Kruszewski: Fired 'For Digging Up Dirt'

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[sSRI-Research] Kruszewski: Fired 'For Digging Up Dirt'

 

 

 

 

Psychiatrist Sues Employers, Pharma Companies

July 07, 2004

 

Kruszewski: Fired 'For Digging Up Dirt' Psychiatrist Sues Employers,

Pharma Companies

 

http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2004/07/07/kruszewski_fired_for_digging_up_\

dirt_psychiatrist_sues_employers_pharma_companies.htm#

 

According to an article published today in the Philadelphia Daily News,

 

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.

 

Kruszewski discovered that four children and one adult who had

been prescribed potentially lethal combinations of medications died

while under state care. He believes they died from drug toxicity, but

he was not permitted to review the autopsy reports.

 

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.

 

 

Kruszewski, who was blasted by his superiors for " digging up dirt "

and then fired, has turned whistleblower. He is suing not only his

former supervisors and employer but also a number of drug companies

including GlaxoSmithKline; Pfizer, Inc.; Johnson & Johnson; Novartis;

Astrazeneca and Eli Lilly & Co. PennLive also carries the story.

 

His allegations are reminiscent of those made by another

whistleblower who lost his job in a similar way, Allen Jones, who had

investigated pharma corruption in connection with the research and

establishment of so-called " treatment algorithms " for the mentally ill

in Pennsylvania. The algorithms or prescription guidelines favoured

expensive and often useless patented drugs from a number of companies,

including Janssen Pharmaceutica, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly,

Astrazeneca, Pfizer, Novartis, Janssen-Ortho-McNeil, GlaxoSmithKline,

Abbott, Bristol Myers Squibb, Wyeth-Ayerst and Forrest Laboratories.

The Pennsylvania guidelines were taken over from the Texas TMAP

program, which is where they were first developed with financing from

and under the substantial control of the pharma manufacturers. Jones

was fired for uncovering the corrupting influence of the drug makers

and refusing to shut up about it.

 

10 July 2004 - The story is also carried by the British Medical

Journal: Whistleblower charges medical oversight bureau with corruption

 

Dr Stefan Kruszewski, a psychiatrist hired by the Bureau of

Program Integrity in the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare,

filed a law suit on 1 July in a federal court in the Middle District

of Pennsylvania, charging that he was fired on 11 July 2003 after he

uncovered widespread abuse and fraud in the bureau.

Another angle of this is a major " mental health initiative " to be

announced shortly by GW Bush is also based heavily on the Texas TMAP

guidelines, which were developed and implemented in the Lone Star

State while he was governor. The initiative was announced by Bush's

New Freedom Commission on Mental Health and apparently involves

wholesale testing of Americans - even school children - for mental

illness and the administration of drugs to those found wanting in

sanity. What that means, is of course anyone's guess.

 

Here is the Philadelphia Daily News article on Kruszewski's

findings, his firing and his subsequent legal action...

 

 

Lawsuit: State fired shrink for exposing abuse

 

By NICOLE WEISENSEEEGAN

 

(original article here)

 

 

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 Kruszew-ski, 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.