Lawsuit: State fired shrink for exposing abuse

[Guest guest]

> JustSayNO

> Sun, 11 Jul 2004 12:31:50 -0400

> [sSRI-Research] Lawsuit: State fired shrink

> for exposing abuse

>

> Lawsuit: State fired shrink for exposing abuse

>

> Philadelphia Daily News

>

> Posted on Wed, Jul. 07, 2004

>

> By NICOLE WEISENSEEEGAN

> weisenn

>

> Dr. Stefan Kruszewski, a prominent Harrisburg

> psychiatrist who was hired to

> root out fraud, abuse and waste within the state's

> Department of Public

> Welfare, was fired for doing just that, he alleges

> in a federal lawsuit.

>

> During the course of his duties, Kruszewski

> discovered that four children

> and one adult who had been prescribed potentially

> lethal combinations of

> medications died while under state care, he said. He

> believes they died from

> drug toxicity, but he was not permitted to review

> the autopsy reports, he

> alleges.

>

> He also found that thousands of psychiatric patients

> on Medicaid and

> receiving inpatient treatment in hospitals across

> the state were being given

> bizarre combinations of drugs they did not need or

> were given the wrong

> drugs for their conditions, he said.

>

> In Philadelphia, employees of one facility, which he

> would not name but

> which he recommended be shut down, were going into

> the community and

> dragging in heroin and crack addicts, involuntarily

> committing them and

> prescribing all sorts of anti-depressants and

> anti-anxiety medications they

> didn't need, he said.

>

> " I told my supervisor, 'These medications are

> killing people. Something's

> wrong here,' Then they fired me,' " said Kruszewski,

> 53, a Harvard Medical

> School graduate, in an exclusive interview yesterday

> .

>

> Kruszewski's federal whistleblower lawsuit was filed

> in Harrisburg on

> Friday. The defendants are: state Welfare Secretary

> Estelle Richman; Susan

> Kozak, Kruszewski's former supervisor; Christopher

> Gorton, another

> supervisor who no longer works there; Columbus

> Medical Services LLC, the

> company that hired him, and two of its executives;

> and pharmaceutical

> companies GlaxoSmithKline; Pfizer, Inc.; Johnson &

> Johnson; Novartis;

> Astrazeneca and Eli Lilly & Co. The drugs at issue

> are Paxil, Neurontin,

> Geodon, Risperdal, Seroquel, Topamax, Trileptal and

> Zyprexa.

>

> The lawsuit makes a number of stunning accusations

> against the state and the

> companies, alleging that they had abused

> Pennsylvania's

> involuntary-commitment law, overmedicated patients,

> distorted statistics,

> violated regulations and advisories, including Food

> and Drug Administration

> rules, and intentionally exaggerated and

> misrepresented the effects of the

> drugs on " innocent persons, simply to make money. "

>

> The defendants either did not return phone calls

> requesting comment or said

> they had not yet seen the lawsuit so they could not

> comment on it.

>

> Kruszewski said he has documented all his findings.

>

> " The evidence I have is absolutely black and white, "

> he said. " Copies of the

> documents have been made and are in safekeeping in

> multiple places. " Former

> state auditor general Don Bailey, Kruszewski's

> attorney, also represents

> Allen Jones, a former investigator for state

> Inspector General Donald L.

> Patterson, whose agency is supposed to ferret out

> corruption within other

> state agencies.

>

> Jones began digging into the financial link between

> pharmaceutical companies

> and state health officials and said he soon

> discovered that drug companies

> were influencing those officials with trips, perks,

> lavish meals,

> transportation to and from first-class

> accommodations in major cities, he

> said. Some officials were given $2,000 honorariums

> by the drug companies for

> speaking in their official capacities at

> drug-company sponsored events, he

> said.

>

> Jones' boss pulled him off the probe but said he

> could continue it on his

> own time. Jones was fired last month after speaking

> to the media about his

> findings. He has two lawsuits pending against the

> state.

>

> Jones said yesterday that he met Kruszewski only

> recently, through Bailey.

>

> " It is very interesting that Stefan [Kruszewski] and

> I came upon different

> tentacles of the same beast within the PA mental

> health system and were both

> fired for trying to expose the corruption, " he said.

> " Meanwhile, the

> corrupted officials are still in their jobs. "

>

> Jones said he had warned the inspector general, in

> writing, that deaths of

> innocent people were a statistical certainty.

>

> " He refused to consider my concerns, " Jones said. " I

> believe the office of

> inspector general and the governor himself share in

> the moral responsibility

> for the deaths and injuries Stefan has uncovered. "

>

> Kate Philips, Gov. Rendell's spokeswoman, declined

> to comment, citing the

> pending litigation. Amy Wasserleben, Inspector

> General Patterson's

> spokeswoman, could not be reached for comment.

>

> Bailey, Kruszewski and Jones' attorney said a clear

> pattern was emerging of

> lawmakers and state officials' allowing financial

> kickbacks from

> pharmaceutical companies to influence their

> decisionmaking.

>

> " [Jones'] supervisor told him, 'Drug companies not

> only write checks to

> hospitals, they write checks to politicians...They

> write checks to both

> sides of the aisle,' " Bailey said, adding that the

> supervisor had admitted

> making those comments in his deposition for one of

> Jones' lawsuits.

>

> " There's billions and billions of dollars involved

> here, and we are talking

> about the most insidious profiteering imaginable, "

> Bailey said. " If we

> cannot find an honest federal prosecutor to convene

> a grand jury to look

> into some of these things, like the deaths, then we

> are in a crisis. "

>

> Kruszewski was hired on Oct. 9, 2001, by the

> Columbus organization in King

> of Prussia to do work for the state Department of

> Public Welfare. He was

> paid $15,000 per month. Half his job was conducting

> medical reviews and

> appeals for the department. The other half was

> working as a

> medical-psychiatric consultant for the department's

> Bureau of Program

> Integrity. Its mission is to ensure that the state's

> medical-assistance

> program is protected from provider " fraud, waste and

> abuse, " the lawsuit

> notes.

>

> " I was told [by Kozak, Kruszewski's former

> supervisor] never to look at the

> medications in judging quality of care, " Kruszewski

> said. " The trouble is

> you can't do your job and ignore the medications. "

>

> The first disturbing trend he noticed was that an

> overwhelming number of

> psychiatric patients were being prescribed

> Neurontin, an anti-seizure drug,

> to treat illnesses like anxiety, depression,

> psychosis and impotence, he

> said. The FDA has not approved using that drug for

> mental illnesses, he

> said.

>

> The more he dug, the more disturbing cases he found,

> he said, including that

> of a mentally retarded 15-year-old girl who was

> being treated for being

> defiant and for sexual promiscuity. She was on 11

> medications, including

> five anti-psychotic ones, but did not have a

> psychiatric disorder, he said,

> and was so overmedicated she had trouble getting out

> of bed or standing by

> herself.

>

> " I said, 'This is more than just craziness. This is

> criminal,' " he said.

> " This makes no sense. You couldn't pay enough to get

> any psychiatrist in the

> country to say this is reasonable medication. "

>

> Last July 10, he brought this case and others to his

> supervisors, Kozak and

> Gorton. They blasted him for " digging up dirt " then

> fired him the next day,

> saying he'd verbally harassed and physically

> intimidated Kozak, he said.

>

>

>

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