall benefit of families who would otherwise suffer years of emotional and financial suffering.

Deliberate action to end infants' lives may also reduce the number of late abortions, since it would allow women the chance to decide whether their disabled child should live.

"A very disabled child can mean a disabled family. If life-shortening and deliberate interventions to kill infants were available, they might have an impact on obstetric decision-making," the college writes in a submission to the Nuffield Council on Bioethics.

"We would like the working party to think more radically about non-resuscitation, withdrawal of treatment decisions, the best interests test, and active euthanasia, as they are ways of widening the management options available to the sickest of newborns."

Such mercy killings are already allowed in the Netherlands for incurable conditions such as severe spina bifida. John Harris, a member of the official Human Genetics Commission and professor of bioethics at Manchester University, welcomed the college's submission. "We can terminate for serious foetal abnormality up to term, but cannot kill a newborn," he told The Sunday Times. "What do people think has happened in the passage down the birth canal to make it OK to kill the foetus at one end of the birth canal but not the other?"

Dr Pieter Sauer, co-author of the Groningen Protocol, the guidelines governing infant euthanasia in the Netherlands, said British medics already carry out mercy killings and should be allowed to do so in the open. "English neonatologists gave me the indication that this is happening."

But the paper quoted John Wyatt, consultant neonatologist at University College Hospital, as saying: "Intentional killing is not part of medical care... once you introduce the possibility of intentional killing you change the fundamental nature of medicine. It becomes a subjective decision of whose life is worthwhile."

Simone Aspis of the British Council of Disabled People said: "Euthanasia for disabled newborns tells society that being born disabled is a bad thing. If we introduced euthanasia for certain conditions, it would tell adults with those conditions that they are worth less than other members of society.

£30m to curb sex attacks on wards for mentally ill

As seen in the Times Online in Britiain

The Government pledged £30million yesterday to increase the safety of women at risk of sexual attacks on mental health wards.

The announcement came four months after The Times disclosed the existence of a report from the National Patient Safety Agency saying that there had been at least 19 suspected rapes of mental health patients in England, and more than 100 other improper sexual incidents in psychiatric units over the previous two years.

The figures had been in the hands of ministers for months without being published. Lord Warner, the Health Minister, faced a barrage of questions in the House of Lords, where the Government was accused of inexcusable negligence.

The Department of Health will now allocate £30 million to improve safety on mental health wards, particularly for women. It also plans to increase support for patients who wish to report incidents and will issue guidance to help mental health trusts ensure allegations are managed “effectively and appropriately”.

The national director for mental health, Louis Appleby, said more needed to be done to improve safety on wards, even though he had doubts that all of the reported rapes had actually taken place.

Professor Appleby said: “Although the vast majority of mental health patients receive safe and effective care, we need to do more to prevent serious incidents from occurring and, when they do occur, we must ensure that they are dealt with effectively.

“I was particularly concerned by some of the issues raised by the recent National Patient Safety Agency report, especially the 19 allegations of rape.

“I have now collected information from the mental health trusts where these incidents are said to have taken place. Although it was not our aim to determine whether the allegations were true, we did receive details on most cases and, in my opinion, there is significant doubt in the majority as to whether any incident occurred.

“For example, several allegations were made when the patient’s mental state was severely disturbed, and the details of the allegations reflected this.” There was significant doubt in 13 of the 19 cases and too few details on the rest to make any comment.

But he added: “Despite what has been discovered about these 19 cases, I believe that the general issue of sexual safety remains important and I am determined to see that this issue is addressed.

“I am therefore proposing to take forward a series of measures to reassure patients, further improve safety and ensure that all incidents are fully investigated.

“Thanks to substantial investment, services have improved considerably in recent years. However, we must now redouble our efforts to further improve the quality of services and ensure that patients receive the best care possible.”

Mental health charities welcomed the move. Moira Fraser, head of policy at the Mental Health Foundation, said: “For too long, people with mental health problems within services have been at risk from abuse and it is heartening that this issue is now being taken seriously.

“We hope that the measures announced by the Department of Health herald the start of a process to eradicate abuse.

“The attitudes of managers and frontline staff need to be changed, patients must feel safe to report any incidents of harassment, rape or sexual assault, and any such incidents must always be taken seriously by staff and acted upon instead of being dismissed.”

Paul Farmer, chief executive of the charity Mind, said: “Mind has been highlighting the problem of unsafe wards for a long time. We are glad that moves are now being made towards better inpatient safety. We look forward to working with the Department on its guidance on improving sexual safety.

“Patients have to believe that it is worth making a complaint and that they will be taken seriously. Too often this isn’t the case, and patients feel ignored or intimidated.

“This can only be addressed by creating a comprehensive and accessible reporting system, accompanied by a culture of respect for all patients and intolerance of harassment and abuse.

“The eradication of mixed-sex wards must be an absolute priority. This is long-overdue and would go some way to reducing fear and intimidation among patients.”

Arkansas fires firm running youth lockup

We have this report from Arkansas

Arkansas terminated its contract with Cornell Cos. Inc. to run the troubled Alexander Youth Services Center on Friday after learning that employees were drugging youths to control unruly behavior — in many cases without doctors ’ orders, in violation of facility policy and against the children’s wills.

A preliminary investigation found that from Sept. 1 to Oct. 15, nurses at the center gave 63 injections ofanti-psychotic drugs that have a sedative effect, including Thorazine, to 25 children in the center’s custody.

“There is an appropriate circumstance under which you can give a chemical restraint,” said Julie Munsell, spokesman for the state Department of Health and Human Services. “Our concern is that in many of these cases, they appear not to have been appropriate.”

The internal investigation into the use of chemical restraints triggered a series of events: The Health and Human Services Department placed three Alexander employees on administrative leave, the state Board of Nursing was notified, and Gov. Mike Huckabee ordered a review of Cornell’s policies as well as an Arkansas State Police investigation into what happened.

State police investigators are working through the weekend so that they can give Huckabee a preliminary report Monday.

Munsell said her agency gave state police its investigative file, which is a foot thick.

Some state officials have complained that Alexander is unfit for children and are using this latest incident as a call to discuss alternative housing for 140 of the state’s worst juvenile offenders.

But for now, at least, the Health and Human Services Department is once again running the largest juvenile detention center in the state after having the private company in charge for five years at an annual cost of about $ 10 million. And the agency issued a moratorium on the use of chemical restraints.

Division of Youth Service Deputy Director Sid Thompson is overseeing the center and Cornell officials have agreed to help with the transition.

“Although we hired a nationally reputable contractor to provide services, this appears to be a second major breakdown in the facility’s medical system, and we are no longer confident in the management at the Alexander campus,” Health and Human Services Director John Selig said Friday afternoon. Last year, investigators with the Health and Human Services Department uncovered widespread problems with the medical system at Alexander after 17-year-old inmate Keisha Brown died from blood clots to her lungs. Brown had repeatedly complained that she was ill but some nurses and supervisors at the center did not believe her — even in the last minutes of her life.

“Some of us have had concerns with the contract ever since the incident of Keisha Brown’s death,” said Sen. Sue Madison, D-Fayetteville. “We were concerned that her medical care was not what it should have been.” After Keisha’s death, Sen. Terry Smith, D-Hot Springs, urged the Health and Human Services Department to end its contract with Cornell and blasted state officials for not better monitoring the for-profit company. Upon learning about the state’s decision Friday night, Smith said, “I told you so.

“ Apparently this company is not on top of things, and the state employees [who ] are over this are not on top of things. No one is checking on anybody, and this is what happened. It’s just terrible.”

A spokesman for Houston, Texas-based Cornell, which runs 79 correctional-type facilities in 17 states, said that the company was surprised by the state’s decision and investigative findings.

“The allegations in their announcement are inconsistent with the way we try to run our business,” said Cornell’s Christine Parker. “We will investigate [the allegations ]. Unfortunately, it appears that we will not have the opportunity to respond.”

As a matter of routine, the Health and Human Services Department reviews all incidents at Alexander that are considered “use of force,” whether that force be physical or chemical, Munsell said. As part of the review, agency officials watch any surveillance video of the incident.

“In one particular case [from September ], when we pulled the video, we were a little concerned with the administration of the chemical restraint,” she said. “Based on that one tape, we decided to do a 45-day review.”

Munsell would not give a detailed account of what happened on that video, but said that it involved one of three youths who were given forced injections without a doctor’s order. Because there were no doctor’s orders, the Health and Human Services Department reported those three cases to the Child Abuse Hotline on Thursday, and a separate investigation was under way. The youngest inmate at the center is age 12.

In a five-page summary, Health and Human Services Department internal investigators outlined several policy violations and other findings from the 45-day review: Evidence of “falsifying” doctors’ orders on at least two occasions to show that the child should receive injections “as needed.” The original orders did not include that option. Evidence from video surveillance tapes and interviews with the children that some of the inmates were given the injections against their will. Policy allows youths to refuse the injections so long as it is not an emergency situation in which the child may endanger himself or others. Physician order sheets for some of the children that did not include orders for the injections.

Eleven incidents during which the doctor gave a verbal order to use the medication but never signed any documents, which is required.

No evidence that orders for use of “PRN medications,” which means give as needed, were reviewed annually as required. No evidence that a second physician reviewed orders for forced injections as required. No evidence that an independent psychiatrist reviewed the orders for forced injections, as required to ensure the children’s right to due process. Evidence that employees did not properly document the use of the injections.

The lack of documentation made it harder for investigators to piece together exactly what happened during those 45 days, Munsell said.

Investigators interviewed six nurses, including the medical unit supervisor, and later wrote, “it appeared none had an adequate knowledge of the policies concerning the use of forced psychotropic medications or the requirements of follow-up visits, documentation and signature requirements.”

After learning about the results of the investigation, Huckabee said in a news release, “The decision to make this change has been carefully weighed and I believe immediate action is in the best interest of those children entrusted to our care.”

Over the years, the inmates at Alexander have complained that employees kicked, slapped and even threatened them with death. Others killed themselves while there.

One boy, known for days to be suicidal, was able to hang himself with a bed sheet because his guard didn’t check on him. Another boy hanged himself in the same cell just a few months later — just as the state hired Cornell Cos. Inc. to take over the facility and fix problems there.

In 2002, the U. S. Department of Justice found that dozens of problems remained. Most have since been resolved. The center also is used as an intake facility for all children who come into the state detention system.

But there are many other problems, said two state senators and Scott Tanner, a juvenile ombudsman for the state. The facility, which opened in 1918 as a girl’s juvenile lockup, would never be accredited because the buildings and design do not meet current guidelines, said Sen. Shane Broadway, DBryant.

Sen. Madison described the facility this way: “It’s terrible. It is really embarrassing. That’s where we’ve put children with problems and hope they would get better,” she said sarcastically.

“It’s really not a good facility. It’s very hard to supervise children there, really hard.”

Tanner said it is “very run down,” and that it does not have the capacity to meet the needs of all the children who go through there. Because of the campus, Tanner said that any entity running Alexander, whether it be the state or another private company, would have major problems.

“They really need to take this opportunity to dismantle the campus.”

Tanner suggests establishing several facilities in different parts of the state so that juvenile offenders can be closer to their families and communities. But that costs money and would take time to plan — as well as require approval of the Legislature.

For now, Munsell said the state plans to continue operating Alexander because there is no other facility in Arkansas that can handle that many children. “The issue of what to do with the campus itself is obviously something we have to address,” she said. “That needs to be carefully considered. The question is if not Alexander, ‘Where ? When ? Who ?’ “ Those are questions that frankly, we need a little time to answer.”

Patient Speaks Out About Accused Psychologist

As seen on WPXI

A Catholic priest with a tainted past went on to become a psychologist.

Now he is accused of sexual misconduct.

In court Thursday afternoon, psychologist Stephen Forish waived his right to a preliminary hearing and the case will now go to trial.

A patient who trusted him broke her silence only to Target 11.

The former patient agreed to talk Target 11 as long as her identity was concealed.

The woman said she's angry and upset, because she feels betrayed by the man she trusted to help her with her fears and anxieties.

The woman put her trust in Forish for more than a year.

She made weekly visits to his office in Kittanning to get help with her anxiety attacks.

The woman said she felt shame and embarrassment after watching a Target 11 investigation in September about her psychologist.

Target 11 reported that he had been arrested in Greensburg in August for allegedly propositioning a man for sex.

Target 11 also uncovered details about his past, details his patients and others didn't know anything about.

He's not only a registered psychologist in Pennsylvania. but he's also a Catholic priest with a troubled past, a priest and counselor who the patient told about all of her fears of sexual predators.

"I told him that was my biggest fear sending my child to school because of predators," said the woman.

Ten years ago, while a monsignor at a church in the Allentown Diocese, Forish was arrested and charged with promoting prostitution.

He was placed on leave.

The case went to a jury trial, and Forish was found not guilty.

He was then reinstated as a priest, but he left the Diocese to pursue his doctorate in psychology.

For the past year, he's been living at a Benedictine Monastery in Greensburg while working at a psychological practice in Kittanning.

"We made progress. I think I have a lot of anxiety issues, and we just made progress slowly. He was never judgmental or anything. Never lead on that he was a priest. I think that's why it surprised me the most," said the woman.

After the Target 11 report, Forish left the practice.

The woman is now seeing another psychologist, but she has a lot of questions about how Forish managed to obtain his position.

Target 11 checked with the state licensing agency and fount out Forish is listed as a registered psychologist since February 2005.

His license is in good standing with no disciplinary actions.

The former patient said she will be careful next time about who she tells her innermost thoughts and she plans to do her own background checks too via the Internet.

"Believe me. I'll screen the next doctor. I will. I'll type the name in the Internet because you get more information off the Internet than you do the criminal record," said the woman.

Psychiatrist Prosecuted

As repoted here. Apparently, as time went on, the patient mysteriously was diagnosed with more and more dis-orders, requiring more and more personal attention from the psych.

A Morro Bay psychiatrist is being prosecuted by the state for alleged negligence after he reportedly became infatuated with a patient and refused to end her therapy.

Douglas Peter Murphy is being accused of gross negligence and violating confidentiality, according to a complaint filed by the state Medical Board that is being prosecuted by the state Attorney General’s Office.

State prosecutor Isa Rodriguez said Wednesday he could not elaborate on the details of the case filed Oct. 25, but said he received the complaint about a year ago regarding alleged incidents that happened from 2001 to 2003.

Murphy is not facing criminal prosecution but allegedly violated state business and profession codes.

Murphy said Thursday in a phone interview that he plans to dispute the allegations and referred questions to his San Luis Obispo attorney Mark Connely, who said that his client denies any wrongdoing. Connely declined to elaborate.

State Medical Board records show Murphy has a valid physician and surgeon license that was originally issued in 1998. He has practiced locally since 2000 and has an office in Morro Bay.

The state Medical Board records showed no previous disciplinary actions against Murphy.

According to the complaint, a woman came to Murphy in January 2001 and asked to be seen every two months to obtain sleeping and panic disorder medication. She told Murphy she was receiving psychotherapy elsewhere and had been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder and borderline personality disorder, the complaint says. The complaint identified the woman only as Patient B.

At the time, Murphy worked at Coastal Psychiatric Care on Portola Road in Atascadero.

Despite the woman’s request for bimonthly visits, Murphy scheduled sessions once a month, eventually increasing them to five times a week, according to the complaint. Additionally, he diagnosed her with a range of disorders that included post- traumatic stress disorder, major depression, panic disorder, agoraphobia, obsessive- compulsive disorder, anorexia nervosa and avoidant personality disorder, the complaint said.

"As therapy continued and the frequency of the sessions increased, (Murphy) became overly involved in Patient B’s life and with her illness, to the point of infatuation," the complaint read. "(Murphy) would see Patient B outside the office at the Rock in Morro Bay, California, and on Chalk Mountain, ostensibly for therapy where they would have lunch together."

Murphy also took the patient shopping, bought her gifts, such as religious tapes and compact discs, and brought her to a church he attended, the complaint read.

"At times (Murphy) would play his guitar and sing for Patient B during therapy sessions. (Murphy) began calling Patient B by telephone at home in the early morning and in the evening along with sending sometimes lengthy, almost daily emails," the complaint read. "On the weekend (Murphy) would be in contact with Patient B by pager, telephone and email."

Murphy allegedly divulged confidential information about the woman, without her consent, to another person, the complaint said.

When the patient tried to stop therapy with Murphy after he reportedly yelled at her during a counseling session, he sent long e-mails to her, the complaint said. The woman sent Murphy six written requests asking that he stop contacting her, the complaint read.

During one of the last meetings with Murphy, which was at Chalk Mountain in Atascadero, he told her that he missed her, hugged her and kissed her on the cheek, according to the complaint.

The last time the two met was on Nov. 5, 2003. It was unclear how the therapy ended.

Prosecutors are asking for Murphy’s medical license to be revoked or suspended and are alleging Murphy violated professional rules of conduct by failing to maintain appropriate boundaries with the patient.

In addition, Murphy allegedly violated the patient’s confidentiality and failed to respect her request to end therapy.

A hearing date has not been set in the case, Rodriguez said.

Glaxo Pays $63.8 Million in Paxil Suit

As seen here:

The world's second-largest drug maker, GlaxoSmithKline PLC, has agreed to pay $63.8 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that it failed to divulge negative information about how Paxil, its star antidepressant drug, affected children.

If the settlement gets final approval, any U.S. resident who bought Paxil or Paxil CR for a minor will be eligible to be reimbursed from the fund, after roughly $16.6 million in lawyers' fees and other expenses are deducted.

Though considered a safe treatment for adults, the Food and Drug Administration has issued warnings against Paxil for children as some studies found the drug increased suicidal tendencies while having questionable effects on depression.

According to the agreement, GlaxoSmithKline denies the lawsuit's claims, but the company said it wanted to avoid a protracted legal battle. The case has been before multiple Madison County judges, due in part to turnover at the courthouse.

The suit was filed in July 2004, just weeks after the state of New York sued London-based Glaxo -- SmithKline. The suit alleged that the company touted one clinical study that showed mixed results on Paxil's use in children, while suppressing four other studies that questioned the drug's efficacy and noted an increase in suicidal thinking and behavior.

The company now acknowledges the risks of the drug.

The settlement was given preliminary approval last month by Madison County Associate Circuit Judge Ralph Mendelsohn and was unsealed Friday, records show. A hearing has been scheduled for March 9 to determine the fairness of the settlement before it is given final approval.

Parents can be reimbursed if they can prove they purchased the drug for children. Anyone who can't provide proof is still eligible for a $15 refund.

However, how much money will be available for reimbursement will depend on how many people file claims.

Attorneys' fees -- up to 26 percent of the settlement fund -- will be shared by St. Louis law firm Korein Tillery and Chicago firm Swedlow & Associates. Money also will be deducted from the settlement fund to pay for a national advertising campaign to publicize the agreement.

Neither GlaxoSmithKline nor lead plaintiffs' lawyer Stephen Tillery could be reached Wednesday.

A website -- www.paxilpediatricsettlement.com -- has been set up to act as an information clearinghouse.

N.H. Nurse Lies On Job To Get Man Committed

As seen on CBS4 in Boston, MA

A 30-year-old New Hampshire nurse was accused of lying on the job in order to get a man involuntarily admitted to a mental hospital for psychiatric evaluation. Julia Lynch of Baer Road in Rollinsford, New Hampshire was arrested for four charges: false swearing, attempted false imprisonment, stalking, and tampering with a public or private record.

Lynch reportedly filed false Involuntary Emergency Admission paperwork against a man known to her. Lynch was employed as a nurse at the Portsmouth Regional Hospital at the time that these crimes are alleged to have occurred, during October. Ms. Lynch was processed at the Portsmouth Police Department and released on $5,000 personal recognizance bail. She is scheduled for an arraignment in Portsmouth District Court on December 4th, 2006.

Therapist banned over sex with client

As seen in The Age

A psychologist has been deregistered after an 11-year sexual relationship with a female client, which he told her was part of her self-esteem-building treatment.

Ian Douglas Grant Brown, 69, began a sexual relationship with the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, after she came to see him in February 1993.

A panel of the Psychologists Registration Board heard last night that the woman had been abused in a previous relationship and was suffering from low self-confidence.

Mr Brown engaged in intimate touching, oral sex and digital penetration with the client until she stopped seeing him in December 2004.

During the 11 years, the two had dinner and drinks outside consultation times and attended football games and church services together in the company of Mr Brown's partner.

Dr Sharon Keeling, acting for the woman, said she had kept a diary in which she noted that Mr Brown had described his "sensual and sexual" treatment as unique.

"We talked about how I feel cursed and tainted and how Ian's own goodness touching mine would take that away," the woman's diary entry noted on May 6, 1993.

Dr Keeling said Mr Brown exploited the vulnerability of the woman for his own gratification and had no insight into the wrongness of what he had done.

Rob Stary, acting for Mr Brown, said his client had retired from practice this year and was seeing a psychiatrist.

He said Mr Brown's partner had left him after she found out about the sexual relationship and he had filed for bankruptcy.

Panel chairman Dr Ian Freckelton found Mr Brown guilty of multiple counts of serious professional misconduct.

"It is always upon the psychologist not to romanticise or sexualise a professional relationship. There is no excuse and it is never the fault of the client," he said.

"The behaviour of Mr Brown … is absolutely disgraceful and falls into the highest category of egregious breach of trust between a professional and a client."

Another Suicide in connection with long term psychiatric treatment

As reported in the Hindustani Times

Nipun Doshi, the boyfriend of 25-year-old MBA graduate Charisma Kadakia who jumped to death at Malabar Hill on Saturday afternoon, will probably steer clear of legal trouble as psychiatrist Dr DT Lakdawala confirmed to the police on Monday that the girl was under his treatment for the last four years.

Charisma had jumped from the fourth floor of Navyug Sagar building at Malabar Hill where Doshi lived.

According to DCP Pratap Dighavkar (Zone II), Dr Lakdawala, in a statement to the Malabar Hill police, on Monday evening, told the police that Charisma was suffering from a psychological disorder for the past six years. "We have questioned Dr Lakdawala to understand the circumstances under which Charisma took such a drastic step. The doctor told us that Charisma used to have mood swings on a regular basis," said Dighavkar.

"We have registered a case of accidental death under Sections 174 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC)," he added. Even though, Charisma jumped off the Navyug Sagar building, in the presence of Senior Inspector of Malabar Hill police station, Ishak Bagwan, the death is considered to be unnatural.

"We are also questioning Nipun and Charisma's neighbours to find out about the kind of relationship they shared. The investigations are on, although Charisma's parents do not want to blame anybody for their daughter's death," Dighavkar added.

He confirmed that the couple were seeing each other for the past three months and were planning to get married.

Neither of their parents had opposed the marriage. However, they had put the marriage on hold until Charisma's treatment was complete.

"This might possibly be the reason behind Charisma's depression that could have led her to take such an extreme step," Dighavkar said.

No direct connection that the psychiatric treatment was the actual cause of the suicide, just another one of those pesky coincidences.

Woman wanted sex change 'to become Christ'

Hearings continue in the matter of the now infamous Psychiatrist Russell Reid. As reported in the Guardian

A former patient of the UK's best-known expert on transsexualism wanted a sex change in order to fulfil her delusion that she was Jesus, an inquiry heard today.

The woman, identified only as patient D, told the General Medical Council disciplinary panel that consultant psychiatrist Dr Russell Reid had failed to recognise that she was suffering from manic depression when he gave her sex changing hormones and referred her for surgery to remove both her breasts.

Patient D told the hearing she had never been transsexual and considered it "lucky" that she was detained in a psychiatric hospital just before the operation was due to go ahead.

She said: "I think I should have been offered counselling and the possibility that it [my problem] was something else [other than transsexualism] should have been considered further."

The inquiry heard that she first saw Dr Reid in March 1996 after watching a TV programme about transsexualism, which convinced her this was the reason for her history of depression.

Dr Reid has admitted that he prescribed her with male hormones on her second appointment despite a second opinion from another psychiatrist warning that treatment should be delayed, pending further psychiatric assessment.

The second psychiatrist, Dr Dalrymple, noted there were discrepancies in her story and advised she should not receive hormones until it was clear her desire to change sex was not just a reaction to watching the TV programme.

Patient D told the hearing that by the summer of 1996 she was exhibiting symptoms of mania, including religious delusions.

Dr Reid recorded that patient D was "doing well" and "feeling better and happier", but she told the hearing "the reality was that I was in a mess".

By the time of her final appointment with Dr Reid she believed she was "communicating with people psychically", could start and stop trains with her mind, and had the power to cure people's poor eyesight.

Patient D told the hearing she thought she was turning into Jesus and that becoming a man would complete that transformation.

"I believed I was becoming Jesus, which I understand is common in manic depression, and having the sex change was part of that," she said.

Just days after Dr Reid said he was referring her for a bilateral mastectomy to remove her breasts, patient D was found wandering the streets naked and was subsequently sectioned.

Doctors at the local psychiatric hospital said she believed she was possessed by various spirits including that of her grandfather, and diagnosed her with manic depression. After treatment she no longer wished to change sex.

The inquiry heard that patient D had been treated with Prozac prior to seeing Dr Reid. Her family repeatedly expressed their concern to Dr Reid about the speed of her diagnosis and treatment, warning that she had previously convinced an eye specialist that she needed glasses when she did not.

Patient D's father wrote to Dr Reid expressing his "shock and concern" at the pace of her treatment. He wrote: "It seems clear that accepted guidelines have been ignored. It is an understatement to say your diagnosis is rushed. The risk of it all being in vain is horrifying."

Dr Reid has admitted he failed to adequately assess patient D's mental and physical health prior to prescribing hormones. He has also admitted referring her for surgery before she had lived as a man for 12 months, as recommended by international standards of care for the treatment of transsexualism.

But he denies a charge of serious professional misconduct in relation to patient D and four other ex-patients. He also denies breaching the international standards of care and providing treatment not in the patients' best interests.

The hearing continues.

Paedophile wants sex change reversed, hearing told

As seen in the Guardian - This is just wrong in so many ways.

A paedophile treated by the UK's best-known gender psychiatrist said today he wanted his sex change reversed.

The patient, identified only as C, told the General Medical Council disciplinary hearing into Russell Reid that he regretted the operation and had requested further surgery to reconstruct his penis.

The male-to-female transsexual, who lives as a man, said he had never lived full-time as a woman either before or after his sex change in 1996. The patient said he had never cross-dressed until his first appointment with Dr Reid in March 1993.

Dr Reid, who ran a private gender clinic in west London until his retirement earlier this year, is charged with serious professional misconduct in relation to his treatment of five patients.

Patient C said today he had only wanted to become a woman in order to win back his ex-boyfriend. His former partner had wanted patient C to become a "motherly figure" to his children.

The hearing was told that patient C had a history of depression and had had to have one of his testicles removed after injecting air into it in an attempt to prove his love to his ex-boyfriend.

The patient said his former partner had briefed him on what to tell Dr Reid in order to get sex changing treatment. He admitted telling a string of lies to Dr Reid, including that he had bought a bikini and habitually cross-dressed.

The inquiry was told that Patient C had concealed his conviction for indecently assaulting a 15-year-old boy from Dr Reid, but he continued to treat the patient even when the truth emerged.

Patient C was referred to two other gender psychiatrists four years after his operation because he was unhappy with the sex change.

The psychiatrists James Barrett and Don Montgomery, both from the main NHS gender clinic at Charring Cross hospital, west London, recorded that patient C looked clearly male and had a beard.

Dr Barrett and Dr Montgomery, as well as two other psychiatrists at the hospital, subsequently brought complaints about Dr Reid's practice to the GMC, which prompted the current hearing.

Dr Reid is accused of rushing the five patients into sex changing treatments without thorough assessment. He denies serious professional misconduct and breaching international guidelines on the treatment of transsexualism.

The hearing continues.

Taking your 2 month old child to a psychiatrist

As seen here

British parents are turning to the psychiatrist's couch to resolve family issues with children as young as two months. A report in The Sunday Times found that parents are making appointments for babes in arms, worried about their crying or sleeping.

Dr Shirley Gracias, a child and adolescent psychiatrist from Trowbridge, Wiltshire, who chairs the Association for Infant Mental Health, tells the newspaper: 'When I work with parents and children, my main purpose is to help parents develop the relationship between themselves and the child. I see babies who are agitated, who can’t stop crying and are generally unhappy. When you see a mother and baby who have bonded very well, you will see a smooth sequence of turn-taking: the baby will coo, the parent will coo back, the parent will smile, the baby will smile back.'

'It's reached the point where parents seem afraid to trust their own instincts,' says Raisingkids.co.uk founder and child psychologist, Dr Pat Spungin. 'It's absolutely daft. Babies cry and they sleep – that's what they do. This is the ultimate example of today's parents feeling disempowered – that they feel they have to turn to experts for help with what's the most natural process in the world.'

The marvels of modern education have turned many parents into blithering idiots.