William Hurwitz

William E. Hurwitz, M.D., is a Virginia based pain management physician who was aggressively prosecuted and convicted by the United States Government in 2004 for excessively prescribing pain medication to patients, some of whom subsequently abused and redistributed it on the black market. Before his conviction, Hurwitz had had a series of running battles with the Virginia Board of Medicine which, in 2003 found fault with some of his prescriptions but also held that all were written "in good faith".

William E. Hurwitz is a graduate of Columbia College, completing the BA in three years. He then spent a period at the Harvard University School of Education before attending Stanford University's Medical School. While at Stanford he also earned a Masters in Sociology. He served as a staff physician in Brazil with the Peace Corps upon completing his medical degree.

Conviction in first trial

In 2004, Hurwitz was convicted of over 50 counts of distribution of narcotics originally sentenced to four 25-year sentences and forty-six 15-year sentences, all of which were to be served concurrently, and was fined $2 million (U.S.). During the prosecution of the first case, all of Hurwitz's property was seized.

Hurwitz maintains that he was duped by his patients, and that the enforcement tactics being applied in the War on Drugs unfairly target law-abiding doctors, leading to a situation where doctors must choose between providing compassionate care and accepting personal liability for what their patients do with prescribed medications.

His case has potentially serious ramifications among all practitioners of pain medicine, and is considered by many to be a drastic example of the overreach of anti-drug law enforcement efforts.^[1]

Conviction overturned on appeal

His conviction was overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on August 22, 2006, due to errors by the trial judge that essentially prevented the jury from considering Hurwitz's defense—that he was prescribing the medication in good faith as part of the regular practice of medicine. His re-trial began on March 26, 2007 in federal district court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Hurwitz's entire defense team—including four expert witnesses and every attorney—worked on the matter pro bono, i.e. for free.

Conviction in second trial

On April 27, 2007 jurors found William E. Hurwitz guilty of 16 counts of drug trafficking and determined that he prescribed massive quantities of medicine to patients in chronic pain. The 12-member jury acquitted Hurwitz on 17 other trafficking counts. District Judge Leonie Brinkema dismissed the remaining 12 counts. ^[2] His two lead trial attorneys for the second trial were Lawrence Robbins and Richard Sauber, of Robbins, Russell, Englert, Orseck & Untereiner, and Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, respectively.

On July 13, 2007 Judge Brinkema sentenced Hurwitz to four years and nine months. The judge said that most of Hurwitz's practice was legitimate medicine that saved patients' lives and that medical literature increasingly supports his theories on the propriety of massive drug doses to treat patients in chronic pain. "An increasing body of respectable medical literature and expertise supports those types of high-dosage, opioid medications," the judge said. ^[3]

The judge added that Hurwitz had undermined his own cause by ignoring that some patients were clearly drug dealers and Hurwitz admitted before sentencing that he had deceived himself about some patients who in retrospect were clearly criminals.

Since Hurwitz has already spent over 2-1/2 years in prison his lawyers believe he will be eligible for release in about 18 months.^[4]

Effect on patients

Hurwitz had over 200 patients, many of whom had a difficult time finding a doctor to prescribe opioid medications. Jay Fleming, one of Hurwitz's patients from Arizona, had an especially hard time. Doctors would tell him they would lose their license if they prescribed opiates, something the Arizona Medical Board said was untrue.

After many calls and a visit to speak with a medical board investigator, Fleming was told by the investigator that if he couldn't find a doctor, to go to methadone clinics, and if he didn't get enough, he could go to several methadone clinics, because they didn't share information.

This was unacceptable, so Fleming went to the local newspaper. After a three-part article in the Kingman Minor Newspaper in April 1997 in which the Arizona Medical Board admitted they had no guidelines for doctors on the treatment of chronic pain, in November 1997 the Arizona Medical Board issued Substantive Policy Statement #7 the Use of Controlled Substances for the Treatment of Chronic Pain. Fleming was finally able to find a local doctor willing to prescribe opiates. He continues to fight for patients' rights in Arizona.

Others weren't so lucky: two patients apparently killed themselves because their severe pain went untreated after Hurwitz's practice was closed. ^[5]

According to Jerry Markon Washington Post Staff Writer the U.S. District Judge Leonard D. Wexler "Dr. Hurwitz, I don't feel sorry for you," Wexler told the former McLean pain doctor as Hurwitz stared back and bowed his head slightly. "By your behavior, you put people in jail. By your behavior, you ruined people's lives. By your behavior, you seriously injured people. By your behavior, you killed people."[1]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53689-2005Apr14.html washingtonpost] "I was eight months pregnant the day Dr. Hurwitz killed my mom, said Jennifer Click. Her mother, Linda Lalmond, died of a drug overdose in Fairfax County in 2000 shortly after meeting Hurwitz and being prescribed massive doses of morphine. Jurors convicted Hurwitz of causing her death."I never got to tell my mother one last time that I loved her, and this man gets to see his family once a week, Click said, pointing at Hurwitz, who looked down, grim-faced.

Bryan Slaughter, a Charlottesville lawyer, represented Lalmond's family in a civil lawsuit against Hurwitz that was settled earlier this year in Fairfax.He said Lalmond died days after first meeting Hurwitz and taking high doses of morphine. "Dr. Hurwitz's treatment was so far outside accepted medical practice that the result was certainly foreseeable in Linda's case," Slaughter said. The indictment also mentions the death of Mary Nye in Prince William County on Nov. 4. Hurwitz is charged with causing Nye serious bodily injury by prescribing her large amounts of OxyContin and methadone. "Dr. Hurwitz got her hooked on narcotics and took advantage of her," said Manassas attorney Amy Ashworth, who represents Nye's widower, Paul. Hurwitz has been under scrutiny before. He lost his medical license for over-prescribing painkillers and was most recently placed on probation in Virginia in May. His marketing practices, authorities said, allowed him to keep patients in all parts of the country and Canada. The indictment alleges that Hurwitz prescribed medications in as many as 39 states, issuing the prescriptions with little or no physical examination and sometimes over the phone, fax, or the Internet.

In May, the Virginia Board of Medicine placed Dr. Hurwitz on probation for what it called the improper treatment of several pain patients, three of whom died from overdosesof drugs they had been prescribed. They were identified as Rennie Buras Sr., who died in October 1999; Linda Lalmond, who died in June 2000; and Mary Nye, who died in November.[2]

References

External links

• Press Release from DEA regarding Hurwitz sentencing
• Articles by and about Dr. Hurwitz - archived by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons
• The Police State of Medicine: Reflections on a Case of Regulatory Abuse - Hurwitz's 1998 article
• The Police State of Medicine - Part II - Hurwitz's 2002 follow up to his 1998 article
• Conviction Of McLean Pain Doctor Overturned Washington Post article on Fourth Circuit Court decision