Ruining Lives with Allegations

A few years back, there were some spectacular allegations against a doctor and a pharmacy owner in/near Redding CA. It was one of the early high-publicity cases of a doctor accused of overprescribing OxyContin (an addictive but very effective opium-based pain killer) and a pharmacist accused of overpricing the drug.

The state attorney general went after them on criminal charges, the various boards went after their medical and pharmacists licenses, Medi-Cal went after them for reimbursement issues, etc. Alleged victims, relatives, and their lawyers jumped on the bandwagon, suing over things like wrongful death. Over time, all of the suits but two (both for wrongful death) have been dismissed, thrown out, etc. What's left are personal and professional ruin for the accused, and a medical community which gets ever-more afraid to prescribe one of the most effective painkillers to people with severe and/or chronic pain.

Here are some excerpts of a Redding Record-Searchlight article about the victims.

There's an old police saying -- "You might beat the rap, but you won't beat the ride."

And the ride is far from over for a doctor and pharmacy owners busted by drug agents almost six years ago in highly publicized dual raids of his Anderson clinic and their Redding drug store.

Attorney General Bill Lockyer called a press conference to hail the murder, drug trafficking and Medi-Cal fraud arrests of Dr. Frank Bensell Fisher, pharmacist Stephen Miller and his wife, Madeline.

Fisher was one of the first doctors in the nation to be arrested for overprescribing OxyContin, a powerful opioid analgesic later dubbed "hillbilly heroin," that federal drug agents fear has reached epidemic proportions among drug abusers, although few statistics are available.

"We're estimating that there were 3,000 patients (in Shasta County) taking this drug (Oxy-Contin)," Lockyer said at his press conference.

In fact, at the time of his arrest, Fisher said he was prescribing OxyContin for 46 of his 3,000 active patients.

Lockyer could estimate just about anything he wanted...who can prove whether it was legitimate error or politically motivated showboating. As with false/incorrect accusations of child molestation, rape, etc., the headlines are much smaller and harder to find when such accusations prove unfounded.

Four years later, Shasta County Superior Court Judge Bradley Boeckman threw the trio's case out of court, citing delays.

Nobody called a press conference when the attorney general's office decided earlier this year not to renew the charges, despite repeated vows from state lawyers to re-file the case as soon as they had the proper documents in hand.

Last month, in answer to a query from the Record Searchlight, attorney general press secretary Hallye Jordan said a decision not to refile was made "awhile back, before the misdemeanor trial" on a separate case.

State attorneys decided they wouldn't be able to sustain the more serious charges and decided "in the interest of justice" not to refile, Jordan said.

Note the plausible deniability, again whether the state officials have screwed up or believe he's guilty but don't feel they can prove it. Meanwhile, the doctor's reputation, practice, etc. are shattered.

The case had dwindled slowly away. First the murder counts disappeared -- reduced to manslaughter, then tossed out entirely with the rest of the charges. When the Harvard-educated doctor was finally tried in May on misdemeanor Medi-Cal fraud charges that predated the raid, he was acquitted.

Fisher's Westwood Walk-in Clinic in Anderson is long gone. He was held in jail for five months, his bail set at $15 million before he was set free on $50,000 bail, which also prohibited him from practicing medicine until the case was resolved.

The Millers' Shasta Pharmacy is gone, too. In June, after they obtained a court order, the state returned several hundred thousand dollars seized from their banks when they were arrested.

They got the money too late to save their house from foreclosure.

Fischer and the Millers, all in their 50s, are starting over...with a pile of debt and dead businesses. Miller is currently reapplying for his pharmacy license, but the state (with lawyers supplied by the attorney general's office) is still fighting it. The state's medical board went after Fischer's medical license, and about five years later that case is still pending. And of course, what are his chances of regaining malpractice insurance?

Art Fisher said his brother's accusers may have succeeded, after all.

"They had a profound impact," Art Fisher said. "There wasn't a conviction, but it was widely publicized; and they may have got what they were after there."

"The process is the punishment," said Siobhan Reynolds, founder of the patients' advocate group Pain Relief Network. "You don't have to lose one of these things if you treat pain."

"You go from community health doctor to murderer just like that," Frank Fisher said. "If anything, it's put me more into the here and now."

Fisher said he is determined to help "fix the system," which he translates into returning doctors to control over medical decisions. He works with patient groups, doctors and others who lobby for nationwide reforms that would protect prescribing doctors.

The Pain Relief Network is trying to do good work in ensuring people with chronic pain can get relief from doctors cowed by federal and state regulators, HMOs, etc. Some doctors are even afraid to prescibe major doses of morphine to terminal cancer patients in excruciating pain because morphine is addictive. Yet, other doctors arrogantly condemn Oregon's Assisted Suicide Law, claiming that with today's knowledge and advanced medicines, all pain is controllable. There's a major disconnect here.

However, the Pain Relief Network is undermining its effort with over-the-top claims.

Currently 50 million people are living in untreated, disabling pain. Americans are living longer, and many suffer unspeakable agony for decades before they die. United States citizens of all ages are living and dying in pain, even children with cancer are dying in pain. The devastation in the lives of patients and their families cannot be overstated. Because patients in pain currently have no political standing and, hence, no voice in the community, prosecutors and law makers alike have thus far shown little concern for their welfare.

Am I really supposed to believe that one in six Americans is suffering from disabling pain? Please. It makes sense that the government, HMOs, etc. would ignore such a ridiculous claim. If folks could drill down to the real problems--the people who suffer needlessly (and whether it's caused doctors who fear prescribing, lack of sufficient medical care, the cost of prescription drugs, doctor-shopping by patients, etc.), pain would be much easier to address. Claiming 50 million is just screaming louder, not advocating smarter.

When it comes to white collar crime, the government tends prosecute a few high-profile cases to scare others into complying. That process is really ugly if you're innocent. And when it comes to pain management, it's scared a goodly number medical professionals into over-complying, harming many innocent pain suffers.

Comments

[J. St. James]

I am a chronic pain sufferer, but have never found it necessary to abuse narcotic pain medication. I think this is true of most people who truly have ongoing pain, especially if the primary care physician follows a high degree of standards and ethics.
Dr. Fisher, however, got off scott-free after GROSSLY overprescribing the drug Oxycontin, writing scripts for hundreds of pills at a time (this was before the drug was as closely monitored at it is now). Surely he must have known that the drug was being taken directly to the streets and sold for around $40 per pill! A close friend of mine has suffered a horrible tragedy as a result of Dr. Fisher's incompetence--her teen-aged son was given some of the drug and he died as a result. If this doctor had been held more accountable, the boy might still be alive today. Sure, Fisher & the Millers have had to start their "careers" over, but how would you like to face the rest of your life with the image of finding your dead son lying on the floor when you thought he was safely asleep in his bed? Talk about getting away with murder! That's exactly what Fisher and the Millers have done, many times over.

[SFX3295]

J. St. James, You self righteous windbag & horses ASS!, the QUANTITY has nothing to do with whether it was right or wrong, asswipe! Unless the Dr. HANDED the drug to your friends kid, he did NOT have anything to do with your friends kids death. YOUR FRIENDS TEENAGER TOOK THE DRUG KNOWINGLY! JUST AS IF HE BOUGHT HEROIN ON THE STREET AND STUCK A NEEDLE IN HIS OWN ARM! My Pain doctor prescribes me 270 40mg Oxycontin per month (I take 3 3x a day) as well as 240 10mg Methadone (I have to take 8 of them at night) and 4 1600 mcg Actiq (Fentanyl) for breakthrough pain, AND that's in addition to Neurontin, Topomax, Amatryptaline, Wellbutrin, Zoloft, Baclofen (and or Zanaflex), Lidocaine, a TENS unit - and likely soon a spinal cord stimulator (Oh yeah, and a Med Marijuana script that I occasionally use). All of that to just BARELY keep my pain under control. NONE of it gets turned out onto the street (even though I may lose my house soon), I would not even know where to start. Do you think that MY DOCTOR SHOULD "KNOW" THAT MY DRUGS ARE BEING SOLD ON THE STREET??? Who the FUCK are you? I have to keep mine a HUGE secret to AVOID my house being a TARGET of people who would break in and kill me and my family to get them maybe, but I ain't selling any of them. If I could not get them, I would have ended my miserable existance a long time ago! I have come SO close so many times as it is, just because of the Workers Comp insurance company having the habit of randomly deciding to deny refills (thanks Claims Management, Roseville!). So, if you had YOUR WAY, then I, and lots of other people like me would be JUST AS DEAD as that kid, also by our own hands. The difference being that we would not have been dead because we were stupid enough to try to get HIGH on somebody ELSES MEDICATION! So, J.St.James, You can BITE ME... HOW would YOU like to be in MY WIFE'S shoes, and come home to find your husbands brain's splashed all over the living room when you thought he was going to be waiting to give you a hug when you got home? Just because somebody decided that he could no longer get the ONLY pain relief that made his life bearable anymore? (just because some self abusers can't control themselves??). ...She has come home thinking that was what she was walking into more than once...