Pharma Company Paid NY Doctors to Prescribe Fentanyl
Five NYC doctors have been charged for taking kickbacks from Insys Therapeutics for writing millions of dollars of fentanyl prescriptions.
As reported by CBS News, five New York City doctors were arrested Friday on charges that they accepted bribes and kickbacks from an Arizona-based pharmaceutical company to prescribe large volumes of a highly addictive painkiller. Prosecutors say the doctors, four men and a woman, collected tens of thousands of dollars working for the company’s “Speakers Bureau” over a four-year stretch beginning in August 2012. The company, Insys Therapeutics Inc., hasn’t commented.
They pleaded not guilty in Manhattan federal court to an unsealed indictment charging them with conspiracy, among other charges.
William F. Sweeney Jr., head of New York’s FBI office, said the doctors “were convinced to push aside their ethical obligations and prescribe a drug for profit to patients who turned to them for help.”
He said doctors and medical professionals everywhere should be reminded “that the health and safety of their patients is not for sale.”
The doctors were identified as Gordon Freedman, 57, of Mount Kisco, Jeffrey Goldstein, 48, of New Rochelle, Todd Schlifstein, 49, of Manhattan, Dialecti Voudouris, 47, of Long Island City and Alexandru Burducea, 41, of Little Neck. All practiced in Manhattan, prosecutors said.
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To learn more about how doctors in NY were influenced to write fentanyl prescriptions, please visit CBS News.