A War Against Humanity

Mary is perpetuating the myth that one can be safe by obeying the law and following guidelines, standards, rules. This is the same as saying you cannot get into trouble unless you are doing something wrong.
What a dangerous lady she has become! This is the storyline the DEA would have doctors believe, because it makes every physician in America even easier prey and at risk for arrest for every controlled substance prescription written within at least the past two years.

The DEA agents in South Carolina falsify documents and lie under oath. Physicians do not stand a chance against predators whose sole job, basis for promotion, and greatest desire in life is to prosecute them. If one patient gets into trouble, or even someone who is related to a patient, the opportunity arises for prosecution of the physician. I'm sure they teach this as a step-wise process, from which they can back down early on if challenged by competent legal counsel.

In at least one case, the DEA refused to grant a change of address, instead, delivering a letter stating that controlled substances could not be written from the new location until a modified certificate with the new address was received. The DEA group supervisor who hand-delivered the letter admitted she had already received the request for a change of address and it would "Not be granted any time soon."

The typical threats of certificate revocation continue until the DEA is satisfied they have arrested someone with a connection to a prescription, who can also memorize at least part of their stilted script. They issue an 'order to show cause and immediate suspension of registration' and then ignore everything said or done by the typical attorney who has never before represented a physician against the DEA, and thereby prove to both the doctor and the lawyer that the DEA is above the law. Then they offer deal after deal while they drag things out for a year or two before indictment to insure sufficient loss of income to prevent the physician from ever mounting an adequate defense, all the while, they are methodically and maliciously molding local sentiment and suspicion against the not yet formally accused and his or her suspect patients.

It is easy enough to damage a medical practice or a physician in the community when the DEA places articles in the newspapers, as they admit to having done in South Carolina. There is no public outcry when an already wounded physician is destroyed in court. There is no jury of one's peers, as with a medical board. Reality is a jury of questionably literate, mostly unemployed, intermittently sleeping people who have no idea of what constitutes a prescription written for a legitimate medical purpose in the usual course of professional practice. The jurors are startled awake when the prosecutor literally trips over his own feet and gasps "Ahhh," and they know he's made another good point against the bad doctor.

When you lose your DEA registration, no other physician will take more than one or two of your patients before the DEA arrives at his office with threats. After you have been arrested, no other physician will even talk with you on the telephone. Your patients lose.You lose. Writing controlled substance prescriptions for pain patients is accompanied by the very real risk of losing your practice, losing your patients, losing your friends and family, and losing your freedom - losing everything that was your life. There is no safe way to do it. Physicians have become personally responsible for each medication-related action of every patient, including carelessness, gullibility, vulnerability, and susceptibility to entrapment. Prescribing controlled substances has become the most dangerous activity most physicians will ever perform. Fear and dread will ultimately lead to the cold, hard, indifference to suffering necessary for self-preservation of every rational physician.

A misplaced and delusional faith in the American judicial system is not an appropriate response to current events and the perilous, prevailing atmosphere of physician persecution in America. This is a war against humanity, both individual and collective. Mary should tell it like it is, or say nothing at all.

Deborah Bordeaux, M.D.