Psychiatric Watchdog Says Highly Publicized Case Indicative of Corrupt Field
The overdose death of model Anna Nicole Smith has produced a media frenzy of epic proportions, but one group says the latest news focuses on the real culprits, psychiatrists like Khristine Eroshevich, who was treating her.
The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a psychiatric watchdog group said, “This highly-publicized case should serve as a wake-up call, alerting the nation to the serious, widespread problem of drug abuse and fraud within the psychiatric system. Psychiatrists who irresponsibly prescribe drugs, especially lethal combinations of drugs to patients, should be criminally investigated and prosecuted.”
Eroshevich prescribed Smith eleven drugs, including antipsychotics, anti-anxiety drugs and sedatives—a lethal combination which killed 39-year-old Smith. According to media reports, Eroshevich is now under investigation by the California Medical Board.
Some national media have already started to target Eroshevich, referring to her as a drug “pusher” and “supplier”—questioning whether her medical license will be revoked for facilitating and enabling Smith's death. CCHR goes further by saying she should be criminally investigated and prosecuted as warranted.
Smith's untimely death while being “treated” by a doctor she trusted has now contributed greatly to focusing on a nationwide problem: the fact that thousands of people across the country, and not just celebrities, are victimized in this way by psychiatrists.
CCHR maintains a database of psychiatrists and other mental health practitioners who lost their licenses or were jailed for unethical/illegal prescribing practices. Here is just a sampling:
In February 2003, Florida psychiatrist George Kubski was jailed for 12 months for the death of a patient due to drug toxicity: he had prescribed more than 20,000 pills in three months. He also got 10 years probation during which he could not practice medicine.
On February 5, 2001, Los Angeles psychiatrist William O. Leader was sentenced to five years in jail for illegally prescribing dangerous narcotics to two people with histories of drug addiction problems. Leader was also sued in 2001 by Eric Douglas, youngest son of actor Kirk Douglas, for prescribing near lethal doses of psychiatric drugs that so incapacitated Douglas he nearly died twice.
On March 17, 2007, Wisconsin psychiatrist Richard I.H. Wang entered into an agreement with the office of the U.S. Attorney to stop practicing medicine after a three-year criminal investigation linked him to the overdose deaths of 11 patients.
On January 4, 2007, the Michigan Attorney General's office announced that psychiatrist Albert Bayer's medical license had been summarily suspended by the Board of Medicine on charges that he engaged in a long-term sexual relationship with a vulnerable patient to whom he also over-prescribed psychotropic and narcotic medications.
On January 30, 2006, psychiatrist Jeremy A. Stowell pleaded guilty in federal court to charges of illegally dispensing narcotics, after an investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration found he had been prescribing narcotics to patients with drug addictions and others who admitted sharing their drugs with friends.
The website with this database was established as a public service to law enforcement agencies, health care fraud investigators, medical and psychological licensing boards and the general public. It can be found at www.psychcrime.org
The Citizens Commission on Human Rights is an international psychiatric watchdog group co-founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and Dr. Thomas Szasz, Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus, to investigate and expose psychiatric violations of human rights. Contact CCHR's Media Department at 800-869-2247 or humanrights@cchr.org.
