Doctor Arrested, Accused Of Illegally Distributing Prescription Drugs To At Least Five People Who Died Of Overdoses
Dr. Dzung Ahn Pham, 57, is not charged in the deaths, but those investigations are ongoing. Pham faces two federal counts of illegally distributing oxycodone.
The Associated Press:
California Doctor Accused Of Prescribing Drugs In 5 Deaths
A Southern California doctor was arrested Tuesday on charges of doling out drugs to patients he didn’t examine and is alleged to have prescribed drugs to five people who died of overdoses as well as an impaired driver who struck and killed a bicyclist, federal prosecutors said. Dr. Dzung Ahn Pham, 57, faces charges of illegally distributing powerful opioids and prosecutors said he prescribed drugs to addicts or people selling them on the street. He prescribed some drugs after receiving text messages requesting specific quantities and doses, prosecutors said. (Melley, 12/18)
Orange County Register:
Thousand Oaks Mass Shooting Gunman Had Drugs Illegally Prescribed By Tustin Doctor, Feds Say
Federal prosecutors also alleged that medications prescribed by Dzung Ahn Pham, of Tustin, were found in the possession of a man believed to have carried out the mass shooting at the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks that claimed the lives of 13 people. Pham, the owner of the Irvine Village Urgent Care, faces two federal counts of illegally distributing oxycodone. While he has not been criminally charged in connection to the Borderline shooting, the death of the Costa Mesa fire captain or the overdose deaths, authorities in a court filing alleged that he routinely gave out large quantities of powerful narcotics to dozens of patients. (Emery, 12/18)
In other news on the opioid crisis —
San Francisco Chronicle:
SF Sues Drug Companies Over Marketing Of Addictive Painkillers
San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday accusing Purdue Pharma and other pharmaceutical companies of fueling the nation’s epidemic of opioid addiction by deliberately misleading doctors and the public about the dangers of powerful painkillers. In a complaint running more than 160 pages, Herrera’s office alleges that Purdue, which makes OxyContin, and the drugmakers Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Endo Pharmaceuticals, Cephalon, Insys Therapeutics, Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals and Actavis, aggressively marketed addictive opioid painkillers to treat chronic pain knowing they had a high potential for abuse. (Fracassa, 12/18)