Jewish World Review Jan. 7, 2005 / 26 Teves 5765

Drs. Michael A. Glueck & Robert J. Cihak

The Medicine Men
JWR's Pundits
World Editorial
Cartoon Showcase

Mallard Fillmore

Michael Barone
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Don Feder
Suzanne Fields
James Glassman
Paul Greenberg
Bob Greene
Betsy Hart
Nat Hentoff
David Horowitz
Marianne Jennings
Michael Kelly
Mort Kondracke
Ch. Krauthammer
Lawrence Kudlow
Dr. Laura
John Leo
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Chris Matthews
Michael Medved
MUGGER
Kathleen Parker
Wes Pruden
Sam Schulman
Amity Shlaes
Roger Simon
Tony Snow
Thomas Sowell
Cal Thomas
Jonathan S. Tobin
Ben Wattenberg
George Will
Bruce Williams
Walter Williams
Mort Zuckerman

Consumer Reports


Jury can fire liars for hire


http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | On December 15, Dr. Bill Hurwitz was shackled in the courtroom and hauled away to jail. A federal jury in Virginia declared the doctor guilty of some of the drug-dealing charges the government brought against him - a conviction that carries a mandatory minimum prison sentence of 20 years to life.


Dr. Hurwitz specialized in treating patients suffering with chronic pain. Some of his treatment techniques were considered "controversial" a decade ago but are now widely accepted as standard practice by doctors working in medical schools as well as in private practice. These methods are now recognized in state law, for example, in Virginia.


Further, the doctor's plan or protocol for treating such patients was formally accepted in written agreements by both state and federal government officials in 1997 and 1998.


As part of these agreements, Dr. Hurwitz allowed federal government agents working for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) access to all his patient records, at any time, without requiring a court order or search warrant. He also provided DEA agents with complete and ongoing records of all patients receiving powerful pain medicines every three months.


This degree of openness and the detailed paperwork given to government agents was unprecedented. Dr. Hurwitz provided this access and all these reports with a hope that the government would work with him to counter illegal drug diversion by his patients. His hope was in vain.


During four years of providing prodigious amounts of patient information to government agents, DEA agents never advised him about any of the illegal activities of the few patients who did so.


Hurwitz himself became aware of illegal or unethical activities of 17 patients and refused to treat them further. After learning that four other patients suffering with chronic pain were arrested on drug charges, he watched these patients more carefully and used laboratory tests to confirm that these patients were indeed taking the drugs in the prescribed doses.

Donate to JWR


About 15 of his 400 patients lied to Dr. Hurwitz about their pain in order to get prescriptions for more medicine than they needed. When government agents discovered these patients were selling drugs illegally, they bribed them to testify against Dr. Hurwitz by offering lenient prosecution.


They also sent "patients" to him that were imposters, liars for hire, paid for by government prosecutors.


Given that government agents were given all the information they wanted and more, it would have made sense to let Dr. Hurwitz know when a patient was diverting drugs.


Instead, the government knew that Hurwitz's former patient Tim Urbani sold his prescribed medicines for $3 million and patient Robert Woodson made $750,000 in two years. Dr. Hurwitz wasn't told about these diversions and did not receive a penny of these illegal profits.


Instead of helping Dr. Hurwitz identify and manage law-breaking patients, DEA agents searched his office on November 6, 2002, and subsequently indicted him on 62 charges, including conspiracy to traffic in controlled substances, drug trafficking resulting in death and serious bodily injury, and health care fraud.


Prosecutors commonly cook up dozens of charges against a physician, each one of which carries a heavy prison sentence, in the hope that the jury will find the doctor guilty of at least one charge. Or that the jury will think that there are so many charges, the doctor must be guilty of something.


Every aspect of the trial was stacked against Dr. Hurwitz.


In this case, the judge restricted testimony from most of Dr. Hurwitz's genuine patients who were willing to testify that he had saved their lives. But the illegal drug users and paid patient imposters were invited to swear to tell their "truth" and bear false witness against him.


With inflammatory language, the prosecution tried to turn the requirement for the burden of proof away from the government and tried to make Dr. Hurwitz prove his innocence. This turns our "innocent until proven guilty" basis of criminal law upside down.


The judge did not allow Dr. Hurwitz to tell the jury about the signed, sealed and religiously executed agreement with the DEA itself. It beggars my imagination to understand why this evidence of four years of full cooperation with the very agency that prosecuted the doctor was not allowed.


How can we citizens prevail against such "legal" injustice?


We need to be aware of our power as jurors.


We believe the jurors did not realize they could find Dr. Hurwitz not guilty. One eyewitness in the courtroom told me, "Everyone in the courtroom knew Billy was innocent."


Let's remember the 1735 John Peter Zenger trial in colonial New York. Zenger was accused of the crime of printing harsh criticism of the colonial New York governor. Zenger's defense was simple: he had the right to print the truth. Although under the law at the time, the jury had no authority to acquit Zenger based on the truth of his statements, the jury acquitted him anyway.


"Jurors must know that they have the option and the responsibility to render a verdict based on their conscience and on their sense of justice as well as on the merits of the law," according to the Fully Informed Jury Association, http://www.fija.org.


"Jurors protect against tyranny by refusing to convict, and our Founding Fathers planned and expected jurors would exercise this power without question. Juries are the last defense of liberty before we resort to arms, and thus our best defense without loss of life."


Jury nullification lives today. Thomas J. Binder, my mother's father, owned and ran an all-family bar in the small farming community of Tabor, South Dakota. I call it an "all-family bar" because he sold candy and ice cream for the kids up front near the door, tobacco in the next section, and beer and hard liquor farthest back. He owned the bar for over half a century, retiring at age 92.


When he was about 88 years old, my grandfather was put on trial for selling beer to an underage youth. At the trial, he was asked all the usual questions: "Did you know the young man?" "Did you know he was underage?" "Did you sell him beer?" He answered "Yes" to all these supposedly incriminating questions.


A jury of his neighbors in this hard-working community rendered their verdict: not guilty.


When you, as a juror, are told to believe professional, lying criminals and distrust honest citizens you have not only a right but an obligation to tell all these criminals to go to hell.


The American jury is our last line of defense against corrupt government prosecutors, cops, judges and liars for hire. It's not just a right, it's an obligation.

Editor's Note: Robert J. Cihak penned this week's commentary.




Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D., is a multiple award winning writer who comments on medical-legal issues. Robert J. Cihak, M.D., is a Discovery Institute Senior Fellow and a past president of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Both JWR contributors are Harvard trained diagnostic radiologists. Comment by clicking here.

Up

12/17/04: Life after Vioxx? — Pharmacetical competition good for patients and the industry
12/10/04: Fake drugs in your local pharmacy?
12/03/04: A Prescription for Taking Back the Right: The Right Rx
11/25/04: New Weapons in the War on Pain Patients and Doctors
11/19/04: Wedding Psychosis: A new diagnosis is born
11/15/04: What's the right price for pharmaceutical drugs?
11/05/04: Berry Healthy: Health Benefits from Antioxidant-Rich Foods
10/29/04: New Scientific Evidence Refutes Existence of Shaken Baby Syndrome
10/25/04: Fact-checking KerryCare
10/05/04: That old-time rare burger: Healthy or not?
09/24/04: Death is not a final diagnosis — Murder rates in US cities comparable to Iraq!
09/10/04: Mercury linked to autism
09/07/04: Sad child disease: Speaking out so that they can speak
08/20/04: Household Olympics: Losing and gaining points
07/30/04: Still Seeking Justice for Dr. Sell
07/26/04: Medicine, genes, sports and longevity
07/16/04: Biotech foods foolishly feared by Franken-Folk
07/09/04: The Runaway Trial Lawyer
07/02/04: Physicians not treating trial lawyers: A shootout at OK Coral and Courthouse?
06/25/04: Dosage makes the poison in 400-year-old mercury murder
06/11/04: Canada's health system dream turns to nightmare
06/04/04: It's A Medical Life — I Remember Yesterday
05/28/04: Back to the Future: Patient Pays Directly for Medical Care
05/21/04: Sue Your Boss Month
05/14/04: Death from painful medical myths
05/07/04: Fear in the Medical Garden of Eden
04/30/04: DDT vs. Death by Malaria
04/23/04: In pain do we part!
04/16/04: Free — or not free — to treat pain
04/09/04: Wrong Military Diagnoses & Treatments
04/02/04: Radiation monster slain
03/19/04: What Do — and Don't — Bush and Kerry Plan to do to Your Health Choices
03/15/04: Dear Rush: We Feel Your Pain, So Now Feel the Pain of Others
03/05/04: Fraudulent use of fraud laws — by government
02/27/04: Population growth, birth control and increased terrorism?
02/20/04: Doctors fighting against doctors, at the behest of the government and lawyers
02/13/04: Legal Cancer in the White House?
02/06/04: Feds Harass Doctors. Who's Next?
01/30/04: Women, the Military and Medical Misconceptions
01/23/04: Welfare for the Wealthy
01/19/04: New diagnoses and strategies create both short and long term problems for medicine and the military
01/09/04: A new plastic phobia?
01/02/04: Baseball Good Medicine?: International Forkball and Split Finger Rotating Our Way Soon
12/26/03: Medicare Bankrupt: A Possible Palliative 12/19/03: Crossing Fruit Street: Some Movies Like "Stuck on You" Cross the Medical Line
12/12/03: Silver Lining in the Medicare Clouds?
12/05/03: Medicare mop up
12/01/03: The Dirty Radioactive Bomb: Rational Response or Fear Itself?
11/24/03: The Caduceus Conspiracy: How the People Lost Medicine and How We Can Take It Back
11/14/03: Mosquitoes kill us; DDT doesn't
11/07/03: Avoiding the Schiavo Scenario: Readers Speak Out With Life-and-Death Comments
10/31/03: The Terri Schindler-Schiavo Case: Speaking out for those who can't
10/24/03: Want health service — go on a diet?
10/15/03: The War on Legal Painkillers: Sen. Kerry owes an apology to the more than 48 million Americans who suffer chronic pain
10/13/03: Medicare defrauds itself
09/19/03: Politics prevents women from learning about abortion/breast cancer risks
09/12/03: Medical mischief
09/05/03: Unholy medicine
08/29/03: The California Tea Party and West Coast Determinism; Voter anger coming your way soon
08/18/03: The outlaw prosecutors: A Justice and Civil Liberties Issue
08/08/03: "Toxic Teeth?"
07/25/03: Resuscitating the Constitution; CPR American Style
07/25/03: Drug reimportation: Bill translates to goodnight, patients
07/11/03: Costly Medicare Changes, Without Real Reform
07/04/03: The Painful DEA II: War on legal drugs ensnares too many doctors and not enough dealers
06/20/03: The Medicare Mess: Will President Bush call Congress' Bluff?
06/13/03: Diagnosis: School Insanity: A suit for sanity and school discipline
06/05/03: Soaring Medical Costs: Rational ignorance or rational enlightenment?
05/30/03: A Tale of Two Admirable Women: Jessica and Annika
05/23/03: Latest medical innovation: Cash
05/09/03: We feel your pain; Physicians have it too no thanks to the DEA
05/02/03: Medical Quarterbacking
04/25/03: CNN the "Conscience-Not Network"
04/21/03: Medical Miranda?
04/11/03: Are childhood vaccines shots in the dark?
04/09/03: The PETA Principle -- The lambshank Redemption
03/28/03: American conscience?
03/21/03: West Wimps or Wings: Treatment for Hollywood Hypocrisy
03/13/03: Worldwide schmaltz shortage looms --- all because of a featherless chicken
03/06/03: Legal metastases are killing us
02/28/03: Outside the Jury Box: Seeking Justice rather than a Lottery in Medical Liability
02/21/03: Workforce temperature rising; employer TLC in demand
02/14/03: Malpractice Insurance: They Reap What They Sue
02/12/03: Hawk, Dove or Groundhog: Diagnosis Critical List; Prognosis Uncertain
02/07/03: How about tax cuts for the "rich" and "poor"?
01/31/03: AIDS Bug Chasers
01/24/03: Libertarian moment or movement?
01/17/03: It's not just 'sue the docs' anymore
01/03/03: A pox on the critics; diagnosis sour grapes
01/03/03: If protesting is good for your health; then at least let's root for the home team
12/20/02: Obesidemic (obesity epidemic) or not?
12/20/02: Time for voluntary informed smallpox vaccinations
12/13/02: The real reason the state opposes homeschooling?
12/06/02: Conscience of a former conservative: Portrait of a political metamorphosis
11/27/02: Thanksgiving dinner hazard?
11/22/02: Time to think outside the box and inside the nucleus
11/15/02: The military should be protected from abusive environmental laws in times of war
11/11/02: Does Kyoto Treaty pose more harm than global warming?
10/31/02: Deep thoughts on Baseball, the World Series and Life: How about them Anaheim Angels?
10/23/02: "Pediatric rule" guinea pigs
10/23/02: Once the World Series ends, we need to create a Donnie Moore Day of Remembrance: Sports and mental health
10/18/02: Congress to senior patients: Do as we say not as we do for ourselves
10/11/02: Using pollution "scare labeling" to political advantage
10/04/02: The Great Asbestos Heist: Did Litigation and Junk Medical Science Helped Bring Down the World Trade Center?
09/27/02: The imminent rise of civic feminism: A far healthier national alternative in war and peace
09/20/02: A Ray A Day" to replace the daily apple?
09/13/02: Beware of celebrities hawking drugs
09/06/02: Avoid 9/11 overdose: Give blood to begin "September of Service," SOS
08/28/02: From Doubleday to strikeday: Baseball's collective anxiety attack
08/23/02: Should she or shouldn't she?: An alternative view on treating menopause with HRT
08/16/02: Cooking up defenses against germ warfare
08/02/02: Medicine, crime and canines
07/26/02: Lies, pathologic lies and the Palestinians
07/19/02: Medicare Drug Follies … as in "now you see it, now you don't"
07/12/02: Anti-Profiling: A New Medically False Belief System
07/08/02: Don't procrastinate, vaccinate!
06/28/02: The scientific advances on the safe and effective deployment of DDT are being ignored, or denied. Why?
06/21/02: Sex and the system: In seeking healthcare men are different from women
06/14/02: The FDA, drug companies and life-saving drugs: Who's the fox and who's the hen now?
06/07/02: Medical Privacy Lost: A hippo on the healthcare back!
05/24/02: To clean up America's game: A (soggy) ground rule
05/10/02: Free speech is good medicine
05/03/02: Medicine's Vietnam
04/26/02: Attack on alternative medicine could lead to alternative lawsuits
04/12/02: Insure the 'crazies'?
04/09/02: No Time for Litmus Tests: In War We Need a Surgeon General and NIH, CDC, and FDA Directors
04/02/02: The scoop on soot: A dirty rotten shame?
03/22/02: Too many beautiful minds to waste: The first annual Caduceus Movie
03/15/02: Terror and transformation: Defense essential for health & state of mind
03/08/02: Diagnosis: Delusional
03/06/02: The great matzah famine
03/01/02: Is new Hippocratic Oath hypocritical?
02/15/02: Why the recent moaning about cloning?
02/08/02: Searching for Dr. Strangelove
01/15/02: Score one for the value of human life
01/04/02: Medical-legal-financial wake-up call
12/28/01: Who's afraid of a 'dirty bomb'?
12/21/01: End of medicine?
12/14/01: More heroes: Docs deserve a little credit after 9/11
11/16/01: Do we need 'Super Smallpox Saturdays'?
11/09/01: Why the post-9-11 health care debate will never be the same
11/01/01: Common sense good for our mental health
10/26/01: Your right to medical privacy --- even in terror time
10/12/01: Failed immigration policy ultimately bad for nation's mental health: Enemy within leads to epidemic of jumpy nerves
09/28/01: Can legal leopards change their spots: A treat instead of a trick
09/21/01: Civil defense again a civic duty
08/30/01: Shut down this government CAFE
08/23/01: School Bells or Jail Cells?
08/15/01: Time to take coaches to the woodshed
08/10/01: Blood, Guts & Glory: The Stem of the Stem Cell controversy

© 2002