One of my students came to office hours on Tuesday to ask about the writing assignment. Students complete a
News Analysis Notebook for the critical thinking requirement in the course. Students write on (or they're supposed to write on) U.S. politics and public policy, although there's lots of room for topics on the margins of the top news. My student mentioned that her brother died a few years ago and that his story was going to be featured in the
Los Angeles Times. My student didn't mention much more than that. She mostly wanted to know if she could write about the
Times' piece in her notebook. I said sure, but I wanted to take a look at it first. The story ran yesterday, and it turns out it was a big investigative report: "
Deaths linked to doctor accused of recklessly prescribing painkillers":
And from
the article:
As California's top prescriber of narcotic painkillers and other commonly abused drugs, Dr. Nazar Al Bussam made hundreds of thousands of dollars feeding the addictions of strung-out patients who packed into his offices in Downey and Los Angeles, according to authorities.
Federal prosecutors concluded it was "pure luck" that his reckless prescribing had not resulted in any known deaths.
A Los Angeles Times review of coroners' records, however, reveals that at least three of the doctor's patients died of drug overdoses in 2007 and 2008. Two other people died — one from an overdose, the other by falling off a cliff — with drugs in their systems and pill bottles bearing Al Bussam's name in their possession.
A judge is expected to sentence Al Bussam on Wednesday. Prosecutors have asked for nearly 20 years in prison for the 71-year-old physician, arguing that his conduct was worse than that of a street corner drug dealer.
"Unlike a street dealer, defendant well understood the effects of the poison he peddled," wrote Assistant U.S. Attys. Ariel A. Neuman and Benjamin R. Barron.
Al Bussam, who graduated from the University of Baghdad College of Medicine in 1963 and began practicing in California more than three decades ago, is the latest in a string of Southern California physicians accused of violating their oaths by dealing drugs. The charges come amid a prescription drug epidemic that recently pushed drugs ahead of traffic accidents as a cause of death nationwide.
Al Bussam was arrested last October after a three-year investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration. He was accused of operating a so-called pill mill in which he wrote prescriptions in exchange for cash, regardless of a patient's true need for the drugs ...
Ryan Thompson, 30, died on the doorstep of his younger sisters' Costa Mesa home a day after being prescribed methadone pills by Al Bussam, records show. His sisters cared for him while he suffered through a withdrawal, throwing up so often his vomit was streaked with blood. He wanted to kick his methadone habit and had been sober for weeks when he got his last prescription, family members say. Al Bussam wrote him a prescription for 100 methadone pills to be taken three at time three times daily, records show.
Thompson's sister Hailey said he came home obviously high that evening. Upset and saddened by his relapse, she told him they would discuss it in the morning.
When Hailey found her brother sitting cross-legged outside her front door, a friend began CPR, but it was too late. Toxicology tests later revealed methadone, as well as morphine and oxycodone, in his body. The coroner ruled his death an accidental overdose.
Thompson's mother, Niki, said a coroner's investigator told her that if her son had resumed taking methadone at the amount he was used to before kicking the habit, it could have killed him.
"If you know someone is an addict, why in the world would you hand them a bottle of pills and say, 'Here, take three at a time,'" Niki said.
Gluck, Al Bussam's attorney, said he did not believe that Thompson was a patient of his client. Coroner records list Al Bussam as his doctor and show that Al Bussam's office provided medical records to an investigator.
Others who, according to coroner records, died after being prescribed drugs by Al Bussam or while in possession of drugs he prescribed are:
• Christopher Vargas, 47, who overdosed in his Echo Park apartment in May 2007 on a cocktail of prescription drugs, including a commonly abused muscle relaxant sold under the brand name Soma, which had been prescribed by Al Bussam 26 days earlier, according to coroner's records. Vargas had multiple drug-related arrests, the records state.
• Terry Ridgeway, 42, who family members said had been a crack cocaine abuser but had been clean for seven years before developing a prescription drug habit. He was found dead on the kitchen floor of his Santa Monica apartment in December 2008. A pill bottle containing an anti-anxiety drug prescribed by Al Bussam was found in his bedroom. That drug was one of three that caused his death, coroner's records show. The vial bearing Al Bussam's name had a partially torn label, which law enforcement officials say is a sign of illegally traded drugs. Gluck said he did not believe that Ridgeway was a patient of Al Bussam.
• Lisa Vanzandt, 49, who was an aspiring nurse and primary caretaker of her elderly mother, according to coroner's records. Vanzandt had several medical problems, including back pain, her mother said. She was fond of walking along the cliffs of the Palos Verdes Peninsula near where she grew up in Redondo Beach. A friend told coroner's investigators that the family lost their home and that Vanzandt had always dreamed of moving back. The friend said Vanzandt had a prescription drug problem and speculated that she fell off the cliff while intoxicated. Prescription bottles bearing Al Bussam's name were found in Vanzandt's purse. The same drugs as he prescribed — a painkiller and anti-anxiety medication — were among a cocktail of drugs found in her body, coroner's records show. The labels on both bottles were torn. The death was ruled an accident.
Al Bussam was sentenced yesterday, "
Drug-dealing doctor sentenced to seven years in prison":
A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced a drug-dealing doctor who was once California's top prescriber of narcotic painkillers and other commonly abused drugs to seven years in federal prison, saying he was being somewhat lenient because he did not want the 72-year-old physician to die behind bars.
"It fills me with shame to stand before you today," Dr. Nazar Al Bussam told the judge shortly before he was sentenced. "I failed to live up to the standards I tried to set for myself. I can only hope for some opportunity to redeem myself, so help me God."
As Al Bussam spoke in the downtown Los Angeles courtroom, his adult son put his head in his hands and quietly wept. His wife stared straight ahead, expressionless. Minutes later, the doctor was stripped of his tie, jacket, belt and watch and was led from the courtroom in handcuffs by U.S. marshals.
U.S. District Judge S. James Otero imposed the sentence after telling the court he had read a Times report Wednesday that linked Al Bussam to the deaths of three patients to whom he had prescribed drugs and two other people who had drugs prescribed by him in their possession.
Authorities did not discover those deaths during their three-year probe of Al Bussam, who they said generated nearly $2 million in cash while recklessly prescribing addictive narcotics to drug addicts and dealers.
Before sentencing, prosecutors Ariel A. Neuman and Benjamin R. Barron brought the article to the judge's attention, saying they thought he should be aware of it, but did not seek to enter it as evidence or to postpone sentencing to conduct further investigation.
Otero, after summarizing the report aloud in court, said it would be improper for him to consider the article for a number of reasons, including that it contained statements from people who had not testified in court. After imposing the sentence, the judge said that if he had considered the "very troubling" information in the article and found the doctor responsible for the deaths, he probably would have imposed the nearly 20-year sentence prosecutors had requested.
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