In Los Angeles Dr
Hsiu-Ying “Lisa” Tseng who worked as an osteopathic physician in Rowland highs was
prescribing an average of 25 prescriptions per day over the last three years. Allegedly Dr. Tseng was giving her patients addictive painkillers such as oxycotin and
vicodin without checking their medical histories. She was arrested Thursday, charged
with the murder of Vu Nguyen, Steven Ofles, and Joseph Rovero. Her victims were
relatively healthy men in their 20’s who came to Dr. Tseng with complaints of
pain and anxiety. The cursory exams that she gave these men did not meet the
level of medical care that is required before prescribing opiates
and benzodiazepines. According to Steve Cooley,
Los Angeles District Attorney Dr. Tseng was prescribing medicine
that was not needed, to promote her patients addictions. Dr. Tseng bail
is set for $3 million dollars and she is scheduled for arraignment on March 9th. Tseng is being charged with 21 counts of felonies including fraud
for prescribing drugs without a legitimate purpose.
Jodi Barber lost her 19-year-old son last January from an
overdose of prescriptions pain medication. Barber explains that one of her son’s
friends give him a quarter of a pill that they snorted and that alone was
enough to get him addicted. Allegedly, one of barber’s son’s friends went to Dr.
Tseng for drugs and then sold them to her son. That boy was pronounced dead 5
months later.
"These
kids would go to her, and she'd give them 90 Opana [oxymorphone, a narcotic
used to treat moderate to severe pain]," Barber said
Barber says
that she partially blames Tseng for the death of her son.
Many more reports of
this practice have been investigated in the past years. For example, Dr. Conrad Mury who
was convicted of manslaughter of his patient, Michael Jackson. Dr. Mury was found guilty of
giving Michael surgical Anesthics Propofol for insomnia two months before his
death.
Noel Chua, a Georgia doctor was
sentenced to life in prison in October 2007 for the drug overdose and death of
his patient and roommate. Chua was found guilty of violating the states controlled
substance act as well as committing felony murder. Among many other medicines, Noel was prescribing
his patient Oxycodone and methadone.
“More than
200 physicians have been arrested or convicted in connection with patients'
prescription drug overdoses since 2003, according to the Drug
Enforcement Agency.”
Most
people, especially this countries youth believe that prescription drugs are
“safer” then illegal drugs, what do you think?
http://www.frenchtribune.com/teneur/129754-dr-hsiu-ying-lisa-tseng-found-guilty-overdosing-patients-drugs
This is amazing. For some reason in this country a lot of us feel like if someone is a doctor or in a highly regarded profession that they are not crazy. Apparently thats not true! These types of drugs are obviously just as dangerous as street drugs. The only exception is that when the person gets them from a pharmacy, they will not be mixed with other chemicals. Other than that they are both equally dangerous. I suppose that everyone better be careful about what doctors they go to and which ones they send their children to.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading this, I feel for the families that have lost a love one, due to a doctor being lazy and not checking the medical history. I feel she should be given life without parole. A doctor should be careful when prescribing medication to a person especially if it can cause addiction like this high additive drugs she was prescribing
ReplyDeleteThat’s crazy to think that she was so careless about prescribing such strong drugs. I'm super interested to see how this case turns out because I completely disagreed with how the Dr. Conrad Murray case resulted. Doctors are to do no harm and they are the main people that understand the power and effects of these drugs that they prescribe. For them to be so careless and reckless about it is sad and they are basically worse than regular drug dealers because the patients tend to thin that because they are prescribed that they are safer.
ReplyDeleteI am not too surprised by this story. In the past, I have heard about similar cases that have resulted in the same way. The scary part is that the general public puts their trust in doctors, who have gone through of education and training, and then (some of) the doctors don't seem to understand the power that they possess. If they do understand the amount of power, they may have a blatant disregard for the well-being of their patients. Either way, I think that the doctor in this story should be have her medical license revoked, as well as be punished to the full extent that the law allows.
ReplyDeleteI feel prescription drugs are just as bad, if not worse than illegal drugs. It is so easy to go to the doctor and complain about pain and for them to just prescribe you vicodin or some other narcotic. I feel people in general become more addicted due to the easy access and the ways that these drugs are taken compared to other drugs. One concern of mine, though, is how we are placing all the blame on the doctors. Yes, they may be in the wrong for prescribing these drugs, but if they do not prescribe them to individuals who go to them, can they be sued for not treating their patients? I can see this going both ways and I think less of the blame should be on the doctors and people need to start taking responsibility for their own actions.
ReplyDeleteIt is crazy to think that there are doctors out there doing this to people and do not care about what they are prescribing. Those drugs are extremely dangerous just like illegal drugs, but the only difference is that you can get them from a pharmacy. It sad that the families have to go through this because of a careless person who should not have gotten a job like this in the first place, and they should go to jail for the rest of their lives.
ReplyDeleteI thought this was very interested but it does not surprise me. It is scary to think that there are doctors out there who just hand out medications like they are candy. This is unsafe for them because like the article says it can cost them their license and even land them jail time! But also unsafe for the people they are giving the medication to because again like the article says it can lead to death! I think there should be something put in place to monitor the number of prescriptions written to help prevent this.
ReplyDeleteIn many cases, I do not think that prescription drugs are any "safer" than street drugs. Many prescription drugs seem to be just as addictive as street drugs. The fact that there are doctors out there who are clearly not "doing no harm," as their oath says, is awful. Something should be done to better regulate doctors. Perhaps doctors that appear to be prescribing copious amount of pain killers/strong anti-anxiety medications should be flagged, in order to keep a better eye on both them and their patients.
ReplyDeleteI think that these prescriptions on the market today are being fed to people like candy by doctors because of the high profits the whole industry gets. The medical industry is probably the most profitable one out there because they make people believe they need all they pills for there problems. HOw many times prescription drug overdoses and cases of dependency is it going to take before realizing they are feeding us lies. If you see a commercial on TV for something that helps with depression or something along those lines you will always here at the end a laundry list of harmful and dangerous side effects that can happen after ingesting pills. Also like any other drug they are falling into the wrong hands and being abused by people who have absolutely no business taking the pill.
ReplyDelete