Emery Joe Yost
http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2010/05/emery-joe-yost-in-eye-of-storm.html
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Dr. Joseph Zernik/Biblical Hebrew course in development
Dr. Joseph Zernik is a political activist. He has been dedicated to exposing the corrupt LA County justice system which has kept Richard Fine incarcerated and forcibly hospitalized for over a year.
Read about Dr. Zernik's recent exploits.
See my course I'm developing to teach/coach Biblical Hebrew.
Obama amnesty and healthcare for illegals
Read about Dr. Zernik's recent exploits.
See my course I'm developing to teach/coach Biblical Hebrew.
Obama amnesty and healthcare for illegals
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Survey about a just society
Please give us feedback. Let us know if we have challenged you to do more about creating a just society.
Survey about a just society
Survey about a just society
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Desperate sham peer reviewed doctor contacted Texas Medical Board Watch
Lishan Wang MD, reportedly a victim of sham peer review, was terminated by Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center in Brooklyn one month prior to graduating from his residency in Internal Medicine about two years ago.
Two years later, on Wednesday, April 28, 2010, he shot dead the doctor he believed was responsible for bringing false charges against him.
Texas Medical Board Watch was one of the resources Dr. Lishan Wang turned to when he felt he had no other place to turn. We failed to provide him what he needed to avert this tragedy.
Dr. Wang, apparently, had not been in this country very long and did not know the ropes. He had no way to provide for his wife and children. His wife did not speak English and she was ill. Lishan told me he was desperate. He meant it.
The unjust society which turns a blind eye and deaf ear to whistleblowers is at least partially responsible. Decent people can become desperate. Retaliation against whistleblowers is a dangerous game. The Texas Medical Board plays it frequently.
There is a side to the story the media is not telling. The public needs to hear the other side.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/nyregion/27haven.html
http://news.oneindia.in/2010/04/28/indian-doctor-shot-dead-in-us-by-former-colleague.html
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/chinese-doctor-who-murdered-indian-carried-1-000-rounds-ammu/612485/
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/wife-of-chinese-doctor-in-shock-over-killing-of-indian/612944/
Two years later, on Wednesday, April 28, 2010, he shot dead the doctor he believed was responsible for bringing false charges against him.
Texas Medical Board Watch was one of the resources Dr. Lishan Wang turned to when he felt he had no other place to turn. We failed to provide him what he needed to avert this tragedy.
Dr. Wang, apparently, had not been in this country very long and did not know the ropes. He had no way to provide for his wife and children. His wife did not speak English and she was ill. Lishan told me he was desperate. He meant it.
The unjust society which turns a blind eye and deaf ear to whistleblowers is at least partially responsible. Decent people can become desperate. Retaliation against whistleblowers is a dangerous game. The Texas Medical Board plays it frequently.
There is a side to the story the media is not telling. The public needs to hear the other side.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/nyregion/27haven.html
http://news.oneindia.in/2010/04/28/indian-doctor-shot-dead-in-us-by-former-colleague.html
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/chinese-doctor-who-murdered-indian-carried-1-000-rounds-ammu/612485/
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/wife-of-chinese-doctor-in-shock-over-killing-of-indian/612944/
Monday, March 22, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Keith E Miller MD's illegal retaliation
The Texas Medical Board continues to allow this bad, unethical doctor, Keith E Miller MD, to continue his antics.
I'm reminded that one of the last TMB meetings I attended, TMB member Tim Turner commented to me, "...well I guess he's taking care of you...", referring to Miller's lawsuit against me.
My lawyer, Jerry Payne, tells me that slimy Dr. Miller tried to have me arrested last time I went to a deposition in Center on January 8, 2010. On January 5, he conspired with Shelby County officials who are already defendants in one civil rights lawsuit in federal court to provide me with another cause of action for another civil rights lawsuit. The Miller clowns appear to have falsified a fax which my advocate, Tammy Herchek, was supposed to have sent them. By the wildest stretch of his creative sinister mind, the fax was supposed to be evidence that I was trying to obtain narcotics illegally.
Guess Dr. Miller forgot that I have been proven to be intolerant of narcotics, in that I have developed a movement disorder called akathisia twice after taking them for ten days. Pretty much that guarantees that my lifetime risk of narcotics abuse is slightly less than the reciprocal of Avogadro's number.
Those who conspired with Dr. Miller are Lynda K Russell, Shelby County District Attorney, and her investigator Kevin Windham. We have a theory that Mr. Windham's willingness to sign a perjurious probable cause affidavit when he only heard Dr. Millers's complaint about me may have had something to do with the fact that Mr. Windham had just been ordered to pay $50,000 for violating someone's civil rights he investigated on behalf of the DA.
What's a little bribe among friends? This, of course, is just my theory.
Here is Exhibit A demonstrating Dr. Miller's retaliation against me.
I'm reminded that one of the last TMB meetings I attended, TMB member Tim Turner commented to me, "...well I guess he's taking care of you...", referring to Miller's lawsuit against me.
My lawyer, Jerry Payne, tells me that slimy Dr. Miller tried to have me arrested last time I went to a deposition in Center on January 8, 2010. On January 5, he conspired with Shelby County officials who are already defendants in one civil rights lawsuit in federal court to provide me with another cause of action for another civil rights lawsuit. The Miller clowns appear to have falsified a fax which my advocate, Tammy Herchek, was supposed to have sent them. By the wildest stretch of his creative sinister mind, the fax was supposed to be evidence that I was trying to obtain narcotics illegally.
Guess Dr. Miller forgot that I have been proven to be intolerant of narcotics, in that I have developed a movement disorder called akathisia twice after taking them for ten days. Pretty much that guarantees that my lifetime risk of narcotics abuse is slightly less than the reciprocal of Avogadro's number.
Those who conspired with Dr. Miller are Lynda K Russell, Shelby County District Attorney, and her investigator Kevin Windham. We have a theory that Mr. Windham's willingness to sign a perjurious probable cause affidavit when he only heard Dr. Millers's complaint about me may have had something to do with the fact that Mr. Windham had just been ordered to pay $50,000 for violating someone's civil rights he investigated on behalf of the DA.
What's a little bribe among friends? This, of course, is just my theory.
Here is Exhibit A demonstrating Dr. Miller's retaliation against me.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Criminal behavior of Keith E Miller MD, Mari Robinson JD, and Racketeering at Texas State Agencies
I've been talking to Tammy and Mark. They are very upset about having criminal charges filed against her with a warrant outstanding for her arrest in Shelby County. Keith E Miller MD is illegally retaliating against her for collecting criminal against him and his nurse Bridget Hughes on my behalf.
It is natural for her and Mark to blame me for actions taken by state employees and agencies against her, even though I tried to talk her out of taking the trip to Center. The only thing I did not do to keep her from going was that I did not actually forbid her, as if I could have done that.
I had never previously told Tammy about the fax which she supposedly sent from my office to Miller's office describing her pain, because I thought they might think I was blaming them for the Miller lawsuit, and my subsequent arrest in Center.
Mark informs me that a fax machine can be programmed to say falsely that it was sent from a particular location.
Tammy denies sending the fax at all. Mark says that she's much too smart to have done something so stupid which obviously would have identified her and linked her to me. He describes all the precautions she would have taken, and sending a fax from my machine is just not something she would have done. So it appears that she and I were both framed and that the document is false. ...more evidence of malice against former Texas Medical Board member Keith E Miller MD.
Does the guy really not understand that he's hanging himself and other persons who remain at the board, but who are just as guilty? Not only does he prostitute himself in false expert testimony, but he's clumsily tying himself together with a national Tenaha police scam, DA Lynda K Russell and her federal class action lawsuit.
I believe Tammy's civil rights are being violated by racketeering crimes committed by the State of Texas because she collected criminal evidence against Bridget Hughes and Dr. Miller. The state of Texas should protect her, her sons, and her husband from this harassment and intimidation and pay and her family for the mental anguish they are suffering.
My husband committed suicide under similar circumstances but at the time of his death we didn't have nearly the evidence against Mari Robinson and Keith Miller for their obvious criminal conspiracy as we have now.
The email which my former attorney, Jeff Grass, Jeff's wife, and I found in the Wharton County evidence file prior to my criminal trial was an exchange between Miller's nurse Bridget Hughes and DPS Captain Patrick Mulligan. Captain Mulligan illegally sent Tammy's DPS driver's license to Hughes for her to identify. Hughes sent back a handwritten fax which said, "Yikes! She didn't look like that when she was here!", but she confirmed Tammy's identity. Thus, Miller and Hughes colluded with Captain Mulligan and Josh McCown to disseminate Tammy's identity and her home address illegally. Shortly after that, an unidentified vehicle ran Mark off the road almost into a bridge, miles out of town in the country where they live in an obscure cul-de-sac.
Tammy and Mark believed that to be an attempt on her life.
Pamela Munn at the Texas State Auditor's office has detailed information from both me and Tammy, which we presented to her in Representative Geanie Morrison's office in Austin. The General Counsel of the TSA and Ms Munn called us about a week later and told us that their 'thorough investigation' didn't produce any evidence of a crime, even though they never contacted us again to ask if there were other witnesses.
Representative Morrison arranged for us to meet with Ms Munn, a 'special investigator' and has it on record.
While I was pro se, I filed a motion to compel the DA to produce the email exchange among Hughes, Mulligan, (Ritter, and Josh McCown). The judge granted it. Gordon Dudley and Josh McCown ignored a direct order from the judge. I then filed a motion to hold the DA in contempt of court and Judge Clapp, in error, refused to grant it. I argued that the email exchange was exculpatory evidence because it demonstrated conspiracy. Jeff refused to adopt it. You asked me, when I hired you, why he would not adopt my motions, and I told you that was why I fired him.
The email exchange went further. Captain Patrick Mulligan then sent it to Cassie Ritter, Judge Clapp's Court Administrator, at one of these email addresses: ["Cassie Ritter Texas Administrator Judge Randy Clapp" or "Cassie Ritter Administrator, 329 Criminal District Court, Wharton County, Judge Randy Clapp" ; I don't remember which, since I never was able to get a copy]. Cassie Ritter, in an ex parte communication from the 329th court, forwarded it to DA Josh McCown, with the terse comment, "GOT IT!"
I thought it was illegal for the judge's secretary to collect evidence for the DA.
I stated to the court that the DA was withholding exculpatory evidence of my innocence and their actions prove collusion among the following parties: Keith E Miller MD, Bridget Hughes RN, DPS Captain Patrick Mulligan, the 329th Court through its administrator, and the DA.
Since the email proved the 329th court participated in the conspiracy, I argued verbally that Judge Clapp should be recused, but I DID NOT FILE A MOTION demanding it! Since I refused to file such a motion, Judge Clapp wrote his own! Then he, illegally, in his own ex parte interchange, called in an out-of-town elderly judge who admitted not understanding the US Constitution, and then denied Clapp's motion for recusal.
It was very obvious that I was not privy to a long string of illegal ex parte discussions.
They also had the motion heard the same day, probably in violation of state notice requirements for hearings.
All of this is why Gordon Dudley tricked you into agreeing that 'we wouldn't allege conspiracy'. ....because conspiracy is so easily proved.
At another hearing, while I was still pro se, I filed a motion to dismiss the criminal charges with prejudice because the elements of a felony (lacking the mens rea, plus even if mens rea did exist, the only crime would have been 'fleeing arrest', a Class B misdemeanor, certainly not the felony of aggravated assault against a law enforcement officer, in the line of duty, with a deadly weapon. Judge Clapp acted in further error by refusing to rule on my motion to dismiss with prejudice.
The evidence Tammy collected in Center proved that Hughes was in violation of her non-disciplinary order for forging the 50 narcotics prescriptions which Dr. Miller was supervising. Her office visit to Hughes was in early April, while the order was still in effect. Hughes now actually has a disciplinary order for giving herself an antibiotic shot (not quite as serious as forging 50 narcotics prescriptions) where she admits to being violation of the earlier order.
The later disciplinary order, which Miller also was supervising, proves that Miller knew Hughes was in violation of the order prohibiting her from forging narcotics prescriptions. Thus, the later order proves that Miller, because he did not stop Hughes' forgeries, was aiding and abetting her crimes; ie, it's proof of his felonious actions.
I have a record of my complaint of Miller's felonies which I submitted to the medical board about him. I have a record that Mari Robinson, in an email (from Robinson directly to me), told me she would not 'allow the Texas Medical Board to investigate Miller's felonies'. I have the receipt for the certified US Mail the Texas Medical Board representative signed for upon receiving my complaint against Miller. I have a record of Mari Robinson telling me she didn't get the certified mail for which I have the receipt. Thus, I have proof that Mari Robinson destroyed or caused to be destroyed my US Mail certified complaints, ie, I have proof she committed a federal crime and has denied it.
Tammy, Mark, and I have tape recordings of her verbal communications with an Internal Affairs officer at DPS during which she alleged multiple crimes and coverups of four DPS officers. We have proof that DPS Internal Affairs failed to follow up.
I have about 15 Texas Medical Board members who witnessed my accusations against their Executive Director that she committed state and federal crimes, both felonies and misdemeanors. I have a record that they failed to act. I have a record that they sent me notice two weeks later that they intended to suspend my license. I have proof that they suspended it on March 24, 2009. I have proof that Jill Wiggins, Media Representative of the TMB, sent a malicious, slanderous press release to my home town newspaper reporting that my license was suspended and that I was mentally impaired.
I have a witness at the Victoria Advocate, Reporter Gabe Semenza, that Editor Chris Cobler refused to hear my side of the story or examine my evidence of fraud at the Texas Medical Board and of Mari Robinson's criminal activity.
It is natural for her and Mark to blame me for actions taken by state employees and agencies against her, even though I tried to talk her out of taking the trip to Center. The only thing I did not do to keep her from going was that I did not actually forbid her, as if I could have done that.
I had never previously told Tammy about the fax which she supposedly sent from my office to Miller's office describing her pain, because I thought they might think I was blaming them for the Miller lawsuit, and my subsequent arrest in Center.
Mark informs me that a fax machine can be programmed to say falsely that it was sent from a particular location.
Tammy denies sending the fax at all. Mark says that she's much too smart to have done something so stupid which obviously would have identified her and linked her to me. He describes all the precautions she would have taken, and sending a fax from my machine is just not something she would have done. So it appears that she and I were both framed and that the document is false. ...more evidence of malice against former Texas Medical Board member Keith E Miller MD.
Does the guy really not understand that he's hanging himself and other persons who remain at the board, but who are just as guilty? Not only does he prostitute himself in false expert testimony, but he's clumsily tying himself together with a national Tenaha police scam, DA Lynda K Russell and her federal class action lawsuit.
I believe Tammy's civil rights are being violated by racketeering crimes committed by the State of Texas because she collected criminal evidence against Bridget Hughes and Dr. Miller. The state of Texas should protect her, her sons, and her husband from this harassment and intimidation and pay and her family for the mental anguish they are suffering.
My husband committed suicide under similar circumstances but at the time of his death we didn't have nearly the evidence against Mari Robinson and Keith Miller for their obvious criminal conspiracy as we have now.
The email which my former attorney, Jeff Grass, Jeff's wife, and I found in the Wharton County evidence file prior to my criminal trial was an exchange between Miller's nurse Bridget Hughes and DPS Captain Patrick Mulligan. Captain Mulligan illegally sent Tammy's DPS driver's license to Hughes for her to identify. Hughes sent back a handwritten fax which said, "Yikes! She didn't look like that when she was here!", but she confirmed Tammy's identity. Thus, Miller and Hughes colluded with Captain Mulligan and Josh McCown to disseminate Tammy's identity and her home address illegally. Shortly after that, an unidentified vehicle ran Mark off the road almost into a bridge, miles out of town in the country where they live in an obscure cul-de-sac.
Tammy and Mark believed that to be an attempt on her life.
Pamela Munn at the Texas State Auditor's office has detailed information from both me and Tammy, which we presented to her in Representative Geanie Morrison's office in Austin. The General Counsel of the TSA and Ms Munn called us about a week later and told us that their 'thorough investigation' didn't produce any evidence of a crime, even though they never contacted us again to ask if there were other witnesses.
Representative Morrison arranged for us to meet with Ms Munn, a 'special investigator' and has it on record.
While I was pro se, I filed a motion to compel the DA to produce the email exchange among Hughes, Mulligan, (Ritter, and Josh McCown). The judge granted it. Gordon Dudley and Josh McCown ignored a direct order from the judge. I then filed a motion to hold the DA in contempt of court and Judge Clapp, in error, refused to grant it. I argued that the email exchange was exculpatory evidence because it demonstrated conspiracy. Jeff refused to adopt it. You asked me, when I hired you, why he would not adopt my motions, and I told you that was why I fired him.
The email exchange went further. Captain Patrick Mulligan then sent it to Cassie Ritter, Judge Clapp's Court Administrator, at one of these email addresses: ["Cassie Ritter Texas Administrator Judge Randy Clapp"
I thought it was illegal for the judge's secretary to collect evidence for the DA.
I stated to the court that the DA was withholding exculpatory evidence of my innocence and their actions prove collusion among the following parties: Keith E Miller MD, Bridget Hughes RN, DPS Captain Patrick Mulligan, the 329th Court through its administrator, and the DA.
Since the email proved the 329th court participated in the conspiracy, I argued verbally that Judge Clapp should be recused, but I DID NOT FILE A MOTION demanding it! Since I refused to file such a motion, Judge Clapp wrote his own! Then he, illegally, in his own ex parte interchange, called in an out-of-town elderly judge who admitted not understanding the US Constitution, and then denied Clapp's motion for recusal.
It was very obvious that I was not privy to a long string of illegal ex parte discussions.
They also had the motion heard the same day, probably in violation of state notice requirements for hearings.
All of this is why Gordon Dudley tricked you into agreeing that 'we wouldn't allege conspiracy'. ....because conspiracy is so easily proved.
At another hearing, while I was still pro se, I filed a motion to dismiss the criminal charges with prejudice because the elements of a felony (lacking the mens rea, plus even if mens rea did exist, the only crime would have been 'fleeing arrest', a Class B misdemeanor, certainly not the felony of aggravated assault against a law enforcement officer, in the line of duty, with a deadly weapon. Judge Clapp acted in further error by refusing to rule on my motion to dismiss with prejudice.
The evidence Tammy collected in Center proved that Hughes was in violation of her non-disciplinary order for forging the 50 narcotics prescriptions which Dr. Miller was supervising. Her office visit to Hughes was in early April, while the order was still in effect. Hughes now actually has a disciplinary order for giving herself an antibiotic shot (not quite as serious as forging 50 narcotics prescriptions) where she admits to being violation of the earlier order.
The later disciplinary order, which Miller also was supervising, proves that Miller knew Hughes was in violation of the order prohibiting her from forging narcotics prescriptions. Thus, the later order proves that Miller, because he did not stop Hughes' forgeries, was aiding and abetting her crimes; ie, it's proof of his felonious actions.
I have a record of my complaint of Miller's felonies which I submitted to the medical board about him. I have a record that Mari Robinson, in an email (from Robinson directly to me), told me she would not 'allow the Texas Medical Board to investigate Miller's felonies'. I have the receipt for the certified US Mail the Texas Medical Board representative signed for upon receiving my complaint against Miller. I have a record of Mari Robinson telling me she didn't get the certified mail for which I have the receipt. Thus, I have proof that Mari Robinson destroyed or caused to be destroyed my US Mail certified complaints, ie, I have proof she committed a federal crime and has denied it.
Tammy, Mark, and I have tape recordings of her verbal communications with an Internal Affairs officer at DPS during which she alleged multiple crimes and coverups of four DPS officers. We have proof that DPS Internal Affairs failed to follow up.
I have about 15 Texas Medical Board members who witnessed my accusations against their Executive Director that she committed state and federal crimes, both felonies and misdemeanors. I have a record that they failed to act. I have a record that they sent me notice two weeks later that they intended to suspend my license. I have proof that they suspended it on March 24, 2009. I have proof that Jill Wiggins, Media Representative of the TMB, sent a malicious, slanderous press release to my home town newspaper reporting that my license was suspended and that I was mentally impaired.
I have a witness at the Victoria Advocate, Reporter Gabe Semenza, that Editor Chris Cobler refused to hear my side of the story or examine my evidence of fraud at the Texas Medical Board and of Mari Robinson's criminal activity.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Resolutions on Texas Medical Board reform and how State Representatives can participate constructively
Representative Geanie Morrison
Victoria, Texas
Dear Representative Morrison,
Thank you so much for seconding my resolution on Texas Medical Board reform.
Would you kindly tell me whom I should contact to serve on the Resolutions Committee for our county convention, if that would be possible?
I know that a precinct in Harris County also passed a Resolution about reforming the TMB, but have not yet received other feedback.
How might persons who are interested in TMB reform help their Representatives get appointed to serve on the House Committee on Public Health?
I appreciate your interest in medical board reform. I would like to meet with you in the District at your convenience to discuss some ways that the board should be reformed. It's quite simple, really, and should not require new legislation. Here are key points:
1. The House Committee on Public Health should exercise sufficient oversight. It has utterly failed.
2. Open government laws, Constitutional due process, and the Medical Practice Act should be respected and followed. They are not. The House Committee on Public Health should request Attorney General opinions as to the legality of medical board procedures. The Attorney General should be directed, if necessary, to enforce the law. There must be procedures that doctors can follow to insure that our rights are protected. All of this should receive the oversight of the doctor's personal elected Representative who should make the House Committee on Public Health fully aware of violations.
It should be clear that no new laws are needed to provide this oversight. That is how government is supposed to function, as you know.
3. As you know from my resolutions presented at the precinct convention, several doctors have conclusive evidence that Executive Director Mari Robinson has committed multiple state and federal crimes. We have observed this to be her pattern and practice. We have affidavit testimony and other evidence, including altered government documents, which we wish to present to the Travis County Grand Jury. We need to know the proper procedure.
Our presentation of evidence needs the oversight of the House Committee on Public Health.
4. Doctors presenting criminal evidence against Robinson need protection from retaliation.
5. The medical board must implement, as soon as possible, a voluntary procedure by which doctors (any Texas doctor) may review complaints against licensees as to their significance in the overall practice of medicine and the severity of an alleged violation of the Medical Practice Act. The board should streamline the way complaints are evaluated so that, again, as soon as possible, every Texas physician, as a condition for licensure, should review several complaints per year, unpaid, and receive Continuing Medical Education credit for his services. I recommend that the goal should be that a minimum of 10 primary care physicians would review each complaint for significance and potential for patient harm and that 5 physicians in the doctor's specialty should review each complaint as to whether a reasonable standard of care was followed, as well as potential for patient harm.
Every complaint should be evaluated for the opportunity to see if there is a process which, if changed, could improve the health of Texans.
I have evaluated newly published medical literature for many years for a Canadian medical school which feeds its results to Clinical Evidence.
Our work is sent out daily to clinicians all over the world. I have included a copy of the most recent update. As you can see, we rate every study as to its relevance to our discipline (I assume that all specialties are represented, but mine as you know, is primary care.) and newsworthiness to doctors in our discipline. I often notice that something, for example, in cardiology, might be big news for primary care physicians, but is hum-drum for cardiologists.
One of the benefits of participating in this international effort is that I am regularly notified of "Stellar Articles" which are both highly relevant and newsworthy. Having participated in such a worthwhile project for nearly 10 years makes me all the more ashamed of what the Texas Medical Board does to the people of Texas. I believe that the people of Texas have the opportunity to completely overhaul the medical board and cause it to become an agency which can show the country how a regulatory agency should behave. With a restructuring of priorities, we can make the "worst medical board in the country" of historical interest only.
Provided by the BMJ Evidence Centre, EvidenceUpdates service
Dear Dr. Pigott:
New articles: colleagues in your discipline have identified the following article(s) as being of interest:
Article Title Discipline Rele-
vance News-
worthiness
Development and validation of a case ascertainment tool for ankylosing spondylitis.
Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken) Rheumatology 5 5
Long-term outcome and prognostic factors of juvenile dermatomyositis: A multinational, multicenter study of 490 patients.
Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken) Rheumatology 6 6
Pediatrics (General) 6 6
Dermatology 6 5
Evidence for predictive validity of remission on long-term outcome in rheumatoid arthritis: A systematic review.
Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken) Rheumatology 6 5
Effect of hemodialysis before transplant surgery on renal allograft function--a pair of randomized controlled trials.
Transplantation Nephrology 6 6
Adenoidectomy for recurrent or chronic nasal symptoms in children.
Cochrane Database Syst Rev Pediatrics (General) 6 5
Regular treatment with formoterol and an inhaled corticosteroid versus regular treatment with salmeterol and an inhaled corticosteroid for chronic asthma: serious adverse events.
Cochrane Database Syst Rev Respirology/Pulmonology 6 6
Just click on the title to review the abstract and/or PubMed record.
Best wishes from EvidenceUpdates
* Note: if you are unable to access your alert by clicking on the article link, please login directly to EvidenceUpdates at http://plus.mcmaster.ca/EvidenceUpdates/ and access the article under 'My Alerts' which is listed in the top panel of the EvidenceUpdates system. If you continue to experience difficulties, please contact us for further assistance.
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Here is an example of a notification that I have an article to rate:
morehlp@mcmaster.ca
to me
show details 7/7/09
Dear Dr. Pigott,
You have an article to rate for McMaster PLUS, PIER, EvidenceUpdates, and the Evidence-Based Journals:
Discipline: Internal Medicine and its subspecialties
Title: The benefits of statins in people without established cardiovascular disease but with cardiovascular risk factors: meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials.
Article ID: 28393
NEW!! NB: The rating form now includes a Conflict of Interest statement. Answering YES to the question on the rating form in MORE will automatically remove this article from your rater's inbox. A NO answer will permit you to proceed with your ratings. Click here* to be automatically signed into the MORE system. Rating instructions are included below.
The full text article you review is protected by copyright and is for your viewing purposes only. Please do not download or distribute copies to others in any format...
www.texasphoenix007.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com "Shirley Pigott"
Victoria, Texas
Dear Representative Morrison,
Thank you so much for seconding my resolution on Texas Medical Board reform.
Would you kindly tell me whom I should contact to serve on the Resolutions Committee for our county convention, if that would be possible?
I know that a precinct in Harris County also passed a Resolution about reforming the TMB, but have not yet received other feedback.
How might persons who are interested in TMB reform help their Representatives get appointed to serve on the House Committee on Public Health?
I appreciate your interest in medical board reform. I would like to meet with you in the District at your convenience to discuss some ways that the board should be reformed. It's quite simple, really, and should not require new legislation. Here are key points:
1. The House Committee on Public Health should exercise sufficient oversight. It has utterly failed.
2. Open government laws, Constitutional due process, and the Medical Practice Act should be respected and followed. They are not. The House Committee on Public Health should request Attorney General opinions as to the legality of medical board procedures. The Attorney General should be directed, if necessary, to enforce the law. There must be procedures that doctors can follow to insure that our rights are protected. All of this should receive the oversight of the doctor's personal elected Representative who should make the House Committee on Public Health fully aware of violations.
It should be clear that no new laws are needed to provide this oversight. That is how government is supposed to function, as you know.
3. As you know from my resolutions presented at the precinct convention, several doctors have conclusive evidence that Executive Director Mari Robinson has committed multiple state and federal crimes. We have observed this to be her pattern and practice. We have affidavit testimony and other evidence, including altered government documents, which we wish to present to the Travis County Grand Jury. We need to know the proper procedure.
Our presentation of evidence needs the oversight of the House Committee on Public Health.
4. Doctors presenting criminal evidence against Robinson need protection from retaliation.
5. The medical board must implement, as soon as possible, a voluntary procedure by which doctors (any Texas doctor) may review complaints against licensees as to their significance in the overall practice of medicine and the severity of an alleged violation of the Medical Practice Act. The board should streamline the way complaints are evaluated so that, again, as soon as possible, every Texas physician, as a condition for licensure, should review several complaints per year, unpaid, and receive Continuing Medical Education credit for his services. I recommend that the goal should be that a minimum of 10 primary care physicians would review each complaint for significance and potential for patient harm and that 5 physicians in the doctor's specialty should review each complaint as to whether a reasonable standard of care was followed, as well as potential for patient harm.
Every complaint should be evaluated for the opportunity to see if there is a process which, if changed, could improve the health of Texans.
I have evaluated newly published medical literature for many years for a Canadian medical school which feeds its results to Clinical Evidence.
Our work is sent out daily to clinicians all over the world. I have included a copy of the most recent update. As you can see, we rate every study as to its relevance to our discipline (I assume that all specialties are represented, but mine as you know, is primary care.) and newsworthiness to doctors in our discipline. I often notice that something, for example, in cardiology, might be big news for primary care physicians, but is hum-drum for cardiologists.
One of the benefits of participating in this international effort is that I am regularly notified of "Stellar Articles" which are both highly relevant and newsworthy. Having participated in such a worthwhile project for nearly 10 years makes me all the more ashamed of what the Texas Medical Board does to the people of Texas. I believe that the people of Texas have the opportunity to completely overhaul the medical board and cause it to become an agency which can show the country how a regulatory agency should behave. With a restructuring of priorities, we can make the "worst medical board in the country" of historical interest only.
Provided by the BMJ Evidence Centre, EvidenceUpdates service
Dear Dr. Pigott:
New articles: colleagues in your discipline have identified the following article(s) as being of interest:
Article Title Discipline Rele-
vance News-
worthiness
Development and validation of a case ascertainment tool for ankylosing spondylitis.
Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken) Rheumatology 5 5
Long-term outcome and prognostic factors of juvenile dermatomyositis: A multinational, multicenter study of 490 patients.
Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken) Rheumatology 6 6
Pediatrics (General) 6 6
Dermatology 6 5
Evidence for predictive validity of remission on long-term outcome in rheumatoid arthritis: A systematic review.
Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken) Rheumatology 6 5
Effect of hemodialysis before transplant surgery on renal allograft function--a pair of randomized controlled trials.
Transplantation Nephrology 6 6
Adenoidectomy for recurrent or chronic nasal symptoms in children.
Cochrane Database Syst Rev Pediatrics (General) 6 5
Regular treatment with formoterol and an inhaled corticosteroid versus regular treatment with salmeterol and an inhaled corticosteroid for chronic asthma: serious adverse events.
Cochrane Database Syst Rev Respirology/Pulmonology 6 6
Just click on the title to review the abstract and/or PubMed record.
Best wishes from EvidenceUpdates
* Note: if you are unable to access your alert by clicking on the article link, please login directly to EvidenceUpdates at http://plus.mcmaster.ca/EvidenceUpdates/ and access the article under 'My Alerts' which is listed in the top panel of the EvidenceUpdates system. If you continue to experience difficulties, please contact us for further assistance.
This email is being sent by the EvidenceUpdates system at your request. Click here if you wish to disable email alerts.
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Here is an example of a notification that I have an article to rate:
morehlp@mcmaster.ca
to me
show details 7/7/09
Dear Dr. Pigott,
You have an article to rate for McMaster PLUS, PIER, EvidenceUpdates, and the Evidence-Based Journals:
Discipline: Internal Medicine and its subspecialties
Title: The benefits of statins in people without established cardiovascular disease but with cardiovascular risk factors: meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials.
Article ID: 28393
NEW!! NB: The rating form now includes a Conflict of Interest statement. Answering YES to the question on the rating form in MORE will automatically remove this article from your rater's inbox. A NO answer will permit you to proceed with your ratings. Click here* to be automatically signed into the MORE system. Rating instructions are included below.
The full text article you review is protected by copyright and is for your viewing purposes only. Please do not download or distribute copies to others in any format...
www.texasphoenix007.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com "Shirley Pigott"
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Response to passing resolutions on reform of the Texas Medical Board at the Texas
Well, these problems will get fixed in Texas as soon as I become the next medical director. If there is one Texas Medical Board member or staff attorney who was not put there because of a conflict of interest, I wouldn't know who it is.
When I'm medical director doctors won't practice law and lawyers won't practice medicine. We will have a failsafe mechanism to file all complaints.
Every complaint will be evaluated initially by volunteer physicians who obtain continuing medical education for their efforts. Eventually, every physician in the state will participate in reviewing complaints. Every complaint will eventually be reviewed by no less than 10 primary care physicians and 5 physicians in the doctor's specialty. Every complaint will initially be determined to be jurisdictional (ie, is the doctor licensed to practice medicine in Texas?) or non-jurisdictional. For complaints which are not jurisdictional to the medical board, this 15-person panel will decide where the jurisdiction lies.
Every complaint will require a probable cause affidavit by someone not affiliated with the medical board.
The function of the board members will be to guard the integrity of the process. They will work with the Texas House Committee on Public Health to bring similar reforms to other state healthcare licensing boards.
The most important thing for readers to help me do right now is to facilitate the momentum we have because of the primary elections we had yesterday, any runoff elections, and the general elections in November.
I need to know where else (Democratic or Republican; Victoria County precinct 33 or other precincts in Texas) these or similar resolutions were passed.
If you care about health care in Texas and voted in either party's primary, get on the Resolutions Committee for your county. The ONLY requirement by law for you to get on this committee is to have voted in the primary.
If you voted in your party's primary and anyone prohibits you from serving on the Resolutions Committee of your county, PLEASE LET ME KNOW. Please also report this obstruction of justice to Rule of Law Radio and Alex Jones, both in Austin.
When I'm medical director doctors won't practice law and lawyers won't practice medicine. We will have a failsafe mechanism to file all complaints.
Every complaint will be evaluated initially by volunteer physicians who obtain continuing medical education for their efforts. Eventually, every physician in the state will participate in reviewing complaints. Every complaint will eventually be reviewed by no less than 10 primary care physicians and 5 physicians in the doctor's specialty. Every complaint will initially be determined to be jurisdictional (ie, is the doctor licensed to practice medicine in Texas?) or non-jurisdictional. For complaints which are not jurisdictional to the medical board, this 15-person panel will decide where the jurisdiction lies.
Every complaint will require a probable cause affidavit by someone not affiliated with the medical board.
The function of the board members will be to guard the integrity of the process. They will work with the Texas House Committee on Public Health to bring similar reforms to other state healthcare licensing boards.
The most important thing for readers to help me do right now is to facilitate the momentum we have because of the primary elections we had yesterday, any runoff elections, and the general elections in November.
I need to know where else (Democratic or Republican; Victoria County precinct 33 or other precincts in Texas) these or similar resolutions were passed.
If you care about health care in Texas and voted in either party's primary, get on the Resolutions Committee for your county. The ONLY requirement by law for you to get on this committee is to have voted in the primary.
If you voted in your party's primary and anyone prohibits you from serving on the Resolutions Committee of your county, PLEASE LET ME KNOW. Please also report this obstruction of justice to Rule of Law Radio and Alex Jones, both in Austin.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Resolution regarding the Texas Medical Board was accepted in Republican Party of Texas precinct conventions
Tonight, as I have done for the last 15 - 20 years, I attended my precinct convention after the polls closed in the Republican Party primary election. I presented the resolution below.
Things took a different twist this time, however.
Our Texas State Representative Geanie Morrison seconded.
Victoria Advocate reporter Gabe Semenza took notes as his photographer filmed my presentation.
Representative Morrison explained to the group that there were, indeed, problems which need to be addressed at the Texas Medical Board
Mr. Semenza refused to comment on my pointed questions as to the reasons his boss, Chris Cobler, has never examined my evidence of fraud and corruption at the Texas Medical Board after it suspended my medical license on March 24, 2009, shortly after 5 pm.
On March 25, 2009, Cobler, who will never be noted for his adherence to 'ethics in publishing', printed the slanderous press release sent to him by the medical board word for word.
A few days later, I asked him to review with me the DPS video which Mari Robinson, I believe, had altered in order to show me in an unfavorable light. Without so much as a break in his step, Cobler told me he couldn't be bothered with looking at my evidence of malfeasance at the board. When I questioned him why he had printed what the medical board told him, but would not hear my side of the story, as if it made sense, he said, "...the Texas Medical Board is a STATE agency."
Oh...I see....
The following resolution was accepted at various Republican Party precinct conventions across the state of Texas on March 2, 2010. It will now rise upward to various County conventions, and eventually be considered for inclusion in the State of Texas Republican Party Platform.
Resolution regarding the Texas Medical Board
Whereas, the Texas Medical Board has come under considerable public scrutiny in Texas and around the country, and
Whereas, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons has filed a lawsuit against it because of its abuses and failures to protect the health of Texans, and
Whereas, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons has recognized the Texas Medical Board as being 'the worst medical board in the nation' and being rife with constitutional violations of due process, corruption, and unethical conflicts of interest, and
Whereas, the Executive Branch, under which it operates, has failed to take appropriate action, and
Whereas, the Legislature has failed to execute sufficient oversight or provide legislative relief, and
Whereas, the possibility of Judicial relief is remote, and
Whereas, Constitutional Due Process and other freedoms we all hold dear are threatened if Texans do not intervene, and
Whereas, health care is too important to leave to politicians and lawyers who have no training or experience in healthcare,
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people of the Republican Party of Texas direct their elected officials to intervene in specific cases to ensure that physicians and other healthcare providers have their Constitutional Due Process rights protected, and
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people .... direct their elected officials to intervene in specific cases to guarantee that physicians with disabilities are given state and federal protection under the Americans with Disabilities Act, and
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people .... direct their elected officials to demand that the Texas Medical Board shall comply fully with Open Government Laws, and
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people .... direct their elected officials to demand that all healthcare licensing agencies require their licensees to participate in continuing medical education such that every complaint about any licensee is evaluated as to its significance and whether a change of process might have prevented patient harm or improve the health of Texans, and
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people .... direct their elected officials to care less about giving or not giving "legal advice" and care more about stopping the abuses of the Texas Medical Board, and
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people.... condemn the Texas legislature for not conducting proper oversight of the Texas Medical Board, and
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people .... condemn the Texas Executive Branch for not enforcing constitutional due process at the Texas Medical Board, and
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people ... condemn the Texas Attorney General because of his refusal to render constitutional opinions enforcing open government laws at the TMB and other applicable state and federal laws, including the Medical Practice Act, and
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people ... direct the Texas Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branches to correct such gross abuses of human rights as evidenced by the daily activities of the Texas Medical Board and act with utmost haste to correct these injustices.
Things took a different twist this time, however.
Our Texas State Representative Geanie Morrison seconded.
Victoria Advocate reporter Gabe Semenza took notes as his photographer filmed my presentation.
Representative Morrison explained to the group that there were, indeed, problems which need to be addressed at the Texas Medical Board
Mr. Semenza refused to comment on my pointed questions as to the reasons his boss, Chris Cobler, has never examined my evidence of fraud and corruption at the Texas Medical Board after it suspended my medical license on March 24, 2009, shortly after 5 pm.
On March 25, 2009, Cobler, who will never be noted for his adherence to 'ethics in publishing', printed the slanderous press release sent to him by the medical board word for word.
A few days later, I asked him to review with me the DPS video which Mari Robinson, I believe, had altered in order to show me in an unfavorable light. Without so much as a break in his step, Cobler told me he couldn't be bothered with looking at my evidence of malfeasance at the board. When I questioned him why he had printed what the medical board told him, but would not hear my side of the story, as if it made sense, he said, "...the Texas Medical Board is a STATE agency."
Oh...I see....
The following resolution was accepted at various Republican Party precinct conventions across the state of Texas on March 2, 2010. It will now rise upward to various County conventions, and eventually be considered for inclusion in the State of Texas Republican Party Platform.
Resolution regarding the Texas Medical Board
Whereas, the Texas Medical Board has come under considerable public scrutiny in Texas and around the country, and
Whereas, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons has filed a lawsuit against it because of its abuses and failures to protect the health of Texans, and
Whereas, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons has recognized the Texas Medical Board as being 'the worst medical board in the nation' and being rife with constitutional violations of due process, corruption, and unethical conflicts of interest, and
Whereas, the Executive Branch, under which it operates, has failed to take appropriate action, and
Whereas, the Legislature has failed to execute sufficient oversight or provide legislative relief, and
Whereas, the possibility of Judicial relief is remote, and
Whereas, Constitutional Due Process and other freedoms we all hold dear are threatened if Texans do not intervene, and
Whereas, health care is too important to leave to politicians and lawyers who have no training or experience in healthcare,
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people of the Republican Party of Texas direct their elected officials to intervene in specific cases to ensure that physicians and other healthcare providers have their Constitutional Due Process rights protected, and
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people .... direct their elected officials to intervene in specific cases to guarantee that physicians with disabilities are given state and federal protection under the Americans with Disabilities Act, and
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people .... direct their elected officials to demand that the Texas Medical Board shall comply fully with Open Government Laws, and
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people .... direct their elected officials to demand that all healthcare licensing agencies require their licensees to participate in continuing medical education such that every complaint about any licensee is evaluated as to its significance and whether a change of process might have prevented patient harm or improve the health of Texans, and
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people .... direct their elected officials to care less about giving or not giving "legal advice" and care more about stopping the abuses of the Texas Medical Board, and
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people.... condemn the Texas legislature for not conducting proper oversight of the Texas Medical Board, and
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people .... condemn the Texas Executive Branch for not enforcing constitutional due process at the Texas Medical Board, and
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people ... condemn the Texas Attorney General because of his refusal to render constitutional opinions enforcing open government laws at the TMB and other applicable state and federal laws, including the Medical Practice Act, and
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people ... direct the Texas Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branches to correct such gross abuses of human rights as evidenced by the daily activities of the Texas Medical Board and act with utmost haste to correct these injustices.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Resolution regarding the Texas Medical Board to be presented at the Texas Democratic and Republican primary precinct conventions at 7 PM Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Whereas, the Texas Medical Board (TMB) has come under considerable public scrutiny in Texas and around the country, and
Whereas, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons has filed a lawsuit against it in federal court because of its abuses and failures to protect the health of Texans, and
Whereas, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons has recognized the TMB as being 'the worst medical board in the nation' and being rife with constitutional violations of due process, corruption, and unethical conflicts of interest, and
Whereas, the Executive Branch, under which it operates, has failed to take appropriate action, and
Whereas, the Legislature has failed to execute sufficient oversight or provide legislative relief, and
Whereas, the possibility of Judicial relief is remote, and
Whereas, Constitutional Due Process and other freedoms we all hold dear are threatened if Texans do not intervene, and
Whereas, health care is too important to leave to politicians and lawyers who have no training or experience in healthcare,
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people of the Republican Party of Texas direct their elected officials to intervene in specific cases to insure that physicians and other healthcare providers have their Constitutional Due Process rights protected, and
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people .... direct their elected officials to intervene in specific cases to guarantee that physicians with disabilities are given state and federal protection under the Americans with Disabilities Act, and
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people .... direct their elected officials to demand that the Texas Medical Board shall comply fully with Open Government Laws, and
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people .... direct their elected officials to demand that all healthcare licensing agencies require their licensees to participate in continuing medical education such that every complaint about any licensee is evaluated as to its significance and whether a change of process might have prevented patient harm or improve the health of Texans, and
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people .... direct their elected officials to care less about giving or not giving "legal advice" and care more about stopping the abuses of the Texas Medical Board, and
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people.... condemn the Texas legislature for not conducting proper oversight of the Texas Medical Board, and
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people .... condemn the Texas Executive Branch for not enforcing constitutional due process at the Texas Medical Board, and
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people ... condemn the Texas Attorney General because of his refusal to render constitutional opinions enforcing open government laws at the TMB and other applicable state and federal laws, including the Medical Practice Act, and
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people ... direct the Texas Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branches to correct such gross abuses of human rights as evidenced by the daily activities of the Texas Medical Board and act with utmost haste to correct these injustices.
Whereas, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons has filed a lawsuit against it in federal court because of its abuses and failures to protect the health of Texans, and
Whereas, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons has recognized the TMB as being 'the worst medical board in the nation' and being rife with constitutional violations of due process, corruption, and unethical conflicts of interest, and
Whereas, the Executive Branch, under which it operates, has failed to take appropriate action, and
Whereas, the Legislature has failed to execute sufficient oversight or provide legislative relief, and
Whereas, the possibility of Judicial relief is remote, and
Whereas, Constitutional Due Process and other freedoms we all hold dear are threatened if Texans do not intervene, and
Whereas, health care is too important to leave to politicians and lawyers who have no training or experience in healthcare,
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people of the Republican Party of Texas direct their elected officials to intervene in specific cases to insure that physicians and other healthcare providers have their Constitutional Due Process rights protected, and
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people .... direct their elected officials to intervene in specific cases to guarantee that physicians with disabilities are given state and federal protection under the Americans with Disabilities Act, and
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people .... direct their elected officials to demand that the Texas Medical Board shall comply fully with Open Government Laws, and
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people .... direct their elected officials to demand that all healthcare licensing agencies require their licensees to participate in continuing medical education such that every complaint about any licensee is evaluated as to its significance and whether a change of process might have prevented patient harm or improve the health of Texans, and
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people .... direct their elected officials to care less about giving or not giving "legal advice" and care more about stopping the abuses of the Texas Medical Board, and
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people.... condemn the Texas legislature for not conducting proper oversight of the Texas Medical Board, and
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people .... condemn the Texas Executive Branch for not enforcing constitutional due process at the Texas Medical Board, and
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people ... condemn the Texas Attorney General because of his refusal to render constitutional opinions enforcing open government laws at the TMB and other applicable state and federal laws, including the Medical Practice Act, and
Be it therefore now Resolved, the people ... direct the Texas Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branches to correct such gross abuses of human rights as evidenced by the daily activities of the Texas Medical Board and act with utmost haste to correct these injustices.
Friday, February 26, 2010
How to eliminate sham peer review at the Texas Medical Board
Mr. Webb is a member of the Texas Medical Board. He practices criminal law in Houston.
Dear Mr. Webb,
I am still alive and well and am committed more than ever to reforming the Texas Medical Board.
The board should move toward a different way to evaluate complaints. This is not something which could be done overnight and should, I believe, start with volunteer physicians. Eventually, every physician in the state (licensed or not, under orders or not) as a condition for licensure, should participate unpaid in free CME toward this end. The board should oversee the process.
The board would make the following provisions:
1. There must be a failsafe way to ensure that every complaint, jurisdictional or not, is logged in and assigned a case number. The case numbers must be sequential and unchangeable; the complaints initially should be separated into one of two categories: jurisdictional or non-jurisdictional
2. Whether or not the board has jurisdiction should be determined by one criterion only: Is the physician licensed? If the physician is licensed, the complaint is jurisdictional and should be filed under "Jurisdictional complaints".
3. Non-jurisdictional complaints should also be assigned sequential and unchangeable case numbers and go to volunteer physician reviewers to determine:
a. their "significance" or "relevance"
b. the answer to the question "could the health of Texans be improved if this complaint were addressed effectively?"
c. what group(s), or state or private entities could be approached to address the complaint properly? a House Committee? another state agency? a federal agency? the FBI?
d. the board would oversee the process by making sure that each non-jurisdictional complaint is appropriately addressed depending on its significance.
4. Jurisdictional complaints should be handled similarly: they should be assigned sequential and unalterable case numbers, logged in, and go to volunteer physician reviewers to determine:
a. their "significance" or "relevance"
b. the answer to the question "could the health of Texans be improved if this complaint were addressed?"
c. what group(s), state or private entities, could be approached to address the complaint most effectively?
d. what process(es) should be used to address the complaint?
I reference Amendments IV, VI, and XIV of the United States Constitution.
Amendment VI of the United States Constitution states:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.
Complaints against a physician's license initiate quasi-criminal proceedings, so there is great potential for abuse. The board, in my opinion, in its duty to fulfill its mission, has a duty to protect physicians from abuse, but has utterly failed to do so.
Amendment XIV states, in part:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within itsjurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Amendment IV states:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Process changes which the board has the power to make include:
1. Every complaint should be accompanied by a probable cause affidavit and the complainant identified.
2. The complainant should propose a solution such as:
a. talking to the physician face to face alone or with a mediator
b. can the complainant identify a process which if corrected could have prevented the problem?
c. can the respondent physician identify a process which if corrected could have prevented the problem?
3. The physician should propose a solution.
4. The board should move in the direction of acting on the complainant's and physician's proposals.
5. Invite physicians and patients to bring their successes to the whole board for recognition
6. Encourage the media to report on significant successes.
I would like to present an overview of this to the board at its next meeting during the time allotted for public testimony.
The Texas Medical Board is under considerable public scrutiny within Texas and nationally. Taking steps like I have described would set a positive precedent nationwide for reform.
I have taken the liberty of posting this letter on my scribd site and on my blog.
Sincerely,
Shirley Pigott MD
Texas Medical Board Watch
Texas Phoenix 007
scribd Shirley Pigott MD
361-894-6464 home
361-652-9474 cell
Dear Mr. Webb,
I am still alive and well and am committed more than ever to reforming the Texas Medical Board.
The board should move toward a different way to evaluate complaints. This is not something which could be done overnight and should, I believe, start with volunteer physicians. Eventually, every physician in the state (licensed or not, under orders or not) as a condition for licensure, should participate unpaid in free CME toward this end. The board should oversee the process.
The board would make the following provisions:
1. There must be a failsafe way to ensure that every complaint, jurisdictional or not, is logged in and assigned a case number. The case numbers must be sequential and unchangeable; the complaints initially should be separated into one of two categories: jurisdictional or non-jurisdictional
2. Whether or not the board has jurisdiction should be determined by one criterion only: Is the physician licensed? If the physician is licensed, the complaint is jurisdictional and should be filed under "Jurisdictional complaints".
3. Non-jurisdictional complaints should also be assigned sequential and unchangeable case numbers and go to volunteer physician reviewers to determine:
a. their "significance" or "relevance"
b. the answer to the question "could the health of Texans be improved if this complaint were addressed effectively?"
c. what group(s), or state or private entities could be approached to address the complaint properly? a House Committee? another state agency? a federal agency? the FBI?
d. the board would oversee the process by making sure that each non-jurisdictional complaint is appropriately addressed depending on its significance.
4. Jurisdictional complaints should be handled similarly: they should be assigned sequential and unalterable case numbers, logged in, and go to volunteer physician reviewers to determine:
a. their "significance" or "relevance"
b. the answer to the question "could the health of Texans be improved if this complaint were addressed?"
c. what group(s), state or private entities, could be approached to address the complaint most effectively?
d. what process(es) should be used to address the complaint?
I reference Amendments IV, VI, and XIV of the United States Constitution.
Amendment VI of the United States Constitution states:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.
Complaints against a physician's license initiate quasi-criminal proceedings, so there is great potential for abuse. The board, in my opinion, in its duty to fulfill its mission, has a duty to protect physicians from abuse, but has utterly failed to do so.
Amendment XIV states, in part:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within itsjurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Amendment IV states:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Process changes which the board has the power to make include:
1. Every complaint should be accompanied by a probable cause affidavit and the complainant identified.
2. The complainant should propose a solution such as:
a. talking to the physician face to face alone or with a mediator
b. can the complainant identify a process which if corrected could have prevented the problem?
c. can the respondent physician identify a process which if corrected could have prevented the problem?
3. The physician should propose a solution.
4. The board should move in the direction of acting on the complainant's and physician's proposals.
5. Invite physicians and patients to bring their successes to the whole board for recognition
6. Encourage the media to report on significant successes.
I would like to present an overview of this to the board at its next meeting during the time allotted for public testimony.
The Texas Medical Board is under considerable public scrutiny within Texas and nationally. Taking steps like I have described would set a positive precedent nationwide for reform.
I have taken the liberty of posting this letter on my scribd site and on my blog.
Sincerely,
Shirley Pigott MD
Texas Medical Board Watch
Texas Phoenix 007
scribd Shirley Pigott MD
361-894-6464 home
361-652-9474 cell
Thursday, February 25, 2010
SECOND NOTICE OF OPEN RECORDS REQUEST FOR FIRST FIVE MINUTES OF DPS VIDEO FROM SEPTEMBER 29, 2007
SECOND NOTICE OF OPEN RECORDS REQUEST FOR FIRST FIVE MINUTES OF DPS VIDEO FROM SEPTEMBER 29, 2007
Shirley Pigott MD
301 Woodway
Victoria, Texas 77904
February 25, 2010
Jennifer C. Cohen
Assistant General Counsel
Texas Dept. of Public Safety
(512) 424-2890
Ms Cohen,
Thank you for your timely first response to my earlier inquiry made February 20th. If you meant it as some sort of explanation for your refusal to comply, however, I don't consider it adequate.
Kindly address me as a physician in any future correspondence. I am uncomfortable with your familiarity.
Please consider this letter as a second notice of formal request for information under the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act, the Public Information Act, chapter 552 of the Government Code. I consider your deliberate delay to be obstruction of justice.
I am not prepared to provide you with any legal opinion about the applicability of a direct order from Federal Judge Keith Ellison to DPS to provide an individual with requested information under open government laws. I believe you are prohibited by law from providing me with a legal opinion either, as only the Office of the Texas Attorney can fulfill that public role formally. So rather than you and I discuss whether or not DPS is obligated by state or federal law to comply with state or federal law, let's defer to an opinion from his office. No doubt you would take the position that you don't have to do anything I ask, because your doing so might implicate DPS in criminal coverup. You can argue that with Attorney General Abbott, but please don't bother me with it.
I am concerned that you are attempting to mislead me as to confidentiality laws. Since you have not disclosed anything to me which is not public information, it is my decision whether or not I may disclose it to third parties. We apparently disagree on this as well, so kindly and promptly please seek an opinion from the Office of the Attorney General. Until you have the opinion in hand, I ask that you remove your threatening footnotes.
My understanding of the role of a General Counsel for a government agency is to keep your agency from violating applicable laws. Please inform me if you do not consider that to be your role with DPS.
This is a resubmission of the same request I made earlier with my emphasis that your time to comply is running out. Considering the conduct of the officers involved, it is urgent that we remind this department of its duty with respect to investigations.
Sincerely,
Shirley Pigott MD
www.texasmedicalboardwatch.com
www.texasphoenix007.blogspot.com
http://www.scribd.com/Shirley%20Pigott%20MD
On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 11:44 AM, OGC Webmaster wrote:
Ms. Pigott,
The Department of Public Safety General Counsel is Stuart Platt; however, I will be coordinating the response to your below request. Initially, please note that the federal Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. Ch. 552) applies to federal agencies, not to state agencies. The Texas Public Information Act (PIA) (Gov't Code Ch. 552) applies to governmental bodies in this state, and your request will be considered under this act.
Further, the Department does not have a single custodian of all records. Rather, the section which originally generates the requested records is generally the custodian of such records. As a matter of clarification, please be advised that the Department does not certify documents, nor do we provide business records affidavits. If you wish to authenticate documents for admission in court, please submit a subpoena to the custodian of the requested records.
Additionally, the injunction attached to your request was issued in the case of Keith Wayne Schmidt v. DPS. It does not appear to be related in any way to the incident for which you are seeking information. Please clarify how this injunction is related to your request.
Jennifer C. Cohen
Assistant General Counsel
Texas Dept. of Public Safety
(512) 424-2890
This e-mail, including any attached files, may contain confidential and privileged information for the sole use of the intended recipient. Any review, use, distribution, or disclosure by others is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient (or authorized to receive information for the intended recipient), please contact the sender by reply e-mail and delete all copies of this message.
From: Shirley Pigott MD [mailto:shirleypigottmd@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, February 22, 2010 11:10 AM
To: PIO - Texas DPS; Bonnie Kaderka Texas Medical Board Open Records
Subject: Re: Freedom of information requests concerning DPS Officers Alfred Ochoa and Daniel Terronez, and the events of September 29, 2007
Dear Ms Block,
Please consider this letter as a formal request for information under the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act, the Public Information Act, chapter 552 of the Government Code.
Kindly identify the individual who is DPS custodian of open records and who is the DPS General Counsel that will review my request.
TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE. Thank you for your immediate time and attention in this matter.
Sincerely,
Shirley Pigott MD
On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 10:30 AM, PIO - Texas DPS wrote:
Thank you for your open records request. I have forwarded it to the DPS General Counsel’s office, and they will send a response within 10 business days. For more information on the Public Information Act, please see Chapter 552 of the Texas Government Code, available at http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/GV/pdf/GV.552.pdf.
Respectfully,
Texas Department of Public Safety
Public Information Office
From: Shirley Pigott MD [mailto:shirleypigottmd@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, February 20, 2010 1:41 AM
To: PIO - Texas DPS
Cc: Shirley Pigott MD Texas USA
Subject: Freedom of information requests concerning DPS Officers Alfred Ochoa and Daniel Terronez, and the events of September 29, 2007
Dear Ms Block:
Please consider this letter as a formal request for information under the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act, the Public Information Act, chapter 552 of the Government Code.
On the night of September 29, 2007, I was stopped by DPS Officer Alfred Ochoa, ostensibly for speeding 9 mph over the posted speed limit. Unbelievably, events ensued which led to felony indictments against me being issued on January 8, 2008. The evening of January 7, 2008, my husband of 39 years, a professor of organic chemistry at Victoria College, who, I believe, had been warned in advance of the outcome, committed suicide.
Judge Randy Clapp granted me a motion to compel the production of a certified true, correct, and complete copy of the video, but the Wharton County DA gave me an uncertified copy which lacked the first few seconds or minutes.
DPS is required both by federal and state law to provide me with the evidence I have requested. I have attached an order issued by Federal Judge Keith Ellison which makes it clear that DPS must comply with the law in this situation.
DPS videos, as you know, are triggered to begin when an officer turns on his lights and siren. The video I received begins with dispatch citing my name, which was their response to Officer Ochoa 'running my plates'. The first critical exculpatory moments, which would show Officer Ochoa turning on his lights and siren while tailgating me at 74 mph, are missing.
Under the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act and Government Code Section 522, please provide me with a certified true and correct copy of the first five minutes of the official DPS video, beginning at the beginning, ie, when it was triggered by Officer Ochoa turning on his lights and siren.
Under the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act and Government Code Section 522, please provide me with any and all documents, field notes, transcripts, emails, telephone records, dispatch records, memoranda, dispatch tapes, audio tapes, video tapes, CDs or DVDs, written or recorded statements, or any other evidence concerning the incident with Officer Ochoa on September 29, 2007, that have come into your possession, including but not limited to any and all files you have in your possession or in the possession of any employee of the Texas DPS.
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act and Government Code Section 522, please provide me with any and all written policies and procedures or guidelines concerning, guiding, directing, or controlling the Texas DPS Officers which may dictate or suggest the mode and manner of carrying out their duties and expected behavior in dealing with or addressing the public during a traffic stop. This request is for the written policies and procedures or guidelines that were applicable and in effect on September 29, 2007.
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act and Government Code Section 522, please provide me with the complete personnel file concerning or pertaining to Officers Ochoa and Daniel Terronez.
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act and Government Code Section 522, please provide me with the complete employment and disciplinary file concerning or pertaining to Officer Ochoa and Officer Daniel Terronez.
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act and Government Code Section 522, please provide me with copies of any and all documents, photographs, images, emails, memoranda, letters, written communications, videotapes, audio recordings, or digital recordings of any kind showing, reflecting, or evidencing the scene, activities, or events in or surrounding any concern, inquiry, report, or complaint filed against Officer Ochoa or Terronez or any of the other officers, supervisors, deputies, or other employees of the Texas DPS who came in contact with me on September 29, 2007.
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act and Government Code Section 522, please provide me with a list all traffic stops, including warnings or citations made by Officers Ochoa or Terronez in the history of their employment at DPS where the alleged speed was less than 10 mph in excess of the posted speed limit.
This request is for any documents or tangible evidence that you may have or that you may have the ability to secure in performing your duty to investigate the conduct and actions of Officers Ochoa and Terronez. I must remind you that it is a crime to destroy or hide any of the exculpatory evidence requested herein or to advise, assist, or coach any other person to destroy or secret exculpatory evidence. Your proper role as an investigator, consistent with your legal obligation to afford the accused the presumption of innocence, is to secure, protect, and preserve all of the evidence, including any and all exculpatory evidence. Considering the conduct of the officers involved, it is urgent that we remind this department of its duty with respect to investigations.
If you refuse to comply with this request, then immediately explain your refusal to do so.
TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE. Thank you for your immediate time and attention in this matter.
Very truly yours,
Shirley Pigott MD
Texas Medical Board Watch
Texas Phoenix 007
361-894-6464 home
361-652-9474 cell
Shirley Pigott MD
301 Woodway
Victoria, Texas 77904
February 25, 2010
Jennifer C. Cohen
Assistant General Counsel
Texas Dept. of Public Safety
(512) 424-2890
Ms Cohen,
Thank you for your timely first response to my earlier inquiry made February 20th. If you meant it as some sort of explanation for your refusal to comply, however, I don't consider it adequate.
Kindly address me as a physician in any future correspondence. I am uncomfortable with your familiarity.
Please consider this letter as a second notice of formal request for information under the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act, the Public Information Act, chapter 552 of the Government Code. I consider your deliberate delay to be obstruction of justice.
I am not prepared to provide you with any legal opinion about the applicability of a direct order from Federal Judge Keith Ellison to DPS to provide an individual with requested information under open government laws. I believe you are prohibited by law from providing me with a legal opinion either, as only the Office of the Texas Attorney can fulfill that public role formally. So rather than you and I discuss whether or not DPS is obligated by state or federal law to comply with state or federal law, let's defer to an opinion from his office. No doubt you would take the position that you don't have to do anything I ask, because your doing so might implicate DPS in criminal coverup. You can argue that with Attorney General Abbott, but please don't bother me with it.
I am concerned that you are attempting to mislead me as to confidentiality laws. Since you have not disclosed anything to me which is not public information, it is my decision whether or not I may disclose it to third parties. We apparently disagree on this as well, so kindly and promptly please seek an opinion from the Office of the Attorney General. Until you have the opinion in hand, I ask that you remove your threatening footnotes.
My understanding of the role of a General Counsel for a government agency is to keep your agency from violating applicable laws. Please inform me if you do not consider that to be your role with DPS.
This is a resubmission of the same request I made earlier with my emphasis that your time to comply is running out. Considering the conduct of the officers involved, it is urgent that we remind this department of its duty with respect to investigations.
Sincerely,
Shirley Pigott MD
www.texasmedicalboardwatch.com
www.texasphoenix007.blogspot.com
http://www.scribd.com/Shirley%20Pigott%20MD
On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 11:44 AM, OGC Webmaster
Ms. Pigott,
The Department of Public Safety General Counsel is Stuart Platt; however, I will be coordinating the response to your below request. Initially, please note that the federal Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. Ch. 552) applies to federal agencies, not to state agencies. The Texas Public Information Act (PIA) (Gov't Code Ch. 552) applies to governmental bodies in this state, and your request will be considered under this act.
Further, the Department does not have a single custodian of all records. Rather, the section which originally generates the requested records is generally the custodian of such records. As a matter of clarification, please be advised that the Department does not certify documents, nor do we provide business records affidavits. If you wish to authenticate documents for admission in court, please submit a subpoena to the custodian of the requested records.
Additionally, the injunction attached to your request was issued in the case of Keith Wayne Schmidt v. DPS. It does not appear to be related in any way to the incident for which you are seeking information. Please clarify how this injunction is related to your request.
Jennifer C. Cohen
Assistant General Counsel
Texas Dept. of Public Safety
(512) 424-2890
This e-mail, including any attached files, may contain confidential and privileged information for the sole use of the intended recipient. Any review, use, distribution, or disclosure by others is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient (or authorized to receive information for the intended recipient), please contact the sender by reply e-mail and delete all copies of this message.
From: Shirley Pigott MD [mailto:shirleypigottmd@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, February 22, 2010 11:10 AM
To: PIO - Texas DPS; Bonnie Kaderka Texas Medical Board Open Records
Subject: Re: Freedom of information requests concerning DPS Officers Alfred Ochoa and Daniel Terronez, and the events of September 29, 2007
Dear Ms Block,
Please consider this letter as a formal request for information under the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act, the Public Information Act, chapter 552 of the Government Code.
Kindly identify the individual who is DPS custodian of open records and who is the DPS General Counsel that will review my request.
TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE. Thank you for your immediate time and attention in this matter.
Sincerely,
Shirley Pigott MD
On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 10:30 AM, PIO - Texas DPS
Thank you for your open records request. I have forwarded it to the DPS General Counsel’s office, and they will send a response within 10 business days. For more information on the Public Information Act, please see Chapter 552 of the Texas Government Code, available at http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/GV/pdf/GV.552.pdf.
Respectfully,
Texas Department of Public Safety
Public Information Office
From: Shirley Pigott MD [mailto:shirleypigottmd@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, February 20, 2010 1:41 AM
To: PIO - Texas DPS
Cc: Shirley Pigott MD Texas USA
Subject: Freedom of information requests concerning DPS Officers Alfred Ochoa and Daniel Terronez, and the events of September 29, 2007
Dear Ms Block:
Please consider this letter as a formal request for information under the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act, the Public Information Act, chapter 552 of the Government Code.
On the night of September 29, 2007, I was stopped by DPS Officer Alfred Ochoa, ostensibly for speeding 9 mph over the posted speed limit. Unbelievably, events ensued which led to felony indictments against me being issued on January 8, 2008. The evening of January 7, 2008, my husband of 39 years, a professor of organic chemistry at Victoria College, who, I believe, had been warned in advance of the outcome, committed suicide.
Judge Randy Clapp granted me a motion to compel the production of a certified true, correct, and complete copy of the video, but the Wharton County DA gave me an uncertified copy which lacked the first few seconds or minutes.
DPS is required both by federal and state law to provide me with the evidence I have requested. I have attached an order issued by Federal Judge Keith Ellison which makes it clear that DPS must comply with the law in this situation.
DPS videos, as you know, are triggered to begin when an officer turns on his lights and siren. The video I received begins with dispatch citing my name, which was their response to Officer Ochoa 'running my plates'. The first critical exculpatory moments, which would show Officer Ochoa turning on his lights and siren while tailgating me at 74 mph, are missing.
Under the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act and Government Code Section 522, please provide me with a certified true and correct copy of the first five minutes of the official DPS video, beginning at the beginning, ie, when it was triggered by Officer Ochoa turning on his lights and siren.
Under the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act and Government Code Section 522, please provide me with any and all documents, field notes, transcripts, emails, telephone records, dispatch records, memoranda, dispatch tapes, audio tapes, video tapes, CDs or DVDs, written or recorded statements, or any other evidence concerning the incident with Officer Ochoa on September 29, 2007, that have come into your possession, including but not limited to any and all files you have in your possession or in the possession of any employee of the Texas DPS.
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act and Government Code Section 522, please provide me with any and all written policies and procedures or guidelines concerning, guiding, directing, or controlling the Texas DPS Officers which may dictate or suggest the mode and manner of carrying out their duties and expected behavior in dealing with or addressing the public during a traffic stop. This request is for the written policies and procedures or guidelines that were applicable and in effect on September 29, 2007.
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act and Government Code Section 522, please provide me with the complete personnel file concerning or pertaining to Officers Ochoa and Daniel Terronez.
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act and Government Code Section 522, please provide me with the complete employment and disciplinary file concerning or pertaining to Officer Ochoa and Officer Daniel Terronez.
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act and Government Code Section 522, please provide me with copies of any and all documents, photographs, images, emails, memoranda, letters, written communications, videotapes, audio recordings, or digital recordings of any kind showing, reflecting, or evidencing the scene, activities, or events in or surrounding any concern, inquiry, report, or complaint filed against Officer Ochoa or Terronez or any of the other officers, supervisors, deputies, or other employees of the Texas DPS who came in contact with me on September 29, 2007.
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act and Government Code Section 522, please provide me with a list all traffic stops, including warnings or citations made by Officers Ochoa or Terronez in the history of their employment at DPS where the alleged speed was less than 10 mph in excess of the posted speed limit.
This request is for any documents or tangible evidence that you may have or that you may have the ability to secure in performing your duty to investigate the conduct and actions of Officers Ochoa and Terronez. I must remind you that it is a crime to destroy or hide any of the exculpatory evidence requested herein or to advise, assist, or coach any other person to destroy or secret exculpatory evidence. Your proper role as an investigator, consistent with your legal obligation to afford the accused the presumption of innocence, is to secure, protect, and preserve all of the evidence, including any and all exculpatory evidence. Considering the conduct of the officers involved, it is urgent that we remind this department of its duty with respect to investigations.
If you refuse to comply with this request, then immediately explain your refusal to do so.
TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE. Thank you for your immediate time and attention in this matter.
Very truly yours,
Shirley Pigott MD
Texas Medical Board Watch
Texas Phoenix 007
361-894-6464 home
361-652-9474 cell
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Letter to ProPublica in response to thanks for joining their Reporting Network.
ProPublica
Dear Amanda,
I'm glad you asked about ideas for projects ProPublica should undertake.
The subject of "sham peer review" or "bad faith peer review" of medical professionals is in dire need of attention from skilled investigative journalists like those at ProPublica.
I began Texas Medical Board Watch in 2006 because I suspected I was the victim of sham peer review by the Texas Medical Board.
Sham peer review, known alternatively as bad faith peer review, is difficult to identify for sure, because even we doctors can be fooled as to the degree of the sham. Imagine how difficult it is for a medical board staffed mostly by lawyers without any experience in the practice of medicine, a jury, reporters, or the public to learn the truth. Texas Medical Board Watch and Texas Phoenix 007 (other names I've assumed) have developed a network of whistleblowers, medical and otherwise, who have been retaliated against because we exposed public and private corruption.
My material is published in emails, on scribd, Texas Phoenix 007, Medscape (Medscape > Physician Connect > Discussions > Non-Clinical > Open Forum > Disruptive Physician, but not in the mainstream media. You can find a few slanderous press releases from the Texas Medical Board on their site.
Mike Volpe has written five pieces about me.
Craig Malisow of the Houston Press, I think, smelled a rat when he wrote his story. Hairballs impressed me, because, in spite of the fact that he did not interview me prior to publishing it, his take is just about 100% correct. I congratulated him on that, but have not been able to persuade him to explore the issues any further. I am convinced that he has no idea the significance of the story he is sitting on.
Just how significant is retaliation against physician whistleblowers? The mission of Texas Medical Board Watch states it:
... to monitor performance of the Texas Medical Board and assure that it fulfills the mission assigned it by the Texas Legislature: Protect the health of Texans
The Board often abuses its power. Until peer review is fair, healthcare reform will remain an elusive goal.
Some of the doctors I now network with consider ourselves to be experts in sham peer review. We have ideas for medical board reform which we believe can assure that peer review is fair. The backbone of such a system would be a requirement that all physicians participate in peer review, unpaid, for continuing medical education credit, as a condition of licensure.
I tried explaining this to the current Executive Director of the Texas Medical Board Mari Robinson, but she won't listen. I have other beefs with Robinson, including allegations against her of a pattern and practice of criminal activity.
On February 6, 2009, I testified before the whole medical board at its regularly scheduled meeting, during the time allotted for public testimony, for the ten minutes assigned to me, on "Open Government: The Uncomfortable Challenge".
For ten long minutes I told every board member and every staff person who attended the meeting details about "state and federal crimes of which I am personally aware that have been committed by Mari Robinson."
Immediately prior to my testimony, Joel Simon Hochman MD also testified for about ten minutes. He told the whole board of no less than eighteen anonymous frivolous complaints against him he had fought and won.
The person who possibly is the most forthright and honest member of the medical board, Tim Webb, hurried out while I walked to the microphone. Mr. Webb and I had communicated several times personally and he was quite aware of my issues with Ms Robinson. Although Mr. Webb is still listed on the website of the TMB as a member, he apparently did not attend the February board meeting. Has he resigned and left the state? A preliminary investigation shows an answering service and a website which lists three contact emails that all bounce.
Two weeks later, the board brazenly notified me that it intended to suspend my license.
Four weeks after that, on March 24, 2009, on an emergency basis, my license was suspended. Jill Wiggins, former Public Information Officer, sent a press release stating as much and that the TMB had determined me to be "mentally impaired" and my behavior was "dishonorable and disloyal".
Ms Wiggins does not seem to be on TMB staff any longer, as I cannot find any references to her on the TMB website for 2010. The new Public Information Officer is Leigh Hopper, 512-305-7018 or leigh.hopper@tmb.state.tx.us.
I am developing a theory about the real origin of our national healthcare crisis. It relates to the takeover of healthcare by corporate interests due to government-mandated unfair competition. The private practice of medicine is restrained by Sherman Anti-trust, but insurance is not. The "equation" is unbalanced and insurance has won.
I believe it began in 1944 when the United State Supreme Court ruled that the Sherman Antitrust Act applied to insurance. The insurance industry was becoming a national force and its lobbyists persuaded Congress to pass McCarran-Ferguson in 1945. McCarran-Ferguson exempts insurance from anti-trust. It is this unfair economic advantage which has enabled insurance companies to take over the practice of medicine. Most industries can only dream about sharing confidential private data, but the insurance industry does it with relish on a daily basis.
This extraordinary imbalance of power enabled Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas, for example, to place its boy, Fred Merian MD, as president of the Texas Medical Association; its boy, Doug Curran MD, was president of the Texas Academy of Family Physicians; its boy, Keith E Miller MD, was chairman of the Texas Medical Board Disciplinary Process Review Committee.
I was sham peer reviewed because I exposed the conflict of interest of Doug Curran and Blue Cross Blue Shield. Doug Curran bribed Keith Miller to get my medical license suspended.
How do I know? In a moment of unbridled arrogance, Doug Curran told me so.
Sincerely,
Shirley Pigott MD
On Tue, Feb 23, 2010 at 4:59 PM, Amanda Michel wrote:
Hi,
Thank you for joining ProPublica's Reporting Network. We just finished ProPublica's Super Bowl Blitz, a two week effort to find out which members of Congress got tickets to the Super Bowl and how they got them. More than fifteen news organizations jumped aboard as collaborators, as did a bunch of journalists and other members of the Reporting Network. You can read the final story here and see the project's results here.
We'll notify you when we launch our next project. In the meantime, if you've got ideas for us to pursue, please send 'em my way.
Best,
Amanda Michel
Dear Amanda,
I'm glad you asked about ideas for projects ProPublica should undertake.
The subject of "sham peer review" or "bad faith peer review" of medical professionals is in dire need of attention from skilled investigative journalists like those at ProPublica.
I began Texas Medical Board Watch in 2006 because I suspected I was the victim of sham peer review by the Texas Medical Board.
Sham peer review, known alternatively as bad faith peer review, is difficult to identify for sure, because even we doctors can be fooled as to the degree of the sham. Imagine how difficult it is for a medical board staffed mostly by lawyers without any experience in the practice of medicine, a jury, reporters, or the public to learn the truth. Texas Medical Board Watch and Texas Phoenix 007 (other names I've assumed) have developed a network of whistleblowers, medical and otherwise, who have been retaliated against because we exposed public and private corruption.
My material is published in emails, on scribd, Texas Phoenix 007, Medscape (Medscape > Physician Connect > Discussions > Non-Clinical > Open Forum > Disruptive Physician, but not in the mainstream media. You can find a few slanderous press releases from the Texas Medical Board on their site.
Mike Volpe has written five pieces about me.
Craig Malisow of the Houston Press, I think, smelled a rat when he wrote his story. Hairballs impressed me, because, in spite of the fact that he did not interview me prior to publishing it, his take is just about 100% correct. I congratulated him on that, but have not been able to persuade him to explore the issues any further. I am convinced that he has no idea the significance of the story he is sitting on.
Just how significant is retaliation against physician whistleblowers? The mission of Texas Medical Board Watch states it:
... to monitor performance of the Texas Medical Board and assure that it fulfills the mission assigned it by the Texas Legislature: Protect the health of Texans
The Board often abuses its power. Until peer review is fair, healthcare reform will remain an elusive goal.
Some of the doctors I now network with consider ourselves to be experts in sham peer review. We have ideas for medical board reform which we believe can assure that peer review is fair. The backbone of such a system would be a requirement that all physicians participate in peer review, unpaid, for continuing medical education credit, as a condition of licensure.
I tried explaining this to the current Executive Director of the Texas Medical Board Mari Robinson, but she won't listen. I have other beefs with Robinson, including allegations against her of a pattern and practice of criminal activity.
On February 6, 2009, I testified before the whole medical board at its regularly scheduled meeting, during the time allotted for public testimony, for the ten minutes assigned to me, on "Open Government: The Uncomfortable Challenge".
For ten long minutes I told every board member and every staff person who attended the meeting details about "state and federal crimes of which I am personally aware that have been committed by Mari Robinson."
Immediately prior to my testimony, Joel Simon Hochman MD also testified for about ten minutes. He told the whole board of no less than eighteen anonymous frivolous complaints against him he had fought and won.
The person who possibly is the most forthright and honest member of the medical board, Tim Webb, hurried out while I walked to the microphone. Mr. Webb and I had communicated several times personally and he was quite aware of my issues with Ms Robinson. Although Mr. Webb is still listed on the website of the TMB as a member, he apparently did not attend the February board meeting. Has he resigned and left the state? A preliminary investigation shows an answering service and a website which lists three contact emails that all bounce.
Two weeks later, the board brazenly notified me that it intended to suspend my license.
Four weeks after that, on March 24, 2009, on an emergency basis, my license was suspended. Jill Wiggins, former Public Information Officer, sent a press release stating as much and that the TMB had determined me to be "mentally impaired" and my behavior was "dishonorable and disloyal".
Ms Wiggins does not seem to be on TMB staff any longer, as I cannot find any references to her on the TMB website for 2010. The new Public Information Officer is Leigh Hopper, 512-305-7018 or leigh.hopper@tmb.state.tx.us.
I am developing a theory about the real origin of our national healthcare crisis. It relates to the takeover of healthcare by corporate interests due to government-mandated unfair competition. The private practice of medicine is restrained by Sherman Anti-trust, but insurance is not. The "equation" is unbalanced and insurance has won.
I believe it began in 1944 when the United State Supreme Court ruled that the Sherman Antitrust Act applied to insurance. The insurance industry was becoming a national force and its lobbyists persuaded Congress to pass McCarran-Ferguson in 1945. McCarran-Ferguson exempts insurance from anti-trust. It is this unfair economic advantage which has enabled insurance companies to take over the practice of medicine. Most industries can only dream about sharing confidential private data, but the insurance industry does it with relish on a daily basis.
This extraordinary imbalance of power enabled Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas, for example, to place its boy, Fred Merian MD, as president of the Texas Medical Association; its boy, Doug Curran MD, was president of the Texas Academy of Family Physicians; its boy, Keith E Miller MD, was chairman of the Texas Medical Board Disciplinary Process Review Committee.
I was sham peer reviewed because I exposed the conflict of interest of Doug Curran and Blue Cross Blue Shield. Doug Curran bribed Keith Miller to get my medical license suspended.
How do I know? In a moment of unbridled arrogance, Doug Curran told me so.
Sincerely,
Shirley Pigott MD
On Tue, Feb 23, 2010 at 4:59 PM, Amanda Michel
Hi,
Thank you for joining ProPublica's Reporting Network. We just finished ProPublica's Super Bowl Blitz, a two week effort to find out which members of Congress got tickets to the Super Bowl and how they got them. More than fifteen news organizations jumped aboard as collaborators, as did a bunch of journalists and other members of the Reporting Network. You can read the final story here and see the project's results here.
We'll notify you when we launch our next project. In the meantime, if you've got ideas for us to pursue, please send 'em my way.
Best,
Amanda Michel
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Making government work through your state medical board and elected representatives
Meetings of state medical boards are public meetings (open to the public) and should be attended by those people with a stake in health care. That's just about everyone, but it particularly applies to doctors and elected officials (and their staff). Doctors and their patients are the ultimate stakeholders. Elected officials should attend from time to time either in their roles as representatives of a constituent or in their roles of providing oversight. Their obligations to constituents require the legislator to make sure the process works as it is supposed to work. State agencies instruct legislators "not to interfere in a particular case", but that's wrong. They must 'interfere' enough to ensure that the process is fair.
An elected legislator takes an oath to defend the Constitution, not a state agency. It's the Constitution that protects the people from oppression by the state.
Those testifying before their state medical board will probably be asked to identify a topic in advance. They should become familiar with the state's Medical Practice Act.
Elected legislators can assist in reporting violations of the open government laws of a state agency to the Texas Attorney General. An expressed interest by your elected legislator can do wonders to improve TMB compliance with the law.
The TMB is an agency of the Executive Branch, which is overseen by the governor. As part of the checks and balances provided by our constitution and republican form of government, the TMB is also overseen by the legislature.
Government employees frequently try to escape responsibility for doing their jobs by saying things like "that's his job, not mine". They may direct you to someone else and then 'lose interest', particularly if they were never interested in the first place.
Lawyers have convinced legislators and their staff falsely that once a lawyer is retained, the legislator is somehow released of responsibility. This removes public oversight and is a major reason lawyers are so crooked. The framers of the constitution had no intention of letting private lawyers with their own personal agenda interfere with the workings of government. When have you ever seen a private attorney try to facilitate the workings of government? Lawyers actually threaten legislators with prosecution for the unauthorized practice of law for giving "legal advice". When it works to a lawyer's benefit, almost anything is 'legal advice'; when it works against a lawyer's personal agenda, the same thing is not. Weigh everything a lawyer says because they frequently mislead.
Without oversight of government functioning by elected representatives, we have taxation and other government oppression without representation.
If the Texas Medical Board cared one whit about the public health, they would step in when another state agency (in my case, the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Office of the Texas Attorney General, through the Wharton County DA) starts beating up one of its licensee's. They should do this because they care about the rights of the doctor, but even more because they care about the doctor's patients. The failure of a state medical board in that regard should be called into account by the legislature, operating through oversight committees, such as the Texas House Committee on Public Health and the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services.
The average citizen should develop access to the oversight process through his own elected state representative and senator. A senator or representative who is serious about his oath to defend the constitution will facilitate citizen oversight of government. The senator or representative should NOT take his directions from the executive branch (ie the state agency). His loyalty should be to his constituent. Any other loyalties are a conflict of interest.
If a citizen is seeking protection from an oppressive or unresponsive state agency, he might look to any of several sources:
1. The Texas Department of Public Safety is an agency of this state created to provide public safety services to those people in the state of Texas by enforcing laws, administering regulatory programs, managing records, educating the public, and managing emergencies, both directly and through interaction with other agencies.
2. Direct contact with a board member of the agency. It is very difficult to contact a medical board member in Texas, and this deprives Texans of a way to make government work.
3. Contact with his own elected legislator. The staff of elected officials don't know all the answers and should be willing to learn along with the constituent. Their obligations and loyalties must always be to the constituent. When a staff person doesn't know the answer or understand a process, the constituent should be able to access the legislator himself. Be on guard that the staff person may be getting directions from another staff person who is no more knowledgeable OR from the state agency itself which has an inherent conflict of interest in hiding its oppression or unresponsiveness.
4. A citizen advocate or watchdog organization such as Texas Medical Board Watch.
This is also posted on scribd. View my other documents there.
Making Government Work Through Your Medical Board and Elected Representatives
Check out Medscape > Physician Connect > Non-clinical discussions > Open Forum > The Disruptive Physician
and
Jesus Rodriguez-Aguero MD v Texas Medical Board
An elected legislator takes an oath to defend the Constitution, not a state agency. It's the Constitution that protects the people from oppression by the state.
Those testifying before their state medical board will probably be asked to identify a topic in advance. They should become familiar with the state's Medical Practice Act.
Elected legislators can assist in reporting violations of the open government laws of a state agency to the Texas Attorney General. An expressed interest by your elected legislator can do wonders to improve TMB compliance with the law.
The TMB is an agency of the Executive Branch, which is overseen by the governor. As part of the checks and balances provided by our constitution and republican form of government, the TMB is also overseen by the legislature.
Government employees frequently try to escape responsibility for doing their jobs by saying things like "that's his job, not mine". They may direct you to someone else and then 'lose interest', particularly if they were never interested in the first place.
Lawyers have convinced legislators and their staff falsely that once a lawyer is retained, the legislator is somehow released of responsibility. This removes public oversight and is a major reason lawyers are so crooked. The framers of the constitution had no intention of letting private lawyers with their own personal agenda interfere with the workings of government. When have you ever seen a private attorney try to facilitate the workings of government? Lawyers actually threaten legislators with prosecution for the unauthorized practice of law for giving "legal advice". When it works to a lawyer's benefit, almost anything is 'legal advice'; when it works against a lawyer's personal agenda, the same thing is not. Weigh everything a lawyer says because they frequently mislead.
Without oversight of government functioning by elected representatives, we have taxation and other government oppression without representation.
If the Texas Medical Board cared one whit about the public health, they would step in when another state agency (in my case, the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Office of the Texas Attorney General, through the Wharton County DA) starts beating up one of its licensee's. They should do this because they care about the rights of the doctor, but even more because they care about the doctor's patients. The failure of a state medical board in that regard should be called into account by the legislature, operating through oversight committees, such as the Texas House Committee on Public Health and the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services.
The average citizen should develop access to the oversight process through his own elected state representative and senator. A senator or representative who is serious about his oath to defend the constitution will facilitate citizen oversight of government. The senator or representative should NOT take his directions from the executive branch (ie the state agency). His loyalty should be to his constituent. Any other loyalties are a conflict of interest.
If a citizen is seeking protection from an oppressive or unresponsive state agency, he might look to any of several sources:
1. The Texas Department of Public Safety is an agency of this state created to provide public safety services to those people in the state of Texas by enforcing laws, administering regulatory programs, managing records, educating the public, and managing emergencies, both directly and through interaction with other agencies.
2. Direct contact with a board member of the agency. It is very difficult to contact a medical board member in Texas, and this deprives Texans of a way to make government work.
3. Contact with his own elected legislator. The staff of elected officials don't know all the answers and should be willing to learn along with the constituent. Their obligations and loyalties must always be to the constituent. When a staff person doesn't know the answer or understand a process, the constituent should be able to access the legislator himself. Be on guard that the staff person may be getting directions from another staff person who is no more knowledgeable OR from the state agency itself which has an inherent conflict of interest in hiding its oppression or unresponsiveness.
4. A citizen advocate or watchdog organization such as Texas Medical Board Watch.
This is also posted on scribd. View my other documents there.
Making Government Work Through Your Medical Board and Elected Representatives
Check out Medscape > Physician Connect > Non-clinical discussions > Open Forum > The Disruptive Physician
and
Jesus Rodriguez-Aguero MD v Texas Medical Board
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Texas DPS Open Records requests re Sept 29, 2007 and concerning Officers Alfred Ochoa and Daniel Terronez
Lisa Block, Records Custodian
Texas Department of Public Safety
State of Texas
Dear Ms Block:
Please consider this letter as a formal request for information under the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act, the Public Information Act, chapter 552 of the Government Code.
On the night of September 29, 2007, I was stopped by DPS Officer Alfred Ochoa, ostensibly for speeding 9 mph over the posted speed limit. Unbelievably, events ensued which led to felony indictments against me being issued on January 8, 2008. The evening of January 7, 2008, my husband of 39 years, a professor of organic chemistry at Victoria College, who, I believe, had been warned in advance of the outcome, committed suicide.
Judge Randy Clapp granted me a motion to compel the production of a certified true, correct, and complete copy of the video, but the Wharton County DA gave me an uncertified copy which lacked the first few seconds or minutes.
DPS is required both by federal and state law to provide me with the evidence I have requested. I have attached an order issued by Federal Judge Keith Ellison which makes it clear that DPS must comply with the law in this situation.
Keith Schmidt Injunction US District Court v DPS
DPS videos, as you know, are triggered to begin when an officer turns on his lights and siren. The video I received begins with dispatch citing my name, which was their response to Officer Ochoa 'running my plates'. The first critical exculpatory moments, which would show Officer Ochoa turning on his lights and siren while tailgating me at 74 mph, are missing.
Under the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act and Government Code Section 522, please provide me with a certified true and correct copy of the first five minutes of the official DPS video, beginning at the beginning, ie, when it was triggered by Officer Ochoa turning on his lights and siren.
Under the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act and Government Code Section 522, please provide me with any and all documents, field notes, transcripts, emails, telephone records, dispatch records, memoranda, dispatch tapes, audio tapes, video tapes, CDs or DVDs, written or recorded statements, or any other evidence concerning the incident with Officer Ochoa on September 29, 2007, that have come into your possession, including but not limited to any and all files you have in your possession or in the possession of any employee of the Texas DPS.
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act and Government Code Section 522, please provide me with any and all written policies and procedures or guidelines concerning, guiding, directing, or controlling the Texas DPS Officers which may dictate or suggest the mode and manner of carrying out their duties and expected behavior in dealing with or addressing the public during a traffic stop. This request is for the written policies and procedures or guidelines that were applicable and in effect on September 29, 2007.
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act and Government Code Section 522, please provide me with the complete personnel file concerning or pertaining to Officers Ochoa and Daniel Terronez.
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act and Government Code Section 522, please provide me with the complete employment and disciplinary file concerning or pertaining to Officer Ochoa and Officer Daniel Terronez.
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act and Government Code Section 522, please provide me with copies of any and all documents, photographs, images, emails, memoranda, letters, written communications, videotapes, audio recordings, or digital recordings of any kind showing, reflecting, or evidencing the scene, activities, or events in or surrounding any concern, inquiry, report, or complaint filed against Officer Ochoa or Terronez or any of the other officers, supervisors, deputies, or other employees of the Texas DPS who came in contact with me on September 29, 2007.
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act and Government Code Section 522, please provide me with a list all traffic stops, including warnings or citations made by Officers Ochoa or Terronez in the history of their employment at DPS where the alleged speed was less than 10 mph in excess of the posted speed limit.
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act and Government Code Section 522, please provide me with a list of all incidents or circumstances, in the history of his DPS employment, when Officer Terronez was involved in a pursuit on foot or by vehicle of any person or animal, wherein the person or animal subsequently died a violent or non-violent death. Please specify which of these cases resulted in investigations, disciplinary actions, indictments or convictions of Officer Terronez.
This request is for any documents or tangible evidence that you may have or that you may have the ability to secure in performing your duty to investigate the conduct and actions of Officers Ochoa and Terronez. I must remind you that it is a crime to destroy or hide any of the exculpatory evidence requested herein or to advise, assist, or coach any other person to destroy or secret exculpatory evidence. Your proper role as an investigator, consistent with your legal obligation to afford the accused the presumption of innocence, is to secure, protect, and preserve all of the evidence, including any and all exculpatory evidence. Considering the conduct of the officers involved, it is urgent that we remind this department of its duty with respect to investigations.
If you refuse to comply with this request, then immediately explain your refusal to do so.
TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE. Thank you for your immediate time and attention in this matter.
Very truly yours,
Shirley Pigott MD shirleypigottmd@gmail.com
Texas Medical Board Watch
Texas Phoenix 007
Scribd Shirley Pigott MD
361-894-6464 home
361-652-9474 cell
Texas Department of Public Safety
State of Texas
Dear Ms Block:
Please consider this letter as a formal request for information under the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act, the Public Information Act, chapter 552 of the Government Code.
On the night of September 29, 2007, I was stopped by DPS Officer Alfred Ochoa, ostensibly for speeding 9 mph over the posted speed limit. Unbelievably, events ensued which led to felony indictments against me being issued on January 8, 2008. The evening of January 7, 2008, my husband of 39 years, a professor of organic chemistry at Victoria College, who, I believe, had been warned in advance of the outcome, committed suicide.
Judge Randy Clapp granted me a motion to compel the production of a certified true, correct, and complete copy of the video, but the Wharton County DA gave me an uncertified copy which lacked the first few seconds or minutes.
DPS is required both by federal and state law to provide me with the evidence I have requested. I have attached an order issued by Federal Judge Keith Ellison which makes it clear that DPS must comply with the law in this situation.
Keith Schmidt Injunction US District Court v DPS
DPS videos, as you know, are triggered to begin when an officer turns on his lights and siren. The video I received begins with dispatch citing my name, which was their response to Officer Ochoa 'running my plates'. The first critical exculpatory moments, which would show Officer Ochoa turning on his lights and siren while tailgating me at 74 mph, are missing.
Under the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act and Government Code Section 522, please provide me with a certified true and correct copy of the first five minutes of the official DPS video, beginning at the beginning, ie, when it was triggered by Officer Ochoa turning on his lights and siren.
Under the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act and Government Code Section 522, please provide me with any and all documents, field notes, transcripts, emails, telephone records, dispatch records, memoranda, dispatch tapes, audio tapes, video tapes, CDs or DVDs, written or recorded statements, or any other evidence concerning the incident with Officer Ochoa on September 29, 2007, that have come into your possession, including but not limited to any and all files you have in your possession or in the possession of any employee of the Texas DPS.
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act and Government Code Section 522, please provide me with any and all written policies and procedures or guidelines concerning, guiding, directing, or controlling the Texas DPS Officers which may dictate or suggest the mode and manner of carrying out their duties and expected behavior in dealing with or addressing the public during a traffic stop. This request is for the written policies and procedures or guidelines that were applicable and in effect on September 29, 2007.
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act and Government Code Section 522, please provide me with the complete personnel file concerning or pertaining to Officers Ochoa and Daniel Terronez.
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act and Government Code Section 522, please provide me with the complete employment and disciplinary file concerning or pertaining to Officer Ochoa and Officer Daniel Terronez.
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act and Government Code Section 522, please provide me with copies of any and all documents, photographs, images, emails, memoranda, letters, written communications, videotapes, audio recordings, or digital recordings of any kind showing, reflecting, or evidencing the scene, activities, or events in or surrounding any concern, inquiry, report, or complaint filed against Officer Ochoa or Terronez or any of the other officers, supervisors, deputies, or other employees of the Texas DPS who came in contact with me on September 29, 2007.
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act and Government Code Section 522, please provide me with a list all traffic stops, including warnings or citations made by Officers Ochoa or Terronez in the history of their employment at DPS where the alleged speed was less than 10 mph in excess of the posted speed limit.
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act and Government Code Section 522, please provide me with a list of all incidents or circumstances, in the history of his DPS employment, when Officer Terronez was involved in a pursuit on foot or by vehicle of any person or animal, wherein the person or animal subsequently died a violent or non-violent death. Please specify which of these cases resulted in investigations, disciplinary actions, indictments or convictions of Officer Terronez.
This request is for any documents or tangible evidence that you may have or that you may have the ability to secure in performing your duty to investigate the conduct and actions of Officers Ochoa and Terronez. I must remind you that it is a crime to destroy or hide any of the exculpatory evidence requested herein or to advise, assist, or coach any other person to destroy or secret exculpatory evidence. Your proper role as an investigator, consistent with your legal obligation to afford the accused the presumption of innocence, is to secure, protect, and preserve all of the evidence, including any and all exculpatory evidence. Considering the conduct of the officers involved, it is urgent that we remind this department of its duty with respect to investigations.
If you refuse to comply with this request, then immediately explain your refusal to do so.
TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE. Thank you for your immediate time and attention in this matter.
Very truly yours,
Shirley Pigott MD shirleypigottmd@gmail.com
Texas Medical Board Watch
Texas Phoenix 007
Scribd Shirley Pigott MD
361-894-6464 home
361-652-9474 cell
Monday, February 8, 2010
ROBERT SIMPSON GONE FROM MEDICAL BOARD!!
Sorry, folks, I got the order wrong. I've been saying Mari Robinson is "NEXT-TO-GO", but I missed it.
I have said Robert Simpson was second next-to-go.
No fanfare, nothing on the web about it yet (at least nothing I could find)...he just announces he's starting his law practice in the latest issue of Texas Medicine, the publishing arm of the Texas Medical Association, the largest state medical (doctors) organization in the country.
Don't let the TMA take credit for any of the rumblings behind the scenes at the Texas Medical Board - as of a few months ago (no more recent update), the TMA and the Texas Academy of Family Physicians were sleeping together with the TMB nightly.
I have said Robert Simpson was second next-to-go.
No fanfare, nothing on the web about it yet (at least nothing I could find)...he just announces he's starting his law practice in the latest issue of Texas Medicine, the publishing arm of the Texas Medical Association, the largest state medical (doctors) organization in the country.
Don't let the TMA take credit for any of the rumblings behind the scenes at the Texas Medical Board - as of a few months ago (no more recent update), the TMA and the Texas Academy of Family Physicians were sleeping together with the TMB nightly.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Applications of the US Code to the multiple state of Texas charges against Texas whistleblower Shirley Pigott MD
Friends,
As you know, I have made allegations and provided overwhelming evidence that Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas is guilty of racketeering with various Texas government agencies and officials and private individuals for the purpose of retaliating against me for exposing their criminal behavior.
GOVERNOR PERRY IS COMPLICIT.
When Texas Medical Board Watch suspected (and published) our belief that TMB President Roberta Kalafut DO fraudulently claimed to have graduated from a Johns Hopkins residency program in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, the Governor's personal aide, Tony Gilman, contacted me by email to challenge me. I referred him to doctors I knew had graduated from there and they informed me that Johns Hopkins had no Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation residency at the time Kalafut claimed to have attended it.
Those following my whistleblower saga are requested to help me take my information to the feds. My investigation has implicated Governor Perry, Attorney General Greg Abbott, Assistant Attorney General Karen Matlock, former TMB member Keith E Miller, former TMB Executive Director Donald Patrick MD JD, current TMB Exec Dir Mari Next-To-Go Robinson, most of the current(if not all) TMB members, Texas Board of Nursing Kathryn Thomas, Wharton Couty DA Josh McCown, WC Assistant DA Gordon Dudley, former DPS Exec Dir Colonel Thomas Davis and Colonel Stanley Clark, current DPS Exec Dir Steven McCraw.
The most obvious federal authority is the FBI. It investigates public corruption. ...or the US Department of Justice. It prosecutes public corruption.
A public official may be guilty of the crime of misprision of a felony if (s)he fails to take criminal evidence, fails to investigate or fails to prosecute a crime.
Please help me clarify who is guilty of misprision of felonies and who is guilty of the felonies. For example, Mari Robinson, Keith Miller, and Josh McCown, IMO, are not guilty of misprision, they are guilty of the felonies. 'Misprision' of a felony isn't quite as bad, I suppose, as the actual felony it is linked to.
We can't get the Texas Medical Board to discipline a single "bad" doctor. The TMB, an agency of the Executive Branch empowered with the authority to enforce the Medical Practice Act, has not kept any of the dirty doctors we've reported from retaliating against common Texans or has it even investigated them.
Mari Robinson, Executive Director of the TMB, says the board already has the information I've reported on Michael Jackson's alleged killer, Conrad Murray MD, who is licensed by the TMB and practices unchallenged in Houston. The media reports that Dr. Murray administered IV propofol to Jackson; Jackson subsequently experienced a cardiorespiratory arrest from which he was not resuscitated. Respiratory arrest is a known and expected side effect of general anesthetics. That is the reason they should only be administered in the operating room where equipment and personnel are always available for complete cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
But Murray's investigation is a big secret, Robinson says, and she can't tell me what else she knows or what efforts she is making to insure the safety of the public.
My God, if a doctor can kill Michael Jackson and get away with it, does that add credibility to my charges that Mari Next-To-Go Robinson has committed heinous crimes?
Please call the TMB Department of Investigations to see which investigator is assigned to the investigation. BJ West is/was supervisor of investigations: bj.west@tmb.state.tx.us 903-786-8194
Please post this information on Facebook, OpEdNews, World News Net, and ProPublica; send a press release to the Associated Press, CNN, LA Times, and the London Times: Texas Medical Board Executive Director Mari Next-To-Go Robinson keeps investigation of Michael Jackson's death a secret!
Texas Medical Board members, Michael Arambula, Tim Turner, and Tim Webb, all know me personally, and have all had lengthy conversations with me. I have had tedious private conversations with both Dr. Arambula and Mr. Turner about the crimes of Mari Robinson. The whole TMB heard me present over a half dozen specific Mari Robinson crimes to them for which I have personal knowledge on Feb 6, 2009. Two weeks later, with no new evidence, and no evidence against me ever questioning the quality of my patient care, I received a notice from TMB attorney Scott Freshour that the board was going to suspend my medical license.
On March 24, 2009, a board panel - Amanullah Khan, Patricia Blackwell, and Annette Raggette - all biased due to hearing my Feb 6th testimony, suspended my medical license on an "emergency" basis, based on the events of September 29, 2007.
Neither of the board's two experts in their suspension of my license would pass a Daubert challenging the credibility of a medical expert:
1. TMB attorney Scott Freshour has thus far refused to allow Randall Moore MD JD, a board appointed psychiatrist, to reevaluate me. Dr. Moore told me he thought it was unlikely I really was seeing up to 14 law enforcement vehicles a day stalking me over a period of time from September 29, 2007, to March 20, 2009, the day of my last appointment with him.
Every junior medical student knows that a 'test' with an unexpected result must be repeated if it is to be valid, but TMB attorney Scott Freshour has deliberately defrauded and deceived the public and violated the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct by refusing to allow me to be re-evaluated by Dr. Moore. When Jeff Grass requested a re-evaluation, Freshour said, "No; Dr. Moore is our witness."
We will appeal directly to Dr. Moore himself, who in the five and one half years I have known him, has always reported honestly.
The TMB claims Dr. Moore's testimony is "sealed and confidential" from the public and from me, but Keith E. Miller MD, court whore, had access to it before we took his deposition on April 23, 2009. Read it; he very specifically refers to the testimony of both board experts. Google [shirley pigott scribd].
I believe Dr. Moore reported in his final evaluation of me to the medical board, "Dr. Pigott may be paranoid" or "Dr. Pigott may be delusional" because that is what he told me he would have to report. That is exactly what I would have reported had I been in his situation having access to the same information he had.
For five years Dr. Moore followed me and verified my sanity periodically, something I found quite useful in my role as a physician whisleblower. After 5 years of confirming the same diagnosis repeatedly, at the end of the 5th year, he reported, "she may be delusional". According to my attorney, Dr. Moore disagrees with the board's decision to suspend my license.
I suspect that Dr. Moore is horrified that his testimony was fraudulently used to suspend my license. A public appeal to Dr. Moore will encourage him to say publicly that he must re-examine me. His Fax number at Scott & White is 254-724-1747.
Dr. Moore will, I believe, because I have never found him to be dishonest, help me identify the malicious malfeasance of Mari Robinson and Scott Freshour. These two lawyers are a disgrace to the state of Texas and deserve to be disbarred and go to prison.
2. William H Reid MD, the second "expert" never personally evaluated me. I believe an upcoming subpoena will confirm that Dr. Reid is a court whore for the Texas Medical Board. His testimony was based almost entirely on Dr. Moore's inconclusive report and a doubly altered DPS video of the events of Sept 29, 2007. More about him another time.
Robinson, Freshour, and Dr. Keith E Miller participated in driving my husband to suicide. Neither Mari Robinson, Scott Freshour, nor Keith Miller have shown any remorse. I believe upcoming depositions will provide the mens rea and the actus reus for murder.
These medical board employees, perhaps others, I believe, are engaged in racketeering with Wharton County officials Josh McCown and Gordon Dudley, former Texas Academy of Family Physicians president Doug Curran, and DPS Troopers Daniel Terronez and Alfred Ochoa. They are doing to me far beyond what drove my husband to suicide while knowing I have a diagnosis that puts me statistically at a significant risk of suicide. My husband had no such diagnosis.
On September 29, 2007, Trooper Daniel Terronez, who has killed violently before when he shot a 22 year old unarmed man in the back who was "fleeing arrest", who has been the sole witness to several high-speed, single vehicle fatalities, after telling me he was going to break into my car and remove me by force, after hearing me respond, "you do that and I'm outta' here", while facing oncoming traffic and hiding from Ochoa's camera, while Ochoa was shouting, "there's traffic coming; there's traffic coming!" while observing an oncoming speeding 18-wheeler in my lane, did knowingly and intentionally cause me to flee directly into its path by violently striking my right rear window repeatedly and shattering it in his attempt to cause me a fatal injury.
I believe upcoming depositions will demonstrate conclusively that Terronez possessed the mens rea and committed the actus reus for my attempted murder.
Certain people from time to time criticize my publicity of these alleged state crimes. In my experience investigating bad faith peer review over the last six years, I have met more than a half dozen (less than a dozen) persons who have had attempts made on their lives or who have had friends and loved ones brutally murdered by those whose criminal acts and conflicts of interest they have exposed. In several cases investigations were kept confidential in the early stages. I've not made that mistake. That's why I'm still alive, I fully believe.
Periodically, I remind my readers: If anything happens to me, it wasn't suicide and it wasn't an accident. Right now, the three people who have the most motive to see me dead are Mari Robinson, Keith Miller, and Josh McCown.
Carol Ann Davis, who rescued me from the clutches of Wharton County District Attorney Josh McCown, has alleged Assistant Attorney General Karen Matlock murdered her friend Melinda Honerkamp. Carol made four phone calls to Matlock in August and has made none since.
On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 11:41 AM, wrote:
Shirley,
This is another section of the federal code that I think you should keep in mind.
Sincerely,
Bill Duff
http://www.justice.gov/crt/crim/242fin.php
DEPRIVATION OF RIGHTS UNDER COLOR OF LAW
Summary:
Section 242 of Title 18 makes it a crime for a person acting under color of any law to willfully deprive a person of a right or privilege protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States.
For the purpose of Section 242, acts under "color of law" include acts not only done by federal, state, or local officials within the their lawful authority, but also acts done beyond the bounds of that official's lawful authority, if the acts are done while the official is purporting to or pretending to act in the performance of his/her official duties. Persons acting under color of law within the meaning of this statute include police officers, prisons guards and other law enforcement officials, as well as judges, care providers in public health facilities, and others who are acting as public officials. It is not necessary that the crime be motivated by animus toward the race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status or national origin of the victim.
The offense is punishable by a range of imprisonment up to a life term, or the death penalty, depending upon the circumstances of the crime, and the resulting injury, if any.
TITLE 18, U.S.C., SECTION 242
Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, ... shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnaping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.
As you know, I have made allegations and provided overwhelming evidence that Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas is guilty of racketeering with various Texas government agencies and officials and private individuals for the purpose of retaliating against me for exposing their criminal behavior.
GOVERNOR PERRY IS COMPLICIT.
When Texas Medical Board Watch suspected (and published) our belief that TMB President Roberta Kalafut DO fraudulently claimed to have graduated from a Johns Hopkins residency program in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, the Governor's personal aide, Tony Gilman, contacted me by email to challenge me. I referred him to doctors I knew had graduated from there and they informed me that Johns Hopkins had no Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation residency at the time Kalafut claimed to have attended it.
Those following my whistleblower saga are requested to help me take my information to the feds. My investigation has implicated Governor Perry, Attorney General Greg Abbott, Assistant Attorney General Karen Matlock, former TMB member Keith E Miller, former TMB Executive Director Donald Patrick MD JD, current TMB Exec Dir Mari Next-To-Go Robinson, most of the current(if not all) TMB members, Texas Board of Nursing Kathryn Thomas, Wharton Couty DA Josh McCown, WC Assistant DA Gordon Dudley, former DPS Exec Dir Colonel Thomas Davis and Colonel Stanley Clark, current DPS Exec Dir Steven McCraw.
The most obvious federal authority is the FBI. It investigates public corruption. ...or the US Department of Justice. It prosecutes public corruption.
A public official may be guilty of the crime of misprision of a felony if (s)he fails to take criminal evidence, fails to investigate or fails to prosecute a crime.
Please help me clarify who is guilty of misprision of felonies and who is guilty of the felonies. For example, Mari Robinson, Keith Miller, and Josh McCown, IMO, are not guilty of misprision, they are guilty of the felonies. 'Misprision' of a felony isn't quite as bad, I suppose, as the actual felony it is linked to.
We can't get the Texas Medical Board to discipline a single "bad" doctor. The TMB, an agency of the Executive Branch empowered with the authority to enforce the Medical Practice Act, has not kept any of the dirty doctors we've reported from retaliating against common Texans or has it even investigated them.
Mari Robinson, Executive Director of the TMB, says the board already has the information I've reported on Michael Jackson's alleged killer, Conrad Murray MD, who is licensed by the TMB and practices unchallenged in Houston. The media reports that Dr. Murray administered IV propofol to Jackson; Jackson subsequently experienced a cardiorespiratory arrest from which he was not resuscitated. Respiratory arrest is a known and expected side effect of general anesthetics. That is the reason they should only be administered in the operating room where equipment and personnel are always available for complete cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
But Murray's investigation is a big secret, Robinson says, and she can't tell me what else she knows or what efforts she is making to insure the safety of the public.
My God, if a doctor can kill Michael Jackson and get away with it, does that add credibility to my charges that Mari Next-To-Go Robinson has committed heinous crimes?
Please call the TMB Department of Investigations to see which investigator is assigned to the investigation. BJ West is/was supervisor of investigations: bj.west@tmb.state.tx.us 903-786-8194
Please post this information on Facebook, OpEdNews, World News Net, and ProPublica; send a press release to the Associated Press, CNN, LA Times, and the London Times: Texas Medical Board Executive Director Mari Next-To-Go Robinson keeps investigation of Michael Jackson's death a secret!
Texas Medical Board members, Michael Arambula, Tim Turner, and Tim Webb, all know me personally, and have all had lengthy conversations with me. I have had tedious private conversations with both Dr. Arambula and Mr. Turner about the crimes of Mari Robinson. The whole TMB heard me present over a half dozen specific Mari Robinson crimes to them for which I have personal knowledge on Feb 6, 2009. Two weeks later, with no new evidence, and no evidence against me ever questioning the quality of my patient care, I received a notice from TMB attorney Scott Freshour that the board was going to suspend my medical license.
On March 24, 2009, a board panel - Amanullah Khan, Patricia Blackwell, and Annette Raggette - all biased due to hearing my Feb 6th testimony, suspended my medical license on an "emergency" basis, based on the events of September 29, 2007.
Neither of the board's two experts in their suspension of my license would pass a Daubert challenging the credibility of a medical expert:
1. TMB attorney Scott Freshour has thus far refused to allow Randall Moore MD JD, a board appointed psychiatrist, to reevaluate me. Dr. Moore told me he thought it was unlikely I really was seeing up to 14 law enforcement vehicles a day stalking me over a period of time from September 29, 2007, to March 20, 2009, the day of my last appointment with him.
Every junior medical student knows that a 'test' with an unexpected result must be repeated if it is to be valid, but TMB attorney Scott Freshour has deliberately defrauded and deceived the public and violated the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct by refusing to allow me to be re-evaluated by Dr. Moore. When Jeff Grass requested a re-evaluation, Freshour said, "No; Dr. Moore is our witness."
We will appeal directly to Dr. Moore himself, who in the five and one half years I have known him, has always reported honestly.
The TMB claims Dr. Moore's testimony is "sealed and confidential" from the public and from me, but Keith E. Miller MD, court whore, had access to it before we took his deposition on April 23, 2009. Read it; he very specifically refers to the testimony of both board experts. Google [shirley pigott scribd].
I believe Dr. Moore reported in his final evaluation of me to the medical board, "Dr. Pigott may be paranoid" or "Dr. Pigott may be delusional" because that is what he told me he would have to report. That is exactly what I would have reported had I been in his situation having access to the same information he had.
For five years Dr. Moore followed me and verified my sanity periodically, something I found quite useful in my role as a physician whisleblower. After 5 years of confirming the same diagnosis repeatedly, at the end of the 5th year, he reported, "she may be delusional". According to my attorney, Dr. Moore disagrees with the board's decision to suspend my license.
I suspect that Dr. Moore is horrified that his testimony was fraudulently used to suspend my license. A public appeal to Dr. Moore will encourage him to say publicly that he must re-examine me. His Fax number at Scott & White is 254-724-1747.
Dr. Moore will, I believe, because I have never found him to be dishonest, help me identify the malicious malfeasance of Mari Robinson and Scott Freshour. These two lawyers are a disgrace to the state of Texas and deserve to be disbarred and go to prison.
2. William H Reid MD, the second "expert" never personally evaluated me. I believe an upcoming subpoena will confirm that Dr. Reid is a court whore for the Texas Medical Board. His testimony was based almost entirely on Dr. Moore's inconclusive report and a doubly altered DPS video of the events of Sept 29, 2007. More about him another time.
Robinson, Freshour, and Dr. Keith E Miller participated in driving my husband to suicide. Neither Mari Robinson, Scott Freshour, nor Keith Miller have shown any remorse. I believe upcoming depositions will provide the mens rea and the actus reus for murder.
These medical board employees, perhaps others, I believe, are engaged in racketeering with Wharton County officials Josh McCown and Gordon Dudley, former Texas Academy of Family Physicians president Doug Curran, and DPS Troopers Daniel Terronez and Alfred Ochoa. They are doing to me far beyond what drove my husband to suicide while knowing I have a diagnosis that puts me statistically at a significant risk of suicide. My husband had no such diagnosis.
On September 29, 2007, Trooper Daniel Terronez, who has killed violently before when he shot a 22 year old unarmed man in the back who was "fleeing arrest", who has been the sole witness to several high-speed, single vehicle fatalities, after telling me he was going to break into my car and remove me by force, after hearing me respond, "you do that and I'm outta' here", while facing oncoming traffic and hiding from Ochoa's camera, while Ochoa was shouting, "there's traffic coming; there's traffic coming!" while observing an oncoming speeding 18-wheeler in my lane, did knowingly and intentionally cause me to flee directly into its path by violently striking my right rear window repeatedly and shattering it in his attempt to cause me a fatal injury.
I believe upcoming depositions will demonstrate conclusively that Terronez possessed the mens rea and committed the actus reus for my attempted murder.
Certain people from time to time criticize my publicity of these alleged state crimes. In my experience investigating bad faith peer review over the last six years, I have met more than a half dozen (less than a dozen) persons who have had attempts made on their lives or who have had friends and loved ones brutally murdered by those whose criminal acts and conflicts of interest they have exposed. In several cases investigations were kept confidential in the early stages. I've not made that mistake. That's why I'm still alive, I fully believe.
Periodically, I remind my readers: If anything happens to me, it wasn't suicide and it wasn't an accident. Right now, the three people who have the most motive to see me dead are Mari Robinson, Keith Miller, and Josh McCown.
Carol Ann Davis, who rescued me from the clutches of Wharton County District Attorney Josh McCown, has alleged Assistant Attorney General Karen Matlock murdered her friend Melinda Honerkamp. Carol made four phone calls to Matlock in August and has made none since.
On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 11:41 AM,
Shirley,
This is another section of the federal code that I think you should keep in mind.
Sincerely,
Bill Duff
http://www.justice.gov/crt/crim/242fin.php
DEPRIVATION OF RIGHTS UNDER COLOR OF LAW
Summary:
Section 242 of Title 18 makes it a crime for a person acting under color of any law to willfully deprive a person of a right or privilege protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States.
For the purpose of Section 242, acts under "color of law" include acts not only done by federal, state, or local officials within the their lawful authority, but also acts done beyond the bounds of that official's lawful authority, if the acts are done while the official is purporting to or pretending to act in the performance of his/her official duties. Persons acting under color of law within the meaning of this statute include police officers, prisons guards and other law enforcement officials, as well as judges, care providers in public health facilities, and others who are acting as public officials. It is not necessary that the crime be motivated by animus toward the race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status or national origin of the victim.
The offense is punishable by a range of imprisonment up to a life term, or the death penalty, depending upon the circumstances of the crime, and the resulting injury, if any.
TITLE 18, U.S.C., SECTION 242
Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, ... shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnaping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Shirley Pigott v State of Texas
Here's what happened Monday, January 25, 2010, in State of Texas v Shirley Pigott:
I was sentenced to two years without parole for my conviction of two counts of evading arrest with a deadly weapon on September 29, 2007.
Background
I was stopped, ostensibly, for speeding 9 mph over the posted speed limit, by Texas DPS Trooper Alfred Ochoa.
1) Trooper Ochoa acted like he was walking in a mine field and was scared out of his wits when he walked up to my window that September evening at 8:15 pm and commanded that I show him my Texas Drivers License. I showed it to him through the rolled up, locked window and told him I wanted to go to the next lighted, populated area before I would unlock my door or roll down my window. He refused, so I instructed him to follow behind me as I slowly and carefully drove away. The DPS video is confirmatory. I was pulled over by DPS Trooper Daniel Terronez while being followed by Ochoa whose lights were flashing and siren wailing.
2) I held up my Drivers License again for Officer Terror. Being a total brute who has killed before, Terror threatened to break into my car and remove me by force. I promised him I wouldn't give him the chance, but that if he tried, "I'm outta' here!"
Therefore, when Terror began to smash in my window with his heavy flashlight, I drove off. I hadn't noticed that a speeding 18-wheeler was due to be in my lane at exactly the same moment, but I'm pretty sure this was Terror's calculated attempt to kill me. After the 18-wheeler and I narrowly missed each other, I floored my Toyota Prius, until I smelled burning rubber and a burning engine. After slowing a bit, I glanced at the speedometer and saw that it read 107 mph. At that speed nothing was burning, so I held the speed there for 93 seconds (according to the DPS video).
Then I slowed to under the speed limit until I reached the city of Wharton, where local law enforcement were waiting for me. I stopped, and got out only to face being arrested.
For barely escaping with my life, I'm sentenced to two years in prison without the possibility, according to Texas law, of parole. When a felony is committed "with a deadly weapon", in enlightened Texas, the minimum sentence is two years without possibility of parole.
However, at the time of sentencing, one may appeal for a mistrial. My appeal is based on prosecutorial abuse...and perjury of the DPS officers...and tampering with the jury.
I was handcuffed and taken straight to jail. Do not pass 'Go'; do not collect $200.
I posted bond and was all set to get out and wait for my attorney Jerry S Payne to take me through the mistrial motion and hopefully, a new trial.
"Hmm," the jailers mused, "Do you know anything about a warrant out for your arrest from the Center, Police Department (Shelby County)?"
"Hmm," I thought, "That's where Keith E Miller MD lives." He's the crooked (IMO) doc whom I forced to resign from the Texas Medical Board, the same TMB member Doug Curran MD (President of the Texas Academy of Family Physicians) bribed to have my Texas Medical license suspended back in early 2006 because I exposed the duo's conflict of interest with Blue Cross Blue Shield.
Miller is saying I slandered him.
I didn't. What I've said is 100% factual...and the truth is an affirmative defense to allegations of slander.
Miller is getting really desperate in his retaliation campaign against me. He has repeatedly violated the Medical Practice Act as well as Texas and federal law. He bribed crooked Shelby County District Attorney (google [tenaha police]) Lynda Russell to have me indicted for "criminal conspiracy" on January 8, 2010.
(I've noticed that a peculiar pattern of Texas interagency corruption is that the conspirators make sport of getting their victims indicted for exactly the crimes they themselves have committed. If you are a victim and wonder what the perpetrators are up to, just look at what they have most recently had you fraudulently indicted for, and you'll have it.)
So, when the Wharton folks entered me into the system, up popped the outstanding Shelby County warrant. Release canceled.
Phone calls were exchanged between Shelby and Wharton Counties and my extradition to Shelby County Tuesday at sunrise was arranged. I confirmed that one of the jailers planned to take me to Center privately and hand me over to Miller's henchmen. Plans changed several times while I slept peacefully.
My lawyer, Jerry Payne, brain-surgeon of a lawyer that he is, pounced on the Court of Appeals and vacated the Center warrant! Hu-RAH!
So here I am, rested, and re-loaded. I'm a little handicapped, however, because I don't have wireless internet and my only wired home computer won't let me access my gmail.
****
Attorney Next-To-Go Mari Robinson of the TMB and Asst AG Karen Matlock, with all the resources of the state of Texas in their pockets, are about to be taken down by yours truly, Carol Ann Davis, and a handful of their victims who are dedicated to re-introduce the word "justice" into the Texas legal vocabulary.
Robinson and Matlock became good 'buds' and fellow co-conspirators when they worked together in the Texas AG's Department before Robinson blessed the TMB with her tenure.
Since my independent investigations of Miller, Curran, DPS, Bridget Hughes, the Texas Board of nursing, former Texas Medical Board Executive Director Donald Patrick MD JD, former TMB President Roberta Kalafut DO, and current "next to go" TMB Exec Dir Mari Robinson, I have joined forces with other women victims of racketeering by various Texas agencies: We are
1. Carol Ann Davis, who has publicly accused Assistant Attorney General Karen Matlock of murdering federal witness Melinda (Lindy) Honerkamp. Honerkamp met an untimely death in a Texas hospital in less than 24 hours after she was heard loudly proclaiming that she was going to report Matlock's racketeering crimes to Federal Judge Ewing Werlein in the South Texas District. Honerkamp's death was a surprise to everyone but her murderer.
Davis found me about a year ago by googling [DPS corruption]
2. Carolyn Logan, whose $1 million Hays County acreage is being threatened by O'Quinn Law Firm partner Charles Soechting. Reportedly, Soechting wants Logan's land. The O'Quinn Law Firm has things fixed so that "what Soechting wants, Soechting gets".
3. Carolyn Barnes, a Travis County attorney in solo private practice who has fought Texas government corruption for over 15 years.
4. Keith Schmidt, who has Texas Department of Public Safety on the chopping block in federal court.
5. Beverly Thompson, formerly married to a Houston attorney for 27 years, she understands the meaning of the saying: "All lawyers are lazy and all lawyers lie."
Texas Phoenix has s-o-o-o much more to tell...
I was sentenced to two years without parole for my conviction of two counts of evading arrest with a deadly weapon on September 29, 2007.
Background
I was stopped, ostensibly, for speeding 9 mph over the posted speed limit, by Texas DPS Trooper Alfred Ochoa.
1) Trooper Ochoa acted like he was walking in a mine field and was scared out of his wits when he walked up to my window that September evening at 8:15 pm and commanded that I show him my Texas Drivers License. I showed it to him through the rolled up, locked window and told him I wanted to go to the next lighted, populated area before I would unlock my door or roll down my window. He refused, so I instructed him to follow behind me as I slowly and carefully drove away. The DPS video is confirmatory. I was pulled over by DPS Trooper Daniel Terronez while being followed by Ochoa whose lights were flashing and siren wailing.
2) I held up my Drivers License again for Officer Terror. Being a total brute who has killed before, Terror threatened to break into my car and remove me by force. I promised him I wouldn't give him the chance, but that if he tried, "I'm outta' here!"
Therefore, when Terror began to smash in my window with his heavy flashlight, I drove off. I hadn't noticed that a speeding 18-wheeler was due to be in my lane at exactly the same moment, but I'm pretty sure this was Terror's calculated attempt to kill me. After the 18-wheeler and I narrowly missed each other, I floored my Toyota Prius, until I smelled burning rubber and a burning engine. After slowing a bit, I glanced at the speedometer and saw that it read 107 mph. At that speed nothing was burning, so I held the speed there for 93 seconds (according to the DPS video).
Then I slowed to under the speed limit until I reached the city of Wharton, where local law enforcement were waiting for me. I stopped, and got out only to face being arrested.
For barely escaping with my life, I'm sentenced to two years in prison without the possibility, according to Texas law, of parole. When a felony is committed "with a deadly weapon", in enlightened Texas, the minimum sentence is two years without possibility of parole.
However, at the time of sentencing, one may appeal for a mistrial. My appeal is based on prosecutorial abuse...and perjury of the DPS officers...and tampering with the jury.
I was handcuffed and taken straight to jail. Do not pass 'Go'; do not collect $200.
I posted bond and was all set to get out and wait for my attorney Jerry S Payne to take me through the mistrial motion and hopefully, a new trial.
"Hmm," the jailers mused, "Do you know anything about a warrant out for your arrest from the Center, Police Department (Shelby County)?"
"Hmm," I thought, "That's where Keith E Miller MD lives." He's the crooked (IMO) doc whom I forced to resign from the Texas Medical Board, the same TMB member Doug Curran MD (President of the Texas Academy of Family Physicians) bribed to have my Texas Medical license suspended back in early 2006 because I exposed the duo's conflict of interest with Blue Cross Blue Shield.
Miller is saying I slandered him.
I didn't. What I've said is 100% factual...and the truth is an affirmative defense to allegations of slander.
Miller is getting really desperate in his retaliation campaign against me. He has repeatedly violated the Medical Practice Act as well as Texas and federal law. He bribed crooked Shelby County District Attorney (google [tenaha police]) Lynda Russell to have me indicted for "criminal conspiracy" on January 8, 2010.
(I've noticed that a peculiar pattern of Texas interagency corruption is that the conspirators make sport of getting their victims indicted for exactly the crimes they themselves have committed. If you are a victim and wonder what the perpetrators are up to, just look at what they have most recently had you fraudulently indicted for, and you'll have it.)
So, when the Wharton folks entered me into the system, up popped the outstanding Shelby County warrant. Release canceled.
Phone calls were exchanged between Shelby and Wharton Counties and my extradition to Shelby County Tuesday at sunrise was arranged. I confirmed that one of the jailers planned to take me to Center privately and hand me over to Miller's henchmen. Plans changed several times while I slept peacefully.
My lawyer, Jerry Payne, brain-surgeon of a lawyer that he is, pounced on the Court of Appeals and vacated the Center warrant! Hu-RAH!
So here I am, rested, and re-loaded. I'm a little handicapped, however, because I don't have wireless internet and my only wired home computer won't let me access my gmail.
****
Attorney Next-To-Go Mari Robinson of the TMB and Asst AG Karen Matlock, with all the resources of the state of Texas in their pockets, are about to be taken down by yours truly, Carol Ann Davis, and a handful of their victims who are dedicated to re-introduce the word "justice" into the Texas legal vocabulary.
Robinson and Matlock became good 'buds' and fellow co-conspirators when they worked together in the Texas AG's Department before Robinson blessed the TMB with her tenure.
Since my independent investigations of Miller, Curran, DPS, Bridget Hughes, the Texas Board of nursing, former Texas Medical Board Executive Director Donald Patrick MD JD, former TMB President Roberta Kalafut DO, and current "next to go" TMB Exec Dir Mari Robinson, I have joined forces with other women victims of racketeering by various Texas agencies: We are
1. Carol Ann Davis, who has publicly accused Assistant Attorney General Karen Matlock of murdering federal witness Melinda (Lindy) Honerkamp. Honerkamp met an untimely death in a Texas hospital in less than 24 hours after she was heard loudly proclaiming that she was going to report Matlock's racketeering crimes to Federal Judge Ewing Werlein in the South Texas District. Honerkamp's death was a surprise to everyone but her murderer.
Davis found me about a year ago by googling [DPS corruption]
2. Carolyn Logan, whose $1 million Hays County acreage is being threatened by O'Quinn Law Firm partner Charles Soechting. Reportedly, Soechting wants Logan's land. The O'Quinn Law Firm has things fixed so that "what Soechting wants, Soechting gets".
3. Carolyn Barnes, a Travis County attorney in solo private practice who has fought Texas government corruption for over 15 years.
4. Keith Schmidt, who has Texas Department of Public Safety on the chopping block in federal court.
5. Beverly Thompson, formerly married to a Houston attorney for 27 years, she understands the meaning of the saying: "All lawyers are lazy and all lawyers lie."
Texas Phoenix has s-o-o-o much more to tell...
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Insurance and Healthcare: An Irresolvable Conflict of Interest
I have republished this from Dr. Joel Hochman's blog. Dr. Hochman has successfully defended himself, at last count, from 18 frivolous complaints (probably by the Texas Medical Board) at the TMB. This is how the TMB "protects the health" of Texans.
Insurance and Healthcare: An Irresolvable Conflict of Interest
J.S.Hochman MD, Executive Director, The National Foundation for the Treatment of Pain
Healthcare is about taking care of people. Insurance is about making money. The primary source of making money for “Healthcare” insurance companies is by denying, deferring, reducing or thwarting paying for the care that people need. There is no apparent resolution of this conflict of interest. It is inherent and fundamental. The only solution is to remove insurance companies from the business of providing healthcare. When insurance companies routinely make billions of dollars in profit, and pay their executives hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation, it is undeniable that those billions, and hundreds of millions, came from the denial of healthcare to people who need it.
The primary mechanism by which insurance companies achieve these profits is by the institution of the fiction of the “review” of claims and benefits. “Prior authorization” for services, treatments, procedures, medications and devices, is the modus operandi by which insurers generate profits. Insurers expend hundreds of millions of dollars every year to accomplish this.
In the process, they institute the moral corruption of medical professionals and insurance employees. As has now been publicized on numerous occasions and in numerous media venues, physicians are employed as “Medical Directors” for insurance companies, to oversee the process of “review”. Typically the financial compensation to these “Medical Directors” is directly tied to the number of denials they generate. As many of these “Medical Directors” have revealed, after leaving employment with insurers, the job is morally corrupt, professionally unacceptable as physicians, personally demoralizing, and in irresolvable conflict with their most profound duties as doctors. The management of insurance companies, almost universally non-physicians, has no such perceptible conflicts. This fiction of “medical” review, removes the management of insurance companies from much of the direct responsibility for the denial of care. Their captive physicians, nurses and pharmacists do it.
For the non-physician, non-medical employees of insurance companies involved in the denial of care, the corruption is more insidious. They are directly constrained by the procedures, policies, quotas, budgets and directives of their employers. They do not have the medical profession upon which to fall back for an alternative source of livelihood. Typically marginally paid, they have only two choices – they can abandon their secure income and seek alternative employment, or they can persist.
In the first case they must sacrifice financial security. This is not a step taken lightly for people whose financial condition is almost always precarious. Few ordinary workers have the financial reserves necessary to sustain their lifestyle for the months it may take them to find another job. Some manage their crisis of conscience by attending school in the evenings or on-line, retraining themselves for another career. Some manage by surreptitiously seeking another job outside the insurance industry. In any case, the tasks are daunting.
In the second case, the consequences are far more profound. Like all bureaucrats who are compelled by their employment to do things which are morally corrupt, the results are inescapable. They can suffer moral conflict – knowing that they are compromising themselves and their beliefs for money (and not that much money for most). Or, more dangerously, they can lapse into denial - inuring themselves, deadening their sensitivities, functioning without thought or awareness, as they proceed in the daily activities that they know, at some level, are reprehensible. (Lewis Yablonski analyzed this consequence decades ago in a book called “Robopaths”.)
· Returning to the process by which insurers accomplish their profits, the essence of the “review of care” is the “denial”. Denials are accomplished by a masquerade. Insurers pretend that they are simply responding to “guidelines” that have been constructed by captive medical professionals or which have been suborned from professional organizations. Using these sources, the process is then justified by the claim that the healthcare being sought is:
1. Medically unnecessary
2. Experimental
3. Dangerous to the patient’s well-being
4. An “off-label” indication for a medicine or device
5. Outside the standards of care provided by a professional association or governmental agency.
Never do the insurers honestly state that they are denying the request because it is an expense that will reduce their profit.
For physicians outside the insurance companies there are equally corrupting consequences to the involvement of insurance companies in healthcare. It is the sworn responsibility of doctors to provide their patients appropriate healthcare. Caught between their patients and their health insurance, the doctors find that:
1. They must expend a great deal of time dealing with the insurers to obtain “prior authorization”
2. The insurer refuses to compensate the doctor for this time so they are inclined to avoid doing prior authorizations
3. They may be pushed to avoid using the best treatment or best medication, device or procedure, to avoid the process altogether
4. Passing this cost on to the patient adds to an already precarious financial burden for them (almost half the bankruptcies currently filed in the United States are because of medical bills)
5. They are pressured by insurers to utilize less expensive medications and treatments, deteriorating the quality of their care
6. They may have to create fictions or tell “white lies” to secure approvals
· Beyond the matter of “prior approvals”, another corrupting influence in insurance driven healthcare is the refusal of insurers to pay “ordinary and customary fees” for health services. Utilizing the coercion of physician “panels” and “preferred providers”, insurers have created threats to the physicians of denying insurance coverage, altogether, to patients who see any physician other than those who have thus been coerced into joining the insurance company’s “Plan”.
The insurance companies have secured federal legislation (see below for the corruption of government) that forbids physicians from joining together to negotiate their fees from insurers. Therefore doctors find themselves playing against insurance companies on a field deeply inclined in favor of the insurers. The physician can either accept the fees offered, or opt out of the system. Their only other choice, in their need to maintain the financial viability of their medical practices, is to cut their services to patients, and increase the number of patients seen, to make up for their lost fees.
As a consequence, general practitioners are thus now compelled to see as many as 60 patients a day to maintain a financially viable practice. This has profoundly deteriorated the practice of medicine. 60 patients per day results in average patient contact times of 5 to 10 minutes. No physician can practice his ethical responsibilities to a patient in that amount of time. No doctor can establish and maintain the essential therapeutic alliance in that amount of time. For that matter, in initiating a new patient’s care, few physicians can accomplish the necessary extensive history, physical examination and formulation of a treatment plan, within the severe time restraints imposed on them by economic pressures and insurance company fee schedules.
The result has been a serious deterioration in the quality of medical care; an increase in the incidence of malpractice and malpractice litigation; a loss of patient confidence in the medical profession; a loss of physician self-esteem; and an increase in the incidence of complaints against physicians to State Medical Boards. It has also caused a very disturbing deterioration in the quality of hospital care - and the creation of a new category of physician providers called “hospitalists” – generally doctors who are willing to tolerate the low fees paid by insurers for hospital care in exchange for patient volume. The latter has subverted a decades-long initiative by the medical profession to provide “continuity of care”, to optimize the quality of medical treatment by insuring that physicians have a long-term knowledge of, and relationship with, their patients.
· Next, the intrusion of profit-driven insurance companies into health care has created corruption in government. Utilizing exorbitant profits to purchase the fealty of the United States Congress, insurance companies have co-opted healthcare.
1. The most recent healthcare legislation purchased by the insurance companies from the United States Congress is the Part D medication benefit under Medicare. Part D created the opportunity for hundreds of insurance companies to impose themselves between senior citizens, dependent children, and the disabled, and their need for medications. The legislation provides that Medicare is NOT allowed to negotiate the prices of medications with the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers. It also provides that Part D. Medicare insurers are to only pay for medication prescribed for FDA approved indications. This legislation also created a “doughnut hole” for the insured. That is, the insurance pays for medications initially only up to a maximum allowed amount of $2400. After that those insured by Medicare must pay the next $3600 (the doughnut hole”). Only after that is the Part D Medicare insurer again responsible for payment for medications.
This unusual arrangement therefore allows insurers to:
a. take a profit from the annual expenditure budgeted by the federal government for every Medicare recipient.;
b. directly collect an additional monthly premium from every Medicare recipient;
c. via the “doughnut hole”, essentially tax every recipient an additional $2600 each year;
d. protect the profits of the pharmaceutical manufacturers by guaranteeing that they will be paid full retail price for their drugs prescribed under Medicare;
e. Tax U.S. taxpayers for the additional costs that this protection causes.
2. The involvement of insurance companies in healthcare also engenders circumstances in which these companies make massive “Political contributions” to the members of the U.S. Congress. Although these contributions are “legal”, in that they are permitted by law, at best they cause the appearance of wrong-doing – and at worst they allow the purchase of undue influence upon legislation. “Lobbying” by professional lobbyists (often previously members of the Congress themselves) is the process by which “Political Contributions” are directed to members of Congress by these middlemen. Special influence is therewith expected, as part of the quid pro quo of lobbying. In many instances lobbyists, working on behalf of their clients, actually compose the proposed legislation, or convey it from their clients to the staffs of the members of Congress.
Of course the insurance companies are not the only special interest groups involved in the lobbying-political-contributions activities in the Congress. Virtually every special interest in the United Sates participates in this dubious but institutionalized process. But, the insurance companies are among the largest contributors [1]
3. The scheme of lobbying-political-contributions also creates a situation in which members of Congress are protected and insulated from the electorate. Confounding the objectives of the U.S. Constitution, members of Congress do not have to rely solely upon their annual salaries, personal assets, or the contributions of the voting public, to sustain their political activities. Political “contributions” permit the members of Congress to involve themselves in activities which would otherwise have never been tolerated or possible. For example, unlike the rest of the U.S. public, members of Congress have provided themselves a retirement scheme which pays them, after a single term in office, a lifetime pension of full pay, with cost of living increases, and 100% healthcare insurance - with no deductibles, no limitations, no provider panels, no prior approvals, and which pays their treating physicians their “usual and customary” fees, therefore guaranteeing the highest paid health care available.
· Further, insurance companies are specifically responsible for limitations in the types and amounts of specific types of medical care. The clearest example is in the area of medical care for intractable pain patients. Intractable pain patients constitute what is known in the insurance industry as an “uncontained loss”. That is, the patient is unlikely to get well, or to die in a foreseeable length of time. Therefore insurers cannot easily predict the length and cost of their medical treatment.
Further, the cost of medication for intractable pain patients is unusually expensive. Recently developed, sustained release opioid medications have quickly become the standard of care. It is not unusual, given the very high retail cost of these medications (not infrequently $10 or more per pill – with sometimes 2 to 5 pills required for each dose ) for the monthly cost of medication to exceed $10,000. Given that there is no desire or incentive for insurers to negotiate with drug manufacturers (high medical costs justify high insurance premiums) the insurers have approached cost containment in other ways:
1. They have attempted to institutionalize opiophobia, promoting scientifically indefensible claims that opioids inevitably lead to addiction, tolerance, organ toxicity, diversion and illicit availability and abuse by the public. Concerning intractable pain patients, scientifically sustainable data disproves all of these allegations.
2. They have institutionalized opiophobia in the procedures of their prior and utilization reviews. Reviewers in the employ of insurers commonly attempt to impose artificial limits on doses, schedules, drug regimens, and the types of drugs utilized. For example, most recently, Part D Medicare insurers have refused to approve the use of immediate absorption fentanyl products, uniquely able to stop breakthough pain instantly, because the FDA indications limit them to use in breakthrough cancer pain. These drugs were clinically tested originally only in cancer patients. Until the FDA grants them the indication of treating breakthrough pain in non-cancer pain, the insurers can refuse to approve them.
3. They have participated in, and sometimes funded, opiophobic, media disseminated, public hysteria over the abuse of drugs, and permitted, if not encouraged, scientifically indefensible hysteria about drugs. They have also used their lobbying influence to encourage draconian anti-drug laws and to block harm-reduction and drug law reform which would instead utilize a treatment approach to the abuse and misuse of drugs.
4. They have utilized their influence to incite government agencies and State Medical Boards to engage in campaigns directed at the punishment and prosecution of physicians who attempt to treat intractable pain. Protected by state laws which guarantee anonymity to initiators of complaints about physicians to state Medical Boards, they have often simply eliminated doctors who would prescribe to intractable pain patients. In the process they have helped achieve a catastrophic chilling effect on the medical profession, resulting in the denial of pain care to millions of patients.
Insurance and Healthcare: An Irresolvable Conflict of Interest
J.S.Hochman MD, Executive Director, The National Foundation for the Treatment of Pain
Healthcare is about taking care of people. Insurance is about making money. The primary source of making money for “Healthcare” insurance companies is by denying, deferring, reducing or thwarting paying for the care that people need. There is no apparent resolution of this conflict of interest. It is inherent and fundamental. The only solution is to remove insurance companies from the business of providing healthcare. When insurance companies routinely make billions of dollars in profit, and pay their executives hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation, it is undeniable that those billions, and hundreds of millions, came from the denial of healthcare to people who need it.
The primary mechanism by which insurance companies achieve these profits is by the institution of the fiction of the “review” of claims and benefits. “Prior authorization” for services, treatments, procedures, medications and devices, is the modus operandi by which insurers generate profits. Insurers expend hundreds of millions of dollars every year to accomplish this.
In the process, they institute the moral corruption of medical professionals and insurance employees. As has now been publicized on numerous occasions and in numerous media venues, physicians are employed as “Medical Directors” for insurance companies, to oversee the process of “review”. Typically the financial compensation to these “Medical Directors” is directly tied to the number of denials they generate. As many of these “Medical Directors” have revealed, after leaving employment with insurers, the job is morally corrupt, professionally unacceptable as physicians, personally demoralizing, and in irresolvable conflict with their most profound duties as doctors. The management of insurance companies, almost universally non-physicians, has no such perceptible conflicts. This fiction of “medical” review, removes the management of insurance companies from much of the direct responsibility for the denial of care. Their captive physicians, nurses and pharmacists do it.
For the non-physician, non-medical employees of insurance companies involved in the denial of care, the corruption is more insidious. They are directly constrained by the procedures, policies, quotas, budgets and directives of their employers. They do not have the medical profession upon which to fall back for an alternative source of livelihood. Typically marginally paid, they have only two choices – they can abandon their secure income and seek alternative employment, or they can persist.
In the first case they must sacrifice financial security. This is not a step taken lightly for people whose financial condition is almost always precarious. Few ordinary workers have the financial reserves necessary to sustain their lifestyle for the months it may take them to find another job. Some manage their crisis of conscience by attending school in the evenings or on-line, retraining themselves for another career. Some manage by surreptitiously seeking another job outside the insurance industry. In any case, the tasks are daunting.
In the second case, the consequences are far more profound. Like all bureaucrats who are compelled by their employment to do things which are morally corrupt, the results are inescapable. They can suffer moral conflict – knowing that they are compromising themselves and their beliefs for money (and not that much money for most). Or, more dangerously, they can lapse into denial - inuring themselves, deadening their sensitivities, functioning without thought or awareness, as they proceed in the daily activities that they know, at some level, are reprehensible. (Lewis Yablonski analyzed this consequence decades ago in a book called “Robopaths”.)
· Returning to the process by which insurers accomplish their profits, the essence of the “review of care” is the “denial”. Denials are accomplished by a masquerade. Insurers pretend that they are simply responding to “guidelines” that have been constructed by captive medical professionals or which have been suborned from professional organizations. Using these sources, the process is then justified by the claim that the healthcare being sought is:
1. Medically unnecessary
2. Experimental
3. Dangerous to the patient’s well-being
4. An “off-label” indication for a medicine or device
5. Outside the standards of care provided by a professional association or governmental agency.
Never do the insurers honestly state that they are denying the request because it is an expense that will reduce their profit.
For physicians outside the insurance companies there are equally corrupting consequences to the involvement of insurance companies in healthcare. It is the sworn responsibility of doctors to provide their patients appropriate healthcare. Caught between their patients and their health insurance, the doctors find that:
1. They must expend a great deal of time dealing with the insurers to obtain “prior authorization”
2. The insurer refuses to compensate the doctor for this time so they are inclined to avoid doing prior authorizations
3. They may be pushed to avoid using the best treatment or best medication, device or procedure, to avoid the process altogether
4. Passing this cost on to the patient adds to an already precarious financial burden for them (almost half the bankruptcies currently filed in the United States are because of medical bills)
5. They are pressured by insurers to utilize less expensive medications and treatments, deteriorating the quality of their care
6. They may have to create fictions or tell “white lies” to secure approvals
· Beyond the matter of “prior approvals”, another corrupting influence in insurance driven healthcare is the refusal of insurers to pay “ordinary and customary fees” for health services. Utilizing the coercion of physician “panels” and “preferred providers”, insurers have created threats to the physicians of denying insurance coverage, altogether, to patients who see any physician other than those who have thus been coerced into joining the insurance company’s “Plan”.
The insurance companies have secured federal legislation (see below for the corruption of government) that forbids physicians from joining together to negotiate their fees from insurers. Therefore doctors find themselves playing against insurance companies on a field deeply inclined in favor of the insurers. The physician can either accept the fees offered, or opt out of the system. Their only other choice, in their need to maintain the financial viability of their medical practices, is to cut their services to patients, and increase the number of patients seen, to make up for their lost fees.
As a consequence, general practitioners are thus now compelled to see as many as 60 patients a day to maintain a financially viable practice. This has profoundly deteriorated the practice of medicine. 60 patients per day results in average patient contact times of 5 to 10 minutes. No physician can practice his ethical responsibilities to a patient in that amount of time. No doctor can establish and maintain the essential therapeutic alliance in that amount of time. For that matter, in initiating a new patient’s care, few physicians can accomplish the necessary extensive history, physical examination and formulation of a treatment plan, within the severe time restraints imposed on them by economic pressures and insurance company fee schedules.
The result has been a serious deterioration in the quality of medical care; an increase in the incidence of malpractice and malpractice litigation; a loss of patient confidence in the medical profession; a loss of physician self-esteem; and an increase in the incidence of complaints against physicians to State Medical Boards. It has also caused a very disturbing deterioration in the quality of hospital care - and the creation of a new category of physician providers called “hospitalists” – generally doctors who are willing to tolerate the low fees paid by insurers for hospital care in exchange for patient volume. The latter has subverted a decades-long initiative by the medical profession to provide “continuity of care”, to optimize the quality of medical treatment by insuring that physicians have a long-term knowledge of, and relationship with, their patients.
· Next, the intrusion of profit-driven insurance companies into health care has created corruption in government. Utilizing exorbitant profits to purchase the fealty of the United States Congress, insurance companies have co-opted healthcare.
1. The most recent healthcare legislation purchased by the insurance companies from the United States Congress is the Part D medication benefit under Medicare. Part D created the opportunity for hundreds of insurance companies to impose themselves between senior citizens, dependent children, and the disabled, and their need for medications. The legislation provides that Medicare is NOT allowed to negotiate the prices of medications with the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers. It also provides that Part D. Medicare insurers are to only pay for medication prescribed for FDA approved indications. This legislation also created a “doughnut hole” for the insured. That is, the insurance pays for medications initially only up to a maximum allowed amount of $2400. After that those insured by Medicare must pay the next $3600 (the doughnut hole”). Only after that is the Part D Medicare insurer again responsible for payment for medications.
This unusual arrangement therefore allows insurers to:
a. take a profit from the annual expenditure budgeted by the federal government for every Medicare recipient.;
b. directly collect an additional monthly premium from every Medicare recipient;
c. via the “doughnut hole”, essentially tax every recipient an additional $2600 each year;
d. protect the profits of the pharmaceutical manufacturers by guaranteeing that they will be paid full retail price for their drugs prescribed under Medicare;
e. Tax U.S. taxpayers for the additional costs that this protection causes.
2. The involvement of insurance companies in healthcare also engenders circumstances in which these companies make massive “Political contributions” to the members of the U.S. Congress. Although these contributions are “legal”, in that they are permitted by law, at best they cause the appearance of wrong-doing – and at worst they allow the purchase of undue influence upon legislation. “Lobbying” by professional lobbyists (often previously members of the Congress themselves) is the process by which “Political Contributions” are directed to members of Congress by these middlemen. Special influence is therewith expected, as part of the quid pro quo of lobbying. In many instances lobbyists, working on behalf of their clients, actually compose the proposed legislation, or convey it from their clients to the staffs of the members of Congress.
Of course the insurance companies are not the only special interest groups involved in the lobbying-political-contributions activities in the Congress. Virtually every special interest in the United Sates participates in this dubious but institutionalized process. But, the insurance companies are among the largest contributors [1]
3. The scheme of lobbying-political-contributions also creates a situation in which members of Congress are protected and insulated from the electorate. Confounding the objectives of the U.S. Constitution, members of Congress do not have to rely solely upon their annual salaries, personal assets, or the contributions of the voting public, to sustain their political activities. Political “contributions” permit the members of Congress to involve themselves in activities which would otherwise have never been tolerated or possible. For example, unlike the rest of the U.S. public, members of Congress have provided themselves a retirement scheme which pays them, after a single term in office, a lifetime pension of full pay, with cost of living increases, and 100% healthcare insurance - with no deductibles, no limitations, no provider panels, no prior approvals, and which pays their treating physicians their “usual and customary” fees, therefore guaranteeing the highest paid health care available.
· Further, insurance companies are specifically responsible for limitations in the types and amounts of specific types of medical care. The clearest example is in the area of medical care for intractable pain patients. Intractable pain patients constitute what is known in the insurance industry as an “uncontained loss”. That is, the patient is unlikely to get well, or to die in a foreseeable length of time. Therefore insurers cannot easily predict the length and cost of their medical treatment.
Further, the cost of medication for intractable pain patients is unusually expensive. Recently developed, sustained release opioid medications have quickly become the standard of care. It is not unusual, given the very high retail cost of these medications (not infrequently $10 or more per pill – with sometimes 2 to 5 pills required for each dose ) for the monthly cost of medication to exceed $10,000. Given that there is no desire or incentive for insurers to negotiate with drug manufacturers (high medical costs justify high insurance premiums) the insurers have approached cost containment in other ways:
1. They have attempted to institutionalize opiophobia, promoting scientifically indefensible claims that opioids inevitably lead to addiction, tolerance, organ toxicity, diversion and illicit availability and abuse by the public. Concerning intractable pain patients, scientifically sustainable data disproves all of these allegations.
2. They have institutionalized opiophobia in the procedures of their prior and utilization reviews. Reviewers in the employ of insurers commonly attempt to impose artificial limits on doses, schedules, drug regimens, and the types of drugs utilized. For example, most recently, Part D Medicare insurers have refused to approve the use of immediate absorption fentanyl products, uniquely able to stop breakthough pain instantly, because the FDA indications limit them to use in breakthrough cancer pain. These drugs were clinically tested originally only in cancer patients. Until the FDA grants them the indication of treating breakthrough pain in non-cancer pain, the insurers can refuse to approve them.
3. They have participated in, and sometimes funded, opiophobic, media disseminated, public hysteria over the abuse of drugs, and permitted, if not encouraged, scientifically indefensible hysteria about drugs. They have also used their lobbying influence to encourage draconian anti-drug laws and to block harm-reduction and drug law reform which would instead utilize a treatment approach to the abuse and misuse of drugs.
4. They have utilized their influence to incite government agencies and State Medical Boards to engage in campaigns directed at the punishment and prosecution of physicians who attempt to treat intractable pain. Protected by state laws which guarantee anonymity to initiators of complaints about physicians to state Medical Boards, they have often simply eliminated doctors who would prescribe to intractable pain patients. In the process they have helped achieve a catastrophic chilling effect on the medical profession, resulting in the denial of pain care to millions of patients.
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