Straight Inc., –Torture as Treatment

mllangan1's avatarDisrupted Physician

“The biggest problem Straight has is knowing how good it is.”–Dr. Robert Dupont, M.D., 1981

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In 2012 former Nixon Drug Czar Robert Dupont, MD delivered the keynote speech at the Drug and Alcohol Testing Industry Association annual conference and described a “new paradigm” for addiction and substance abuse treatment. He advocated zero tolerance for alcohol and drug use that is enforced by monitoring with frequent random drug and alcohol tests. Detection of any substances is met with swift and certain consequences. He proposed expansion of this paradigm to other populations including workplace, healthcare, and schools.

Robert Dupont was a key figure in launching the “war on drugs” which is now widely viewed as a failure that has turned the US into the largest jailer in the world.

As the founding director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), he administered a 1.8 million dollar grant in 1972 to an experimental…

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Eight Miles High at the Massachusetts Crime Lab: Another Glaring Systems Failure in Drug Testing

“We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers… and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.
Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.”
Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

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 A knowing smile must have come across Sonja Farak’s face if she ever read the above quote from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas during her nearly eight-years as a chemist for the  Massachusetts crime lab. The list of  illicit pharmaceuticals found in the trunk of Dr. Gonzo’s red Chevrolet convertible was not unlike her very own workstation stash in terms of diversity and color.  Farak’s personal bindle, however, just happened to reside within the walls of the Amherst facility where she worked as a chemist analyzing seized substances brought in by police and the buffet of illicit pharmaceuticals and industrial quantities Farak  snorted, smoked and swallowed while testing drugs for criminal cases is jaw dropping.

Referring to his own drug use,  Charlie Sheen once said …”I probably took more than anybody could survive,” during  an ABC interview. “I was banging seven-gram rocks. Because that’s how I roll. I have one speed. I have one gear.”  Sheen noted his most recent binge was “radical. … The run I was on made Sinatra, Flynn, Jagger, Richards look like droopy-eyed, armless children.”  But Farak’s  run would make even the most hardcore drug user stand up and take notice as this woman was not just under the influence but over the rainbow and her eclectic pharmacopeia and hepatic fortitude alone is breathtaking  but the kicker is this–she did it all within the walls of the state run crime lab and no one noticed.

Farak’s drug use started  in 2004 when she started sampling from the “primary standards” that chemists use as a reference to compare to the the seized samples brought in by police.  “Primary samples” are of very high quality and the Amherst lab maintained samples of everything from heroin to marijuana.  Farak developed a penchant for Meth and by 2005 had increased her usage to multiple times per day.   By 2009 she had nearly exhausted the labs entire methamphetamine supply.

Farak  told investigators that she smoked crack every day at work.  When police in Chicopee, Mass. seized a kilo of cocaine, Farak utilized that lab facilities to freebase about  100 grams of it and free is a very good price.  When it struck her fancy she also  took methamphetamine, amphetamine, ketamine, ecstasy LSD, Marijuana and MDMA at work and at home. She also  testified in court while drug addled and even hit the crack pipe prior to a 2012 state police accreditation inspection of the lab.  Farak remained undetected amongst those trained to detect.  Throughout her entire binge, no one noticed a decline in her work, with one colleague even calling her “meticulous” and “dedicated to her work.”

Farak  was arrested in 2013 after it was inexplicably discovered that her lab samples that she had been tampering with for nearly eight-years had been tampered with.   Chunks of crack were found at her work station and a crack pipe in her car.

She pleaded guilty in January 2014 to tampering with a handful of drug samples and served an 18-month sentence. She was prosecuted and the Massachusetts attorney general’s office said at the time they did “not believe Farak’s alleged tampering would undermine any cases” but three years later, an investigation by Attorney General Maura Healey reveals otherwise.

Farak’s pursuit to oblivion rivals that of  Permanent Midnight,  Jerry Stahl’s autobiographical account his prodigious drug use as he wrote television shows but the potential consequences of Farak’s diehard addiction and penchant for psychotropics are more than just shabby dialogue on Moonlighting or Alf.  Losses of liberties and freedoms can result from positive drug tests and the consequences can be grave and far reaching. Positive drug tests can tear apart families end careers and trigger suicides.

A spokeswoman for Attorney General Maura Healey said the information gathered about Farak “will no doubt have implications for many cases.”  One defense attorney told the Boston Herald that Farak handled about 30,000 cases over the course of her career.

Some defense attorneys maintain that prosecutorial misconduct kept the details of Farak’s drug-induced work secret for almost two years after her problems were discovered.

Cyndi Ray Gonzalez, chief spokeswoman for Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, said that the state’s district attorneys, the defense bar and the courts “are going to have to collectively work on determining the universe of cases that could be affected. And they’re going to have to determine how best to notify the people in each case.”

Matthew Segal of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts has been fighting Massachusetts prosecutors for almost four years to learn the names of all those affected by Dookhan’s misconduct.  “This is why it’s not just about two chemists, it’s about an entire system that allowed this to happen, and once it did happen didn’t take steps to remedy it.”

The newly released investigation was prompted by a ruling from the state Supreme Judicial Court last April, which said top state law enforcement officials failed to fully investigate how many times Farak tampered with drug evidence after her arrest in 2013. “This is a statewide problem,” said attorney Luke Ryan, who helped bring the scope of Farak’s drug use and evidence tampering to light, and who represents several defendants whose samples purportedly were tested by Farak. “The fact that we’re doing this in 2016 instead of 2013 makes the job so much harder. . . . The chances of people falling through the cracks really increases.”  According to spokesman Jake Wark state’s district attorneys are undertaking research similar to that performed in the wake of the Dookhan scandal

“Our experience with the Hinton Lab crisis has provided us with a framework for identifying and acting on these cases,” Wark said, referring to  ex-chemist Annie Dookhan, who was found to have been falsifying her analysis reports to police and the courts for years and potentially tainting up to 40,000 cases.  Identifying and acting?   How about preventing?

Farak and  Dookhan’s misdeeds were initially dismissed as a minor issue by government lawyers. -These egregious debacles are not just a matter of “bad apples” but a complete organizational systems failure in a culture of deference with no internal controls and an absence of outside accountability.    In both cases the blinkered apathy is  glaringly obvious and some people felt it was easier not to examine or look too deeply into the matter.

 

Here is the Massachusetts attorney general’s report on Sonja Farak:

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“Implicit faith belongs to fools, and truth is comprehended by examining principles”-Algernon Sidney (1683)

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The photo above was taken at the 104th Annual Meeting of the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) held in San Diego April 28-30 and tweeted last night in reference to the partnership between the FSMB and the Federation of State Physician Health Programs (FSPHP) with the caption:

“How a healing profession heals itself #FSMB2016 partnerships #FSPHP trust and faith in oversight and system.”

Within the the allotted 140 character twitter limit this succinct observation is nevertheless very revelatory.   Both systems and the oversight of systems demand accountability and answerability to outside and independent agencies.  Trust and Faith are not in the equation.  Why has this lesson not been learned?

Answerability requires the obligation to answer questions regarding decisions and actions. Accountability requires transparency, explanation and justification. What was done and why?  Standards, rules, regulations, codes, laws and other objective benchmarks need to be applied by outside actors.  This is critical. It is the very essence of oversight.

“Trust and faith in oversight and system” is both  oxymoronic and nonsensical. “Faith and trust” in oversight equates with an “absence” of oversight.  “Faith and trust” in systems inevitably results in “systems failure” and therein lies the problem.

Blind faith and deference to authority has led to a systems failure  in the regulation of the medical profession.   Physician health programs (PHP’s) have convinced state medical boards to give them complete deference.  Medical board’s in turn have convinced state attorney generals and law enforcement to give them complete deference.  This has led to a complete systems failure.  No investigatory or oversight body exists.  No one is minding the minders. It is a complete and utter free for all.

Making sound decisions about regulation calls for an understanding of the problem it is intended to solve. Legitimate policy must be based on recognized institutions and experts. Regulatory changes demand methodologically sound science and evidence-based facts arrived at through rigorous peer review and professional oversight. The science must be reliable and unbiased. Legitimate policy must be based on recognized institutions and experts. If the information regulatory agencies rely on to discipline doctors and protect the public is unreliable then serious consequences can occur.

The validity and reliability of opinions lie in their underlying methodology and evidence base. Reliance on the personal authority of any expert or group of experts is the fallacy of appeal to authority and a more apt and accurate twitter caption to the photo above would be Algernon Sidney’s 1683 statement that:

“Implicit Faith belongs to Fools, and Truth is comprehended by examining Principles”

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Physician Suicide, Organizational Injustice and the Urgent Need for Open Discourse

They can be a terror to your mind and show you how to hold your tongue
They got mystery written all over their forehead
They kill babies in the crib and say only the good die young
They don’t believe in mercy
Judgement on them is something that you’ll never see
They can exalt you up or bring you down main route
Turn you into anything that they want you to be–Bob Dylan, Foot of Pride


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Although no reliable statistics yet exist, anecdotal reports suggest a marked rise in physician suicide in recent years. From the reports I am receiving it is a lot more than the oft cited “medical school class” of 400 per year.

This necessitates an evaluation of predisposing risk factors such as substance abuse and depression, but also requires a critical examination of what external forces may be involved in the descent from suicidal ideation to suicidal planning to completed suicide.  What are the cumulative situational and psychosocial factors in physicians that make suicide a potential option and what acute events precipitate the final act?

Depression and Substance Abuse no Different from General Population

The prevalence of depression in physicians is close to that of the general population 1,2 and, if one looks critically at the evidence based literature, substance abuse in medical professionals approximates that of the general population.  Controlled studies using DSM diagnostic criteria indicate that physicians have the same rates (8-14%) of substance abuse and dependence as the general population,3 and slightly lower rates compared to other occupations.4,5 Epidemiological surveys reveal the same. Hughes, et al.6 reported a lifetime prevalence of drug or alcohol abuse or dependence in physicians of 7.9%, markedly less than the 14.6% prevalence reported in the general population by Kessler.7

Job Stress and Untreated Mental Illness Risk Factors

Job stress coupled with inadequate treatment for mental illness may be factors contributing to physician suicide according to one recent study. Using data from the National Violent Death Reporting System, Gold, Sen, & Schwenk, 2013 8 compared 203 physicians who had committed suicide to more than 31,000 non-physicians and found that having a known mental health disorder or a job problem that contributed to the suicide significantly predicted being a physician. Physicians were 3.12 times more likely to have a job problem as a contributing factor. In addition, toxicology testing showed low rates of medication treatment.  The authors concluded that inadequate treatment and increased problems related to job stress are potentially modifiable risk factors to reduce suicidal death among physicians. They also warned that the database used likely underestimated physician suicides because of “underreporting and even deliberate miscoding because of the stigma attached.”8

Few studies have evaluated the psychosocial stressors surrounding physician suicide but there is no reason to believe they are any different from the rest of the population. Although the triggering life events and specific stressors may vary outside, the inner psyche and undercurrent of thoughts and feelings should remains the same.   Perhaps the same drivers of suicide identified in other populations are contributing to physician suicide.

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Perceived Helplessness, Hopelessness, Bullying and Defeat

Perceived helplessness is significantly associated with suicide as is9 Hopelessness10,11 Bullying is known to be a predominant trigger for adolescent suicide12-14 One study found that adolescents in custody who were bullied were 9.22 times more likely to attempt suicide than those were not bullied.15

Heightened perceptions of defeat and entrapment are known to be powerful contributors to suicide.16,17 The “Cry of Pain” model 18,19 specifies that people are particularly prone to suicide when life experiences are interpreted as signaling defeat which is defined as a sense of “failed struggle” or loss of social position and resources.. The person is unable to identify an escape from or resolution to a defeating situation, a sense of entrapment proliferates with the perception of no way out, and this provides the central impetus for ending ones life. There is a helplessness and hopelessness that precipitates the descent from ideation, to planning, and then to finality.

Organizational Justice Important Protective Factor

In a study on Italian and Swedish female physicians, degrading experiences and harassment at work were found to be the most powerful independent variables contributing to suicidal thoughts.20 Degrading work experiences harassment, and lack of control over working conditions were found to be associated with suicidal thoughts among Italian and Swedish male university physicians.21

Evidence exists for the role of rescue factors (i.e. social support) as buffers against suicide in the face of varying degrees of life stress.22,23 The study of female physicians revealed meetings to discuss stressful work experiences as a potential protective factor, 20 and support at work when difficulties arose appeared to be a protective factor for the male physicians.21   In line with this, studies of Finnish physicians found that control over one’s work and organizational justice were the most important determinants of work-related wellbeing.24,25 Organizational justice has been identified as a psychosocial predictor of health and wellbeing26 27 Low organizational justice has been identified as a notable risk factor for psychological distress and depression.28,29

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Historical Precedent-the Suicides at Ridgeview

Could these factors be playing a role in physician suicide?   They evidently did at the Ridgeview Institute, a drug and alcohol treatment program for impaired physicians in Metropolitan Atlanta created by G. Douglas Talbott. Talbott helped organize and served as past president of the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) and was a formative figure in the American Medical Association’s (AMA’s) Impaired Physician Program. He has owned and directed a number of treatment facilities for impaired professionals, most recently the Talbott Recovery Campus in Atlanta, one of the preferred referrals for physicians ordered into evaluation and treatment by licensing boards.

After creating the DeKalb County Impaired Physicians Committee for the Medical Association of Georgia, Talbott founded the Georgia Disabled Doctors Program in 1975 in part because “traditional one-month treatment programs are inadequate for disabled doctors.” According to Talbott, rehabilitation programs that evaluate and treat the rest of the population for substance abuse issues are incapable of doing so in doctors as they are unlike others. He bases this uniqueness on “incredibly high denial”, and what he calls the “four MDs,” “M-Deity”, “Massive Denial” “Militant Defensiveness”, and “More Drugs.”30

Contingency Management = Extortion Using Medical License

According to Talbott, “impaired doctors must first acknowledge their addiction and overcome their ‘terminal uniqueness’ before they can deal with a drug or alcohol problem.” “Terminal uniqueness “ is a phrase Talbott uses to describe doctors’ tendency to think they can heal themselves. “M-Deity” refers to doctors “being trained to think they’re God,”31 an unfounded generalization considering the vast diversity of individuals that make up our profession. This attitude, according to some critics, stems from the personal histories of the treatment staff, including Talbott, who are recovering alcoholics and addicts themselves. One such critic was Assistant Surgeon General under C. Everett Koop John C. Duffy who said that Ridgeview suffered from a “boot-camp mentality” toward physicians under their care and “assume every physician suffering from substance abuse is the same lying, stealing, cheating, manipulating individual they were when they had the illness. Certainly some physicians are manipulative, but it’s naïve to label all physicians with these problems.”32

American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) President (1981-1983) LeClair Bissell was also highly critical of Talbott’s approach. Bissell, co-author of the first textbook of ethics for addiction professionals33 when asked if there was any justification to the claim that doctors are sicker than other people and more vulnerable to addiction replied:

“Well, based on my treatment experience, I think they are less sick and much easier to treat than many other groups. I think one reason for that is that in order to become a physician…one has to have jumped over a great many hurdles. One must pass the exams, survive the screening tests and the interviews, be able to organize oneself well enough to do examinations and so on, and be observed by a good many colleagues along the way. Therefore I think the more grossly psychotic, or sicker, are frequently screened out along the way. The ones we get in treatment are usually people who are less brain-damaged, are still quite capable of learning, are reasonably bright. Not only that, but they are quite well motivated in most cases to hang on to their licenses, the threat of the loss of which is frequently what puts them in treatment in the first place. So are they hard to treat? No! Are they easy patients? Yes! Are they more likely to be addicted than other groups? We don’t know.”34

“I’m not much for the bullying that goes along with some of these programs,” Bissell commented to the Atlanta Journal and Constitution in 1987.31   The constitution did a series of reports after five inpatients committed suicide during a four-year period at Ridgeview.35 In addition there were at least 20 more who had killed themselves over the preceding 12 years after leaving the treatment center.32

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Bissell, the recipient of the 1997 Elizabeth Blackwell Award for outstanding contributions to the cause of women and medicine remarked: “When you’ve got them by the license, that’s pretty strong leverage. You shouldn’t have to pound on them so much. You could be asking for trouble.”31According to Bissell: “There’s a lot of debate in the field over whether treatment imposed by threats is worthwhile…To a large degree a person has to seek the treatment on his own accord before it will work for him.”31

A jury awarded $1.3 million to the widow of one of the deceased physicians against Ridgeview,36 and other lawsuits initiated on behalf of suicides were settled out of court.35

The Constitution reported that doctors entered the program under threats of loss of licensure “even when they would prefer treatment that is cheaper and closer to home.” 37 The paper also noted that Ridgeview “enjoys unparalleled connections with many local and state medical societies that work with troubled doctors,” “licensing boards often seek recommendations from such groups in devising an approved treatment plan,” and those in charge are often “physicians who themselves have successfully completed Ridgeview’s program.”37

The cost of a 28-day program for nonprofessionals at Ridgeview in 1987 was $10,000 while the cost was “higher for those going through impaired-health professionals program,” which lasted months rather than 28 days.32

In 1997 William L. White interviewed Bissell whom he called “one of the pioneers in the treatment of impaired professionals.” The interview was not published until after hear death in 2008 per her request.   Noting her book Alcoholism in the Professions38 “remains one of the classics in the field”, White asked her when those in the field began to see physicians and other professionals as a special treatment population. She replied:

“When they started making money in alcoholism. As soon as insurance started covering treatment, suddenly you heard that residential treatment was necessary for almost everybody. And since alcoholic docs had tons of money compared to the rest of the public, they not only needed residential treatment, they needed residential treatment in a special treatment facility for many months as opposed to the shorter periods of time that other people needed.”39

Talbott claimed a “92.3 percent recovery rate, according to information compiled from a five-year follow-up survey based on complete abstinence and other treatment.”40

“There is nothing special about a doctor’s alcoholism,” said Bissel

“these special facilities will tell you that they come up with really wonderful recovery rates. They do. And the reason they do is that any time you can grab a professional person by the license and compel him or her into treatment and force them to cooperate with that treatment and then monitor them for years, you’ll get good outcomes—in the high 80s or low 90s in recovery rates—no matter what else you do.”39

“The ones I think are really the best ones were not specialized. There were other well-known specialty clinics that claimed all the docs they treated got well, which is sheer rot. They harmed a great many people, keeping them for long, unnecessary treatments and seeing to it that they hit their financial bottom for sure: kids being yanked out of college, being forced to sell homes to pay for treatment, and otherwise being blackmailed on the grounds that your husband has a fatal disease. It’s ugly.”39

Stanton Peele’s “In the Belly of the American Society of Addiction Medicine Beast” describes the coercion, bullying, threats and indoctrination that are standard operating procedure in Talbott’s facilities.41 Uncooperative patients, “and this covers a range of sins of commission or omission including offering one’s opinion about one’s treatment,” are “threatened with expulsion and with not being certified-or advocated for with their Boards.”41 The cornerstone of treatment is 12-step spiritual recovery. All new patients are indoctrinated into A.A. and coerced to confess they are addicts or alcoholics. Failure to participate in A.A. and 12-step spirituality means expulsion from the program with the anticipated result being loss of one’s medical license.

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Fraud, Malpractice, False Diagnoses and False imprisonment

In May 1999 Talbott stepped down as president of the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) as a jury awarded Dr. Leonard Masters a judgment of $1.3 million in actual damages and an undisclosed sum in punitive damages for fraud, malpractice, and the novel claim of false imprisonment.42 The fraud finding required a finding that errors in the diagnosis were intentional. After being accused of excessive prescribing of narcotics to his chronic pain patients, Masters was told by the director of the Florida PHP that he could either surrender his medical license until the allegations were disproved or submit to a four-day evaluation. Masters agreed to the latter, thinking he would have an objective and fair evaluation, but was instead diagnosed as “alcohol dependent” and coerced into the Talbott recovery program. He was forced to stay in the program under threat of his medical license as staff would routinely threaten to report any doctor who questioned any aspect of their diagnosis or treatment to their state medical boards “as being an impaired physician, leaving necessary treatment against medical advice”42  which would mean the loss of his licensure. However, Masters was not an alcoholic. According to his attorney, Eric. S. Block,  “No one ever accused him of having a problem with alcohol. Not his friends, not his wife, not his seven children, not his fellow doctors, not his employees, not his employers, No one.” 43  He was released 4 months later and forced to sign a five-year “continuing care” contract with the PHP, also under continued threat of his medical license. Talbott faced no professional repercussions and no changes in the treatment protocols were made. Talbott continued to present himself and ASAM as the most qualified advocate for the assessment and treatment of medical professionals for substance abuse and addiction up until his death last year.44

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Same System Imposed on Doctors Today—Institutional Injustice Worse due to Laboratory Developed Tests. Fortified Scaffold and Tightened the Noose.

In almost all states today any physician referred for an assessment for substance abuse will be mandated to do so in a facility just like Ridgeview. There is no choice. There is one difference however.   When the Ridgeview suicides occurred the plethora of laboratory developed tests were not yet introduced. A decade ago Dr. Gregory Skipper introduced the first laboratory developed test for forensic testing and used it on doctors in physician health programs.   These non-FDA approved tests of unknown validity presented a new unpredictable variable into the mix with a positive test necessitating another assessment at an out of state treatment facility—a “PHP-approved” assessment facility. The addition of this laboratory Russian Roulette renders the current system much worse than it was at the time of the Ridgeview suicides.

And if a positive test occurs there are no safeguards protecting the donor. LDTs are unregulated by the FDA. There is no oversight and no one to file a complaint with.

In addition the PHPs have no oversight by the medical boards, departments of health or medical societies. They police themselves. The PHPs have convinced law enforcement that when it comes to doctors it is a “parochial issue” best handled by the medical community. I have been hearing from doctors all over the country who have tried to report crimes to the local police, the state Attorney General and other law enforcement agencies only to be turned back over to the very perpetrators of the crimes. “He’s a sick doctor, we’ll take care of him.” The “swift and certain consequences” of this are an effective means of keeping the rest of the inmates silent.   Likewise doctors have been going to the media only to have the door slammed in their faces because the media has generally bought in to the “impaired” and “disruptive” physician construct these same people developed through propaganda, misinformation and moral panics and crusades.

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Urgent Need to Admit to the Problem

There has been an increase in physician suicide in the past decade.   By my estimate the numbers are going to be far higher than the oft-cited 400 per year. The speculation as to cause has been unenlightening and in fact frustrating.   Knowledge of anatomy, access to dangerous drugs, increased workload and even student loans have been proposed as contributing factors. Although there has been some tangential mention of physician health programs it has been indirect. Direct and defined discussion is necessary and state PHPs need to be named as a possible contributor to suicide.  Admitting the possibility there is a problem is the first crucial step in defining and addressing the problem.    The 1980s historical precedent is correlated with physician suicide.  The current system is not only based on Ridgeview but has been fortified in scope and power.  The physician health movement has effectively removed due process from doctors while removing answerability and accountability from themselves. And they have not only fortified the scaffold but widened it from substance abusing doctors to all doctors. “Potential impairment” and “relapse without use” were introduced without any meaningful resistance and they are now using a panoply of non-FDA approved laboratory developed tests of unknown validity to test for substances of abuse in a zero-tolerance abstinence based monitoring program.  With no regulatory oversight the stage is set not only for error but misuse as witch-pricking devices for punishment and control.  Doctors across the country are complaining of the very same abuses Leonard Masters did–false diagnoses, misdiagnosis, unneeded treatment and fraud.

In summary, any doctor who is referred to their state PHP today is required to have any assessment and treatment at a “PHP-approved” facility based on Ridgeview.  It is mandated.  There is no choice.  Coercion, control and abuse at Ridgeview was associated with multiple suicides in doctors in the 1980s.  The use of non-FDA approved tests of unknown validity worsens the abuse and fits the “cry of pain” model of hopelessness, helplessness and despair. Locus of control is  lost.  Organizational justice is absent.

The temporal relationship is clear.

Why is this still the elephant in the room?

This needs to be named, defined and openly discussed and debated.  How many more must die before we speak up?

Please help me get the conversation going.

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  25. Heponiemi T, Kuusio H, Sinervo T, Elovainio M. Job attitudes and well-being among public vs. private physicians: organizational justice and job control as mediators. European journal of public health. Aug 2011;21(4):520-525.
  26. Elovainio M, Kivimaki M, Vahtera J. Organizational justice: evidence of a new psychosocial predictor of health. Am J Public Health. Jan 2002;92(1):105-108.
  27. Lawson KJ, Noblet AJ, Rodwell JJ. Promoting employee wellbeing: the relevance of work characteristics and organizational justice. Health promotion international. Sep 2009;24(3):223-233.
  28. Hayashi T, Odagiri Y, Ohya Y, Tanaka K, Shimomitsu T. Organizational justice, willingness to work, and psychological distress: results from a private Japanese company. Journal of occupational and environmental medicine / American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. Feb 2011;53(2):174-181.
  29. Lang J, Bliese PD, Lang JW, Adler AB. Work gets unfair for the depressed: cross-lagged relations between organizational justice perceptions and depressive symptoms. The Journal of applied psychology. May 2011;96(3):602-618.
  30. Gonzales L. When Doctors are Addicts: For physicians getting Molly Kellogg is easy. Getting help is not. Chicago Reader. July 28, 1988, 1988.
  31. King M, Durcanin C. The suicides at Ridgeview Institute: A Doctor’s treatment program may be too tough, some say. Atlanta Journal and Constitution. December 18, 1987a, 1987: A12.
  32. Durcanin C, King M. The suicides at Ridgeview Institute: Suicides mar success at Ridgeview with troubled professionals. Atlanta Journal and Constitution. December 18, 1987, 1987: A13.
  33. Bissell L, Royce JE. Ethics for Addiction Professionals. Center City, Minnesota: Hazelden; 1987.
  34. Addiction Scientists from the USA: LeClair Bissell. In: Edwards G, ed. Addiction: Evolution of a Specialist Field. 1 ed: Wiley, John & Sons, Incorporated; 2002:408.
  35. Durcanin C. The suicides at Ridgeview Institute: Staff members didn’t believe Michigan doctor was suicidal. Atlanta Journal and Constitution. December 18, 1987, 1987: A8.
  36. Ricks WS. Ridgeview Institute loses $1.3 million in suit over suicide. Atlanta Journal and Constitution. October 11, 1987, 1987: A1.
  37. King M, Durcanin C. The suicides at Ridgeview Institute: Many drug-using doctors driven to Ridgeview by fear of losing licenses. Atlanta Journal and Constitution. December 18, 1987b, 1987: A1.
  38. Bissell L, Haberman PW. Alcoholism in the Professions. Oxford University Press; 1984.
  39. White W. Reflections of an addiction treatment pioneer. An Interview with LeClair Bissell, MD (1928-2008), conducted January 22, 1997. Posted at http://www.williamwhitepapers.com. 2011.
  40. Williams c. Health care field chemical dependency threat cited. The Tuscaloosa News. January 16, 1988, 1988: 16.
  41. Peele S. In the Belly of the American Society of Addiction Medicine Beast. The Stanton Peele Addiction Website (accessed March 28, 2014)http://web.archive.org/web/20080514153437/http://www.peele.net/debate/talbott.html.
  42. Ursery S. $1.3M verdict coaxes a deal for doctor’s coerced rehab. Fulton County Daily Report. May 12, 1999b 1999.
  43. Ursery S. I was wrongly held in alcohol center, doctor charges. Fulton Count y Daily Report. April 27, 1999a 1999.
  44. Parker J. George Talbott’s Abuse of Dr. Leon Masters MD (http://medicalwhistleblowernetwork.jigsy.com/george-talbott-s-abuse-of-leon-masters ).Medical Whistelblower Advocacy Network.
  45. images-10

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“Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.” – John F. Kennedy

mllangan1's avatarDisrupted Physician

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“Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.” – John F. Kennedy.

Born – May 29, 1917
Brookline, Massachusetts,
Died- November 22, 1963
Dallas, Texas, aged 46

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Anti-Authoritarians in the Medical Profession: A Critical Need to “Question Authority”

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Anti-authoritarians question whether an authority is a legitimate one before taking that authority seriously.  images-24To evaluate the legitimacy of  an authority it is necessary to:
1. Assess whether they actually know what they are talking about.   
2. Assess whether the authorities are honest in their intentions.
When anti-authoritarians assess an authority to be illegitimate, they challenge and resist that authority.
There is a paucity of anti-authoritarianism in the medical community concerning groups that have gained tremendous sway in the regulation of the medical profession.    There is, in fact, an absence of anti-authoritarian questioning  of  what is essentially illegitimate and irrational authority.
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Most doctors are unaware of the impact these organizations have had on both the regulation of the medical profession and social control of individual doctors.  Through “moral entrepreneurship” and “bent science” these groups have successfully swayed both policy-makers and the public to support an agenda not supported by reality testing or critical thinking.  This acceptance without investigation has led to a deterioration of professional ethics and evidence-based decision making in the regulation of the medical profession.
 In order for these organizations to maintain power it is necessary that their authoritative opinion remain unquestioned and unchallenged.  Consciously manufactured propaganda has persuaded regulatory and public opinion of their value and to maintain power it is necessary that this authority remain insulated from outside evaluation because the entire system is based on assumptions that can be aptly characterized as “illusions.images-4The dogmatic statements and abusive generalizations do not conform to reality.
Everything is adapted to an existing stagnant cognitive system that falls far off the map of the scientific approach to information and evidence based medicine.  Perceiving only confirmations the physician health paradigm embodies and expresses preconceived ideas, values and mentalities based on certitude and absolute truth.

If one looks behind the curtain there is not much there.   Screen Shot 2015-06-16 at 3.39.59 AM

Historical, political, economic and social analysis can all show how the construct that exists today came to be.   This can be factually ascertained by simple reasoning and examination of the documentary evidence.

Any one of these analyses would reveal that the “PHP-blueprint” is a false-construct built on circumnavigation and obfuscation.

An evidence-based scrutiny of the literature would reveal it to be invalid and of little probative value.  A public policy analysis would reveal the logical fallacies involved in trumpeting  their positions including exaggerated rhetoric and  fear monitoring strategies designed to inspire moral panics and exploit fears to further an underlying political agenda

Any critical analysis would reveal cherry picking. proof by anecdote, deceptive propaganda, double talk, contradictory, illogical and incomprehensible jabber,  unprovable and  un-disprovable statements and a panoply of logical fallacy.

These groups  misrepresent, censor and suppress. They  nit pick and split hairs.  Screen Shot 2015-06-16 at 3.40.37 AMThe concept of denial is not just used to force people into treatment and justify abuse during treatment but  to suppress specific questions and deliberately avoid key facts.

So why are we not questioning this “authority?”     They have been left alone and basically thrown in the backyard left to proliferate like feral cats.

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We need anti-authoritarians and we need them now.

I need allies before the door closes for good. And that door may be closing a lot sooner than you think!

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Need Allies and Funding: Please Help Continue the Fight on Disrupted Physician

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Need allies and funding to continue the fight against institutional injustice in the medical profession and work towards physician (professional ) health reform.

Please help me work toward real change on disruptedphysician.com before it is too late.

To  make a contribution please click here or visit  gofundme  website.

Forensic Fraud Beyond Annie Dookhan–It’s Time to Wake up to the Reality of Systemic Corruption Between State Physician Health Programs (PHPs) and Drug-Testing Labs.

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The attached documents show the Massachusetts physician health program ( PHP), Physician Health Services, inc. (PHS) and a commercial drug testing lab United States Drug Testing Labs, inc. (USDTL) engaging in red-handed flagrant forensic fraud.

This is not lone-nut  Annie Dookhan drug-testing falsification  but misconduct indicative of top-down systemic corruption done via fax and thus appears to be standard operating procedure.

Screen Shot 2015-05-04 at 8.19.51 AMThe documents herein are part of a “litigation packet” (the documented chain-of-custody required for all forensic testing) for an alcohol biomarker test (PEth) drawn July 1, 2011 and reported as a positive on July 19, 2011 to the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine (” Board”).  The “litigation packet”  is considered a legal document and it is generated in real time to document where, and under what conditions a given specimen is at a given time.

The documents here include  a faxed memo from PHS to USDTL 7/19/2011 requesting an identifying ID#  and a “chain of custody” be added to an already positive test.  Seldom is a document available that shows how the perpetrators of laboratory fraud do it–this is complete from start to finish.

A chain of custody is generated in real time. It cannot be done retroactively.

To do so constitutes fraud.

With no compunction, concern, or consternation this sociopathic mercenary subordinates science in order to put coins in his purse and complies with this improper request and adds a unique ID number to an already positive specimen.

Moreover, when the test was questioned the, PHP requested that USDTL support the test as a valid positive. And Joseph Jones did so with full knowledge there was no chain-of-custody and the ID # and date of collection were added.  The alliance is consistent with a civil conspiracy and the crimes are felonious.

The act is also flagrantly antithetical to the process of Medical Review Officer (MRO) review —one of the basic tenets required of all forensic drug tests and requisite to report one as positive.

But like an arsonist firefighter,  Jones does the exact opposite of what he is supposed to.   With complete disregard of the basic codes of conduct and MRO guidelines he reports as positive a test that would not meet the minimum requirements for an at home over-the -counter clinical lab to consumer test let alone let alone one of forensic import.

A test with multiple fatal flaws and no chain of custody, no collection date,and absent any clue of a unique identifier was in fact reported as a positive to please a client.  It is egregious, indefensible, and unconscionable.  It is illegal.  Most importantly it is immoral.

Positive drug and alcohol tests can end lifetime careers, tear apart families, and trigger suicides. And I am hearing of more and more suicides caused by these laboratory tests done by Dr. Jones and corrupt illegitimate authority like Dr. Sanchez.

The consequences are grave and far reaching.  An organizational culture capable of willing participation and continued support of forensic fraud cannot be trusted.

Cognizant that the consequences to the donor are significant and possibly irreversible and catastrophic exhibits a careless disregard for truth that is unconscionable.  That this was done without hesitation or thought is egregious.

It is purposeful and with undeniable malice. It represents institutional and sinister corruption. And it exemplifies the top-down sociopathic, predatory, and uncaring organizational culture that is undermining democracy and eroding civil liberties.

But the most disturbing fact of this is that those who should do something about it blind themselves.

The Board of Registration in Medicine protects Dr. Sanchez. He is apparently allowed to commit any crimes he wants and it is worth reading through all of the documentation as he compounds felonies over time.

The political abuse of psychiatry and false diagnoses are acts that violate the most basic and fundamental medical and social ethical codes. They should be met with zero tolerance by the medical community as well as society at large.

Remarkably the Massachusetts Department of Health and Human Services is also aware of this. Apparently learning nothing from the Annie Dookhan case, certain individuals have hemmed and hawed for over six months without any response in a torpid stasis.  As protectors of the public health one would think there would be some urgency to address the fact that a state contracted agency is engaging in undeniable laboratory misconduct and fraud.

The crimes are many and include state and federal crimes as well as violation of the HIPAA criminal statute as they changed a “forensic” sample to “clinical” in order to bypass chain of custody. They then changed it back to “forensic” and misrepresented it as such up until recently.

This needs to get be addressed outside the medical profession.  As  a society and culture within a society and culture the  prevalence of thinking has become destructive rather than ameliorative under the influence of the “impaired physicians movement.”    The ease with which pernicious ideas and attitudes have pervaded the regulatory and organizational and regulatory culture of medicine is frightening.

The fact that medical boards and public health department are aware of criminal acts being committed  by this “authority” yet do nothing to address its existence will inevitably lead to worse .

If dictatorships can be defined as systems in which there is a prevalence of thinking in destructive rather than ameliorative terms then the “physician wellness” paradigm” shoe fits.    There are multiple warning signs that the profession of medicine is becoming subordinated to the guiding philosophy of the “physician wellness” movement,

One thing is for certain.  There should be zero-tolerance for forensic fraud perpetrated by those in positions of power.   Any intentional laboratory fraud guided by malice is egregious but the scope and severity of what was done here involving collusion to fabricate evidence to coverup the crime, and concealment of the truth when the lab was forced to correct the test by an outside agency is  particularly egregious.    The fact that Dr. Luis Sanchez hid the fact that he was made aware of the corrected test on October 4, 2012 and  reported non-compliance with requirements that directly resulted from that very test for “damage control” under “color of law” is unconscionable.   But the fact that he did these things and lied about it is undeniable.  The facts are self-evident.

This is much worse than Annie Dookhan as her victims were abstractions.  She did not see the damage that resulted from her laboratory misconduct.  These people knew what they were doing, knew it was wrong and did it anyway.   And unlike Annie Dookhan, Sanchez saw the damage he was causing as that was his intent.

As far as I can find, these documents are the most elaborate and complete representation of the mechanics of forensic fraud. They show the sequential steps between the party requesting it and the response of the complicit lab.  The documents illustrate how easy laboratory misconduct is accomplished and the moral detachment of the involved parties.  The fact that it involves top-down corruption cannot be overestimated.

The most obvious crime is the violation of M.G.L 156 (B) section 69 involving reporting false statements.

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The fact that this was test was ordered as a “forensic” specimen then changed to a “clinical” specimen makes it a HIPPA violation as changing it to “clinical” created  “protected health information” (PHI).     In fact, the only reason I was able to obtain the October 4, 2012 document proving Dr. Sanchez lied was due to a change in the HIPPA-Privacy Rule enabling “patients’ to obtain laboratory results without authorization from the agency that ordered it.   Without this allowance Sanchez would still be maintaining he did not find out about the correction until December.   Well the documentary proof shows he lied.

Moreover, PHS is not a treatment provider and cannot order clinical specimens.  It is an ultra viresact outside of their designated scope of authority as a non-profit organization.

What Sanchez did here is also in violation of the HIPAA criminal statute.

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The elements of a criminal offense under HIPAA are fairly straightforward.  To commit a “criminal offense” under HIPAA, a person must knowingly and in violation of the HIPAA rules do one (or more) of the following three things.:  use or cause to be used a unique health identifier, obtain individually identifiable health information relating to an individual or disclose individually identifiable health information to another  person.   Criminal penalties under HIPAA, tiered in accordance with the seriousness of the offense, range from a fine of up to $50,000 and/or imprisonment up to a year for a simple violation to a fine up to $100,000 and/or imprisonment up to five years for an offense committed under a false pretense and a fine up to $250000 and/or imprisonment up to ten years for an offense committed with intent to sell, transfer, or use individually identifiable health information for commercial advantage , personal gain, or malicious harm.

Requesting the sample be changed to “clinical” created PHI and the fact that it was under false pretense and intended to cause malicious harm is quite evident.

Although PHS is not a covered entity Quest Diagnostics is and as a business associate they can be linked by the conspiracy statute:

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And that is why outside forces need to be involved. These are serious crimes and they have created serious consequences.  I have heard of multiple suicides in doctors caused by these tests.  How many doctors have died as a result of Jones colluding with  individuals just like Sanchez?   The results of these tests can have grave, far reaching and even permanent consequences.  They can ruin careers and destroy families.   Sanchez and Jones know this.  Their moral disengagement here shows an absence of empathy and complete disregard of what consequences may result.

The Board of Registration in Medicine is protecting Dr. Sanchez and the DPH has its head in the sand.

It is my understanding that groups like PHS have led law enforcement to believe that all matters involving doctors should be handled by the medical community.  This has created barriers as doctors reporting crimes have found it difficult to get them investigated or even reported let alone charged.

Law enforcement needs to address this. This needs to be exposed.

.I have been told that in other states where similar situations exist in which the truth is unable to penetrate the proper channels it should go directly to the Governor.

I would like to get these documents to Governor Charlie Baker and any help in making this happen would be appreciated.

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“A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.”
― Thomas Paine 

USDTL drug testing laboratory claims to advance the”Gold Standard in Forensic Toxicology.”  “Integrity: Results that you can trust, based on solid science” is listed as a corporate value. “Unlike other laboratories, our drug and alcohol testing begins and ends with strict chain of custody.” “When people’s lives are on the line, we don’t skip steps.”  Joseph Jones, Vice President of Laboratory Operations explains the importance of chain-of-custody in this USDLT videopresentation.

Dr. Luis Sanchez, M.D. recently published an article entitled Disruptive Behaviors Among Physicians in the Journal of the American Medical Association discussing the importance of  of a “medical culture of safety” with “clear expectations and standards.”  Stressing the importance of values and codes-of-conduct in the practice of medicine, he calls on physician leaders  “commit to professional behavior.”

Sanchez is Past President of the Federation of State Physician Health Programs (FSPHP).  According to their website the FSPHP “serves as an educational resource about physician impairment, provides advocacy for physicians and their health issues at local, state, and national levels, and assists state programs in their quest to protect the public.”  In addition the FSPHP “helps to establish monitoring standards.”  The FSPHP is the umbrella organization of the individual State PHPs.

Sanchez is also the previous Medical Director of the Massachusetts state PHP, Physician Health Services, Inc. (PHS).  According to their website PHS is a “nonprofit corporation that was founded by the Massachusetts Medical Society to address issues of physician health. PHS is designed to help identify, refer to treatment, guide, and monitor the recovery of physicians and medical students with substance use disorders, behavioral health concerns, or mental or physical illness.

PHPs recommend referral of physicians if there are any concerns such as getting behind on medical records.  As PHS Associate DirectorJudith Eaton explains “when something so necessary is not getting done, it is prudent to explore what else might be going on.”  If the PHP feels that doctor needs an assessment they will send that doctor to a “PHP-approved” facility “experienced in the assessment and treatment of health care professionals.” The physician must comply with any and all recommendations of the assessment center.  To assure this the physician must sign a monitoring contract with the PHP (usually five years). USDTL is one of the labs PHPs have contracted with for forensic drug and alcohol testing.


Forensic Drug and Alcohol Tests: The Need For Integrity and Accountability of the Sample

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“Forensic” drug-testing differs from “clinical” drug-testing in how the results are used. “Clinical” tests are used for medical purposes in diagnosing and treating a patient.

A “forensic” test is used for  non-medical purposes.  It is not used for patient care, but for detecting licit and illicit substances in those who should not be using them. Pre-employment and employee assistance and professional monitoring programs are examples.Screen Shot 2014-05-08 at 2.17.18 AM

Forensic testing is held to a higher standards because the consequences of a positive result can be grave and far reaching. A positive forensic test can result in loss of rights of the individual being tested and his or her loved ones. Mistakes are unacceptable.

The Federation of State Medical Boards Policy on Physician Impairment supports this position stating “chain-of-custody forensic testing is critical” (page 14) and the “use of a Medical Review Officer (MRO) for screening samples and confirming sample results” (page 21).

Any and all drug testing requires chain-of-custody. The custody-and-control form is given the status of a legal document because it has the ability to invalidate a test that lacks complete information.  Chain-of-custody provides assures specimen integrity. It provides accountability. 

Screen Shot 2014-11-06 at 7.25.46 PM The job of the MRO is to ensure that the drug testing process is followed to the letter and reviews the Custody and Control form for accuracy.  The MRO also rules out any other possible explanations for a positive test (such as legitimately prescribed medications).  Only then is the test reported as positive.

The legal issues involved in forensic testing mandate MRO review. According to The Medical Review Officer Manual for Federal Workplace Drug Testing ProgramsScreen Shot 2013-12-19 at 12.20.46 PM

the sole responsibility of the MRO is to”ensure that his or her involvement in the review and interpretation of results is consistent with the regulations and will be forensically and scientifically supportable.”

“Fatal flaws” such as lack of chain-of-custody form, missing tamper proof seal, missing signatures, or a mismatch of the sample ID and chain of custody ID invalidate the test.   It is not reported.  Tight chain-of-custody and MRO review is critical for the accountability and integrity of the sample.

The Medical Review Officer Certification Council  provides a certification process for MROs. TheyScreen Shot 2014-04-30 at 12.47.25 PMalso  follow their own Code of Ethics.   In accordance with these standards PHS has an MRO to review all positive tests.  As added assurance the FSPHP guidelines state that all positive tests must be approved by the Medical Director.


Regulation and the Medical Profession–The need for Integrity and Accountability in Physician Leadership and Health Care Policy.

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Good leadership requires correct moral and ethical behavior of both the individual and the organization. .  Integrity is necessary for establishing relationships of trust.  It requires a true heart and an honest soul.  People of integrity instinctively do the “right thing” in any and all circumstances.  The majority of doctors belong to this group.

Adherence to ethical codes of the profession is a universal obligation.  It excludes all exceptions.  Without ethical integrity, falsity will flourish.

The documents below show fraud. It is intentional.  All parties involved knew what they were doing, knew it was wrong but did it anyway.  The schism between pious rhetoric and reality is wide.

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The  July 19th, 2011 fax from PHS seen below is in reference to the lab report from USDTL seen above.  In it PHS requests the report be “updated”to donor ID number “1310” and  to “reflect that the chain of custody was maintained.”

The lab report is a positive test for the alcohol biomarker (Phosphatidyl Ethanol) or PEth, an alcohol biomarker introduced by the Federation of State Physician Health programs and marketed by USDTL and other labs to detect  covert alcohol use..

There is no record of where, when or by whom it was collected.

Screen Shot 2014-11-06 at 11.17.32 PMBoth the donor ID # and chain of custody are listed as 461430.

The purpose of chain-of-custody is to document the location of  a specimen in real time.  “Updating” it is not an option.  It is prohibited.  Updating the “chain of custody to reflect that chain of custody was maintained”  is a clear indicator that it was not maintained.

ID #1310 is the unique identifier I was issued by PHS.  It is used as a unique identifier, just like a name or social security number, to link me to any sample collected for random drug and alcohol screening. #1310 identifies me as me in the chain-of-custody.    On July 1st, 2011 I had a blood test collected at Quest Diagnostics.

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The sample was collected at Quest Diagnostics on July 1, 2011 but these documents were not obtained until December 3, 2011 and were included in the “litigation packet” which documents chain-of-custody and is generated on any and all forensic drug testing.   It provides proof that the test was done on who it was supposed to have been done and that all required procedure and protocol was followed. It protects the donor form being falsely accused of illicit substance use.  In most employee drug-testing programs the litigation-packet is provided on request immediately.  It is a transparent process.  This is not the case, however, at PHS.

I requested the litigation packet immediately after the positive test was reported on July 19, 2011.  PHS first refused, then tried to dissuade me.  They finally agreed but warned there would be “unintended consequences.    The entire litigation packet can be seen here:   Litigation Packet 12:3:2011

The positive sample has no chain-of-custody linked to me, no date, and no indication where it was collected or who collected it.   In addition there was no “external” chain of custody for the sample. The custody-and-control form was missing.

With multiple fatal flaws (6/6)  rendering it invalid, USDTL should have rejected it by their own written protocol.

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USDTL did not reject it. The document below shows that USDTL added my ID # 1310 and added a collection date of July 1, 2011–the day I submitted the sample.

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“REVISED REPORT PER CLIENTS REQUEST”  

And in doing so the lab that claims “integrity” and “strict chain of custody” readily, and with no apparent compunction” manufactured a chain-of-custody and added a unique identifier by faxed request.

The litigation packet was signed by Joseph Jones on December 3, 2011.   There was no record of where the sample was from July 1st to July 8, 2011. No external chain-of-custody or custody-and-control form was evident in the litigation packet.

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The V.P. for Laboratory operations for the lab that claims “strict chain of custody” and that “doesn’t skip steps” “when “peoples lives are on the line” verified a positive test as positive with no custody and control form, no external chain of custody and 6/6 fatal flaws.  What is so shocking is that  this was done without compunction or pause.  As a forensic test ordered by a monitoring program Jones knew full well it would result in significant consequences for someone.  He knew that someones “life was on the line,” knew it was wrong, and did it anyway.

A person of conscience would never do this.  It is unethical decision making  that goes against professional and societal norms.  A “moral disengagement” that represents a lack of empathy and a callous disregard for others.  I would not consider doing something like this for any price and here it appears to be standard operating procedure.

PHS reported the positive test to the Medical Board on July 19, 2011 Positive PEth July 19, 2011-1.  It was used as a stepping-stone to request an evaluation at one of three  “PHP-approved” facilities (Marworth, Hazelden and Bradford). The Medical Directors of all three facilities can be seen on this list list called “Like-Minded Docs.”  The MRO for PHS, Dr.Wayne Gavryck,  whose job was to review the chain-of-custody and validate its integrity before reporting it as positive is also on the list.  See this simplified schematic of how it works in Massachusetts.  It shows how this is a rigged game.

Expecting to be diagnosed with a non-existent problem and admitted for non-needed treatment I requested an evaluation at a non-12 step facility with no conflicts-of-interest.  Both PHS and the Medical Board refused this request in one of four violations of the Establishment Clause of the 1st amendment.

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I chose Hazelden.  The Medical Director was aware that I had just signed  a patent license agreement for an epinephrine auto-injector and he had a child with a peanut allergy.  We talked about the device and discussed the problems with current management.  I think it was because of this added personal interaction that he did not “tailor my diagnosis” as PHS most certainly requested.  Seeing me as a person rather than an object, I believe,  enabled his conscience to reject it. My discharge diagnosis found no history of alcohol issues but they could not explain the positive test. Unable to rule out that I drank in violation of my PHS contract they recommended I attend AA.

PHS mandated that I attend 3 12-step meetings per week and requested that I obtain names and phone numbers of fellow attendees so they could contact them to verify my attendance.  They also mandated that I discontinue my asthma inhalers (as the propellant contains small amounts of ethanol) that had been controlling my asthma and preventing serious attacks for the previous ten years.  I was threatened that if I had to use the inhalers or one day late on the increased payments I would be reported to the Board and lose my license.

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Sanchez states that my request for the “litigation packet” was processed on December 5, 2011 (two days after Jones signed off on it) and adds the “testing laboratory is willing to support the test results.”

In the interim I filed a complaint with the College of American Pathologists.  I also requested the missing external chain of custody documents from Quest.

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I never received the chain of custody from Quest.  Instead I received a letter from Nina Tobin, Compliance Manager for Quest documenting all the errors but written to sound as if some sort of protocol was maintained.  Tobin claimed the specimen was inadvertently logged as a clinical specimen but sent on to USDTL a week later.  (See Quest Letter )

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The Chief of Toxicology at MGH wrote a letter to the Board documenting all of the misconduct and irregularities stating that it was an “intentional act” perpetrated by PHS.  MLLv3finalJacob_Hafter_Esq_copy.

This letter, as well as the opinions of everyone outside of PHS was ignored. So too were any opinions of my two former Associate Directors at PHS.   The e-mail below dated October 10th, 2011 is to to Drs. John Knight and J. Wesley Boyd and I am referring to their article Ethical and Managerial Considerations Regarding State Physician Health Programs  that was about to be published. We had hoped that it would draw more attention to the problems with PHPs.

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I was subsequently reported as “non-compliant” with AA meetings.    They could not give any details of where or when.  They then misrepresented a declaration of fact (I stated that I had started going to a specific meeting on a specific date) as an admission of guilt by saying I was referring to a different meeting.     10:23:12 PHS Letter to BORM-noncompliance.

My Chief at MGH, his Chief and others held a  conference with PHS and attempted to remove me from PHS and replace the monitoring contract with one of their own.  They refused.   When confronted with the fabricated test they dismissed it and focused on sending me to Kansas to one of the “disruptive physician” Psikhuskas where they are using polygraphs (despite the AMAs stance that it is junk science) and non-validated neuropsychological instruments that detect “character defects” to pathologize the normal.

I refused. Had I gone to Kansas I would have been given a false diagnosis and my career would be over. This is what they do.

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Amy Daniels, the investigator for the College of American Pathologists contacted me in December of 2012 to see how things were going since USDTL “amended” the test.  Daniels told me that the College of American Pathologists confirmed my allegations and, as an Accrediting Agency for Forensic Toxicology mandated that USDTL correct it.  (Labs can lose accreditation if they do not comply with CAP  Standards for Forensic Drug Testing). This was done on October 4, 2012.

PHS denied any knowledge of an amended test.  I also wrote an e-mail to Joseph Jones requesting the document but he did not reply.

I contacted CAP.   On December 11, 2012 Dr. Luis Sanchez wrote a letter stating  “Yesterday, December 10 2012, Physician Health Services (PHS) received a revision to a laboratory test result”

 “The amended report indicates that the external chain of custody protocol [for that sample] was not followed per standard protocol]” 

Sanchez dismisses this test as irrelevant, rationalizing neither PHS nor the Board based any actions on the test and they would “continue to disregard” it.

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The  logic is that it was my behavior that resulted in any consequences.  My “non-compliance” in October led to my suspension and the test had nothing to do with it.   The sole reason for reporting me to the Board in 2011 was the positive test.  There is no other pretext to use.  It is misattribution of blame as without the test, now invalidated, there would have been no AA meetings to say I was non-compliant with.

In response to a civil complaint PHS, Quest and USDTL all took the position that the results of the fraudulent testing had absolutely nothing to do with anything.

And in response to the allegations of forensic fraud the labs claimed there was no forensic fraud because this was not a “Forensic” test but a “clinical” test.     The argument was that “clinical” tests do not require chain-of-custody and it was his behavior not these tests that resulted in consequences.   

As a “clinical” test I knew it was considered Protected Health Information (PHI)  under the HIPAA-Privacy Rule.  A patient must give written consent for any outside entities to see it.  Obtaining lab tests previously required the consent of both the patient and the ordering provider.  What PHS and the labs were apparently unaware of was the changes to the HIPAA-Privacy rule giving patients increased rights to access their PHI.   The changes removed the ordering provider requirements.  A patient has a right to obtain lab test results directly from the labs and has 30 days to do it.  CAP agreed.   USDTL sent me all of the documents.  They can be seen below:

August 6, 2014 to Langan with health materials.

The documents sent by USDTL are notable for two things:

1.  The e-mail from me to Joseph Jones dated December 10, 2012.  It can be seen on page 22 of the USDTL documents.  Screen Shot 2014-11-10 at 11.21.18 AM

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2. USDTL document confirming PHS knew the test was amended 67-days before they said they did.Screen Shot 2014-08-06 at 4.50.02 PM

The document shows PHS and Sanchez were aware of the invalidity of the test on October 4, 2012.   Instead of correcting things they initiated machinations to throw me under the bus.  They officially reported me to the Board for non-compliance on October 19, 2012.

The December 11, 2012 letter signed by Sanchez states “Yesterday, December 10, 2012, PHS received a “revised report” regarding the test.  The documents show he knew about it 67-days prior.

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Although USDTL complied with the HIPAA-Privacy Rule and CAP, Quest did not.   Quest Diagnostics refused to send me copies of their lab reports claiming it was confidential and protected information that required PHS consent.  Quest required I sign a consent form with multiple stipulations regarding PHS.  I refused and contacted the Department of Justice -Office of Civil Rights.  The DOJ-OCR agreed with me and I received the Quest documents

Remember a “clinical” test can only be ordered by a physician in the course of medical treatment.  It requires authorization from the patient to obtain a “clinical” specimen and it requires written authorization as to who sees it.  Referring physician was Mary Howard.

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And below is the fax from PHS to Quest from July 1, 2011 also requested by Mary Howard.  The signature on the front is not mine.  In addition I gave the blood at 9:30 and was in my clinic at MGH at 12:23 so it couldn’t be. The WC 461430 R are dated July 2, 2011.  This is a “clinical” not “forensic” sticker.  The “R” indicates a red top tube.  The other sticker is USDTL and indicates it was logged in on July 8, 2011.

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What does it all mean?    Blood left in a red top tube ferments. This is basic chemistry.  The PEth test needs to be refrigerated and shipped overnight to prevent this.  In addition it needs to be collected with a non-alcohol wipe in a tube that has an anti-coagulant or preservative so that it does not ferment.    It requires strict procedure and protocol.

When I gave my blood on July 1st, 2011 it was as a “forensic” test per my contractual agreement with PHS.

On July 2, 2011 it was changed to “clinical.”   Why?  because “forensic” protocol would have invalidated it.

The only conceivable reason for doing this was to bypass chain-of-custody procedures.  My unique identifier #1310 was removed and the clinical specimen number was used for chain-of-custody.    The R in 461430R indicates a red top tube.

By holding on to it for one week the blood fermented.    As it was July with an average temperature close to 90 they overshot their mark a bit.   My level of 365 is consistent with heavy alcohol use–end stage half-gallon a day type drinking.

Quest then forwarded it to USDTL with specific instructions to process it as a “clinical” sample.  USDTL complied and  processed it as a clinical specimen which was reported it to PHS on July 14, 2011.

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PHS then asked USDTL to add my forensic  ID # 1310 and add a collection date of July 1, 2011 so it would appear “forensic” protocol was followed.    The reason Jones signed the “litigation packet” on December 3, 2011 was because that was when the “litigation packet” was manufactured.  A “clinical” sample does not produce one.

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USDTL willingly complied with this request.

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PHS then reported this as a “forensic” test to the Medical Board on July 19, 2011 and requested a reevaluation.

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The distinction between “forensic” and “clinical” drug and alcohol testing is black and white. PHS is a monitoring program not a treatment provider. The fact that a monitoring agency with an MRO asked the lab to process and report it as a clinical sample and then used it forensically is an extreme outlier in terms of forensic fraud. The fact that they collected it forensically, removed the forensic components and let it sit in a warehouse for a week is  abhorrent.  The fact they then specifically requested it be processed as a clinical sample deepens the malice. The fact that they then reported it to the Board as a forensic sample and maintained it was forensic up until just recently makes it egregious. But the fact that the test was changed from “positive” to “invalid” on October 4th, 2012 and they then reported me to the Board on October 8th,  2012 for “noncompliance,” suppressed it and tried to send me to Kansas where I would be given a non-existent diagnosis to delegitimize me for damage control makes it wantonly egregious.  This is political abuse of psychiatry.

Accountability requires both the provision of information and justification of what was done.

For doctors it is very difficult to obtain the information. As seen here, they put up a gauntlet to prevent the provision of what is immediate in all other drug testing programs.  I now have all of the information. What it shows is clear. This was intentional.  It was no accident.  They knew what they were doing, knew it was wrong but did it anyway.

Accountability also requires that those who commit misconduct suffer consequences. The PHPs have also put up barriers to this.    With no regulation or oversight they have no apparent accountability.

My understanding is that it works this way.   The Medical Board, Medical Society and Departments of Public Health have no oversight.   The MMS has an ethics committee but all they can do is “educate” the person if they feel there was a violation.  The DPH won’t even look at it and the Board is complicit.

My understanding is that they have convinced law enforcement that this is a “parochial” issue that is best kept within the medical community.  They have also created the impression that they are “friends” of law enforcement.  I have heard from many doctors that they have tried to report misconduct, civil rights violations and crimes to the police, AGO, and other law enforcement agencies only to be turned back over to the PHP.     By saying the physician is “impaired” it delegitimizes and invalidates the truth.  “He’s just a sick doctor,  we’ll take care of him.”  That physician then suffers consequences effectively silencing the rest.

PHS uses the Board to enforce punitive measures and temporize.   The Board puts blind faith in PHS.  Blind faith that defies common sense ( mandating phone numbers at anonymous meetings)  and disregards the law (Establishment Clause violations that are clear and well established).    The Board also temporizes to cause damage.

In my case they required a psychiatric behavioral evaluation.  I was given the choice of Kansas and a few other Like-minded assessment centers.

After petitioning for  multiple qualified psychiatrists that were summarily rejected months later for no reason one of the Board Attorneys suggested  Dr. Patricia Recupero, M.D., J.D. who is Board Certified in Forensic Psychiatry and Addiction Psychiatry.   The Board had used her in the past but not recently.  Seeing that she had been used by the Board for fit-for-duty evaluations in the past the Board accepted my petition.

Dr. Recupero wrote an 87-page report. She concluded I was safe to practice medicine without supervision, that I had never had an alcohol use, abuse or dependence problem, and that PHS request for phone numbers was inappropriate. She also documented PHS misconduct throughout my contract and concluded it was PHS actions, not mine, that led to my suspension.   What she describes is consistent with criminal harassment.  She documents the falsification of neuropsychological tests and confirms the forensic fraud.  What did the Board do?  Ignored their very own recommended and approved evaluator.

One measure of integrity is truthfulness to words and deeds.  These people claim professionalism, ethics and integrity.  The documents show otherwise.  The careers and lives of doctors are in these peoples hands.

Similar fraud is occurring across the country.  This is an example of the institutional injustice that is killing physicians.  Finding themselves entrapped with no way out, helpless and hopeless they are feeling themselves bereft of any shade of  justice and killing themselves.  These are nothing more than bullies and accountability is essential.  The “disruptive physician” moral panic has harmed the Medical Profession.

Dr. Clive Body in his book  Corporate Psychopaths   writes that “Unethical leaders create unethical followers, which in turn create unethical companies and society suffers as a result.”  And according to Dr. Robert Hare in  Without Conscience  “If we can’t spot them, we are doomed to be their victims, both as individuals and as a society. ”

Wes Boyd notes that valid complaints from physicians are often dismissed as “bellyaching” by the PHPs.  Complacent that these are just good guys helping doctors and protecting the public the complaints are dismissed, tabled, deflected or otherwise ignored.  Bellyaching??   Is this bellyaching.

It is my opinion that what you see here is indefensible  Procedurally, Ethically, and Legally.

Procedurally it goes beyond negligence and represents fraud.  It violates every procedural guideline, regulation and standard of care including their very own.

Ethically it violates everything from the Hippocratic Oath to  AMA Medical Ethics to the MRO Code of Conduct.

And where was PHS MRO Wayne Gavryck? By my count he violated at least 4 of the 6 Codes of Ethical Conduct.

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What was done here violates the most fundamental ethical principles of Medicine -Autonomy, Beneficence, Nonmaleficence and justice.

Intentionally falsifying a laboratory or diagnostic test to refer for an evaluation or support a diagnosis or give unwarranted “treatment” is unconscionable.  Abuse under the utility of  medical coloration is especially egregious.

The information provided herein should negate any “peer-review” protection or immunity afforded PHS as it is undeniably and egregiously in “bad faith.” Moreover, the ordering a “clinical” test is outside PHS scope, practice, and function of PHS. According to M.G.L. c. 111, § 203 (c):

An individual or institution, including a licensed or public hospital, physician credentialing verification service operated by a society or organization of medical professionals for the purpose of providing credentialing information to health care entities, or licensed nursing home reporting, providing information, opinion, counsel or services to a medical peer review committee, or participation in the procedures required by this section, shall not be liable in a suit for damages by reason of having furnished such information, opinion, counsel or services or by reason of such participation, provided, that such individual or institution acted in good faith and with a reasonable belief that said actions were warranted in connection with or in furtherance of the function of said committee or the procedures required by this section.

Dr. Luis Sanchez and Dr. Wayne Gavryck need to be held to the same professional standards as the rest of us.

If you can support either of them procedurally, ethically, or legally, any one of them, then I will turn in my medical license with a bow on it.  If they did not commit negligent fraud by standards of care and procedural guidelines, egregious moral disengagement in violation of ALL ethical codes for the medical profession and society and break the law then disprove me.  Just one will do.

But you can’t do this then I ask that you speak up and take a stand. Either defend them or help me hold them accountable.  If a crime is committed it needs to be addressed.  Ignoring encourages more of the same.

And if this cannot be supported procedurally, ethically or legally then I want to know what is going to be done about it?

How low does the moral compass have to go before someone takes action?

Doctors are dying across the country because of people just like this.  They have set up a scaffold that removes the usual checks and balances and removed accountability.   It is this institutional justice that is driving many doctors to suicide.

So the evidence is above.  Either defend them or help me draw unwanted attention to this culture of bullying and abuse. So I am asking you to contemplate if  what you see here is ethically, procedurally or legally sound.   If you can show just one of these then I stand corrected. But if you cannot justify this on any level then I want you to help me expose this criminal enterprise. Either defend it or fight it. Silence and obfuscation are not acceptable.

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