Pharmaceutical Pinball

NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU SCORE, YOU STILL LOSE!

There’s a pervasive (but false) idea in western medicine that the more pharmaceuticals you take, the healthier you’ll get. That’s how pharmaceuticals are marketed, in fact: Take these pills if you want to be healthier!

If you take one pill, the ads claim, you’ll have a healthy heart. Another pill gives you healthy moods. Yet another pill claims to give you healthy bones… or pancreas function… or blood pressure.. or even a day-long erection. If you believe all this, it stands to reason that the more chemical pills you take, the healthier you’ll become, right?

But hold on a second. Think of the people you know who are taking five, ten or even over a dozen medications. Are they the healthiest people you know?

Probably not. Not by a long shot. In fact, if you really look closely at this issue, you’ll find that the more pharmaceuticals you take, the WORSE your health becomes.

Full Article and Source:
Pharmaceutical Pinball

Note: Artwork concept: Mike Adams; Art: Dan Berger

What Motivates Whistleblowers

As Big Pharma has gone to the Justice Department woodshed lately–and come out with some record-setting settlements of off-label marketing claims–we’ve heard about the whistleblowers who often get those Justice investigations going, by suing over misbehaviors at their own companies. Specifically, about the cash they get when they share in government settlements, as the whistelblower law provides.

But a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine finds that the money isn’t what motivates most whistleblowers to begin with, and the final payment may come only after severe upheaval in a whistleblower’s professional and personal life.

So if their impetus wasn’t money, what was it? Integrity, for one. Fear of legal consequences for themselves, personally, if they participated in what they saw as fraudulent behavior. And worries about how off-label use of drugs could hurt patients’ health. Many said they protested internally first, filing suits only after those efforts didn’t work–or even backfired.

As they pursued their whistleblowing, these folks often spent so much on legal fees that their marriages and personal finances suffered. The stress may have triggered panic attacks, insomnia, shingles, psoriasis, autoimmune disease and so on.

Full Article and Source:
NEJM: Wherefore Art Thou Whistleblowers?

Fight Against Elder Abuse

“Fight Against Elder Abuse”
at the movies, May 28 – June 24

Source:
Aging and Disability in America

Charges Filed in Confinement Case

Madison County Prosecutor Thomas Broderick, Jr., filed nine felony counts Thursday morning against the three individuals accused of confining and abusing 65-year-old Anna Turner and stealing her social security checks and medications.

The charges include criminal confinement, theft, battery resulting in serious bodily injury, exploitation of an endangered adult, financial exploitation of an endangered adult, obtaining prescription by fraud, and possession of a controlled substance.

The Anderson Police Department was alerted to Turner’s situation thanks to a tip Adult Protective Service Director Tom Brown received. Officer Freddie Tevis went to the residence where he is reported to have found Turner locked in a small utility room.

All three individuals made an appearance by video before a judge, where not-guilty pleas were entered. Bonds were set at $100,000 each, full cash.

No further court dates have been set.

Full Article and Source:
Charges Filed in Anderson Confinement Case

See Also:
Woman Held Captive for Months

End of Life ‘Compassionate Care’

MODERN MEDICINE is amazing. We live in an age when lifesaving organs can be transplanted, when intricate surgeries can be performed through an incision the size of a pinprick, when an implanted manmade device can do the body’s work. In short, we live in an age when medical marvels can and do occur.

But the unprecedented science and technology available to us today cannot change one fact of life: There comes a time when death is inevitable. Science may be able to force air into a dying person’s lungs or pump nutrients into the digestive system. In short, science can prolong the dying process. But is that really what we want from our health care system?

That’s a dilemma that is playing out in a New Jersey appellate court, where judges are being asked to determine whether physicians should be compelled to artificially sustain a dying person’s life. The legal drama stems from a case at Trinitas Regional Medical Center in Elizabeth where a team of physicians spent more than a year treating an unresponsive patient who was in a permanent vegetative state with multiple organ failure.

The patient could not breathe on his own, eat on his own or respond to outside stimuli. He was being kept alive purely through science. Five different physicians agreed that there was no hope for his condition to improve and that the requested treatment — kidney dialysis — would not change that outcome. But the patient had not stated his end-of-life preferences ahead of time, and his family ordered the life-sustaining treatments to continue indefinitely.

Full Article and Source;
N.J. Court Has Chance to Influence Compassionate End-of-Life Care

Ex-Disabilities CEO Gets Two Years

Ernest Beal knew it wasn’t his calling.

But taking the reins of Your Friends and Neighbors, a company that runs group homes for adults with developmental disabilities, was what his mother wanted before she died, he told an Allen Superior Court judge Friday.

Reluctantly, he headed the company as its chief executive officer per his mother’s dying wish nearly 20 years ago and never intended to harm anyone, he said.

Beal, 57, was sentenced to two years in prison for raiding his clients’ trust fund accounts to help his company make payroll, which included a pair of $300,000 annual salaries for him and his ex-wife. Charged with felony theft last year, Beal was convicted by a jury in April.

The trust funds of Your Friends and Neighbors clients hold money from their Social Security checks, paychecks and other income and are meant to pay for the expenses and care of residents. Over a 3 1/2 -year period, Beal “borrowed” from those accounts multiple times.

Beal testified that the money in the trust funds belonged to Your Friends and Neighbors and not the clients and that he planned to pay the money back with interest. Prosecutors acknowledged he eventually did that, but no payments were made until he was charged with theft last June.

Full Article and Source:
Ex-Disabilities CEO Gets 2 Years for Theft

TX Senate Notice of Public Hearing

COMMITTEE: Jurisprudence

TIME & DATE: 1:00 PM, Thursday, June 24, 2010

PLACE: E1.016 (Hearing Room)

CHAIR: Senator Jeff Wentworth

The Senate Jurisprudence Committee will hold a public meeting to discuss the following interim committee charge:

Charge 2) Study the guardianship program implemented by the Department of Aging and Disabilities and the Department of Adult Protective Services, including the efficiency and effectiveness of the program, the relationship between the two agencies, the appropriate rights for parents, and whether clients and their assets are adequately protected.

Source:
Senate Special Hearing

Disbarred Atty & Former Office Manager Arrested and Charged

A disbarred Venice attorney and his former office manager were arrested and charged with stealing nearly $1 million from the estate of a North Port woman.

Venice police arrested Raymond Miller, 66, Tuesday and charged him with grand theft for transferring about $941,000 from the estate of Beila Millet into his law firm and personal accounts beginning in 2007.

Miller’s office manager, Kathryn Kelley, 52, who worked at Miller’s probate and estate law office in the 200 block of Harbor Drive for 30 years, was also charged with grand theft for making many of the transfers, including bonus money to herself, according to the police report.

Beginning in 2007, Miller, as trustee, took control of about $1million from Beila Millet’s estate and disbursed about $122,000 to her heirs, according to the report.

But when Millet’s stepdaughter, Ann Wacholder, called Miller last year to find out about the remaining $941,000 — much of which was supposed to go to charities in Israel — she learned that Miller had been disbarred for mishandling estate funds.

Full Article and Source:
2 Accused in $941,000 Grand Theft

NJ Lawyer Charged With Taking Client’s Money

A Bergenfield lawyer was arrested on charges he used funds from a trust account for his own benefit.

Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said that Eugene N. Cavallo, 60, of Clyde Court, was charged on May 17 following an an investigation by members of the prosecutor’s office White Collar Crime Unit.

Molinelli said that members of that unit had received information from the New Jersey Lawyer’s Fund for Client Protection that a victim had filed a claim on Jan. 30, 2009, that Cavallo, while acting as the victim’s attorney, had taken approximately $456,793.67 from an attorney trust account that Cavallo had designated for the victim’s funds, and had used those funds for his own benefit.

Full Article and Source:
Bergenfield Lawyer Accused of Taking Client’s Money

Press Release – Danny Tate Case

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
3 P.M. CST, May 31, 2010

Contact: Wendy Dyes
Phone: (615) 715-0913

Musician Danny Tate freed from conservatorship, assets still targeted in Nashville probate court

Nashville, TN, May 31 2010: Davidson County (TN) Circuit Court Judge Randy Kennedy’s ruled May 24th that the Nashville musician Danny Tate was free from a conservatorship for the first time in nearly three years and has the ability to control his assets, enter into contracts and even accept or reject medical treatment. The courtroom was full of supporters from around, but Tate’s victory may be short-lived, perhaps even premature to call, based upon court documents filed in recent days by attorney Paul T. Housch on behalf of himself and Tate’s brother David, the now former conservator.

Probate abuse is often perpetrated through the use of legal instruments such as wills, trusts, guardianships (called conservatorships in some states) or powers of attorney. Many observers view the Tate conservatorship case as a prime example of this abuse which, in its most extreme form, is a hijacking of a person’s personal freedom and property rights.

Danny Tate’s assets once exceeded $600,000, but have largely been depleted during the conservatorship. Michael Hoskins, Danny Tate’s attorney, told the Associated Press that he plans to fight attempts to sell the songwriter’s house in order to pay legal fees. Tate’s royalty payments were set up as targeted funds at the May 24 hearing when attorney Housch informed the judge that “as far as expenses, court reporter, things of that nature, there’s going to be a lack of funds, cash funds right now, to pay those. There are BMI funds available, coming in June.” Based on recent court filings, these assets along with others are now being sought by David Tate and Housch as part of “winding down” the conservatorship they initiated against Danny Tate.

Full Press Release:
NASGA Victims’ Profile: Danny Tate

See Also:
Free Danny Tate

Facebook: Friends for Danny Tate’s Defense