SWAT Attacks Home School Mom for Refusing to Force Med Child

Detroit mother Maryanne Godboldo faces multiple felony charges and is being held on $500,000 bond after a 10-hour standoff with a heavily armed police SWAT team. Godboldo was protecting her 13-year-old daughter from unnecessary medication ordered by the state.Godboldo’s daughter was born with a defective foot that required amputation of her leg below the knee, which led to Maryanne becoming a stay-at-home mother after her birth, according to Health Impact News Daily.

Despite her handicap, the child swam, sang, danced and played the piano. However, as the home schooled girl approached middle school age, she apparently wanted to start attending public school, and therefore had to “catch up” on immunizations the state insists are required under color of law.

First Miami defendant in nation’s biggest mental healthcare fraud case pleads guilty

The first Miami defendant in the nation’s largest mental healthcare fraud case pleaded guilty to paying millions of dollars in kickbacks in exchange for Medicare patients who didn’t need the costly therapy.Her job as marketing director for a Miami-based mental healthcare chain was to bring in the patients and nobody did their job better than Margarita Acevedo. Investigators say she paid millions of dollars in kickbacks to South Florida assisted-living facilities, halfway houses and recruiters to supply thousands of Medicare beneficiaries to American Therapeutic Corp.’s chain of seven clinics — patients who didn’t need the costly treatment.

On Thursday, Acevedo, 41, of Southwest Miami-Dade, pleaded guilty to conspiring to pay kickbacks in exchange for patients and conspiring to bilk between $100 million and $200 million from Medicare, in the largest mental healthcare fraud case in the country. Her change of plea in a Miami federal court makes Acevedo the first defendant among 24 indicted since last fall to admit playing a role in American Therapeutic’s “massive fraud scheme” against the taxpayer-funded healthcare program for seniors and the disabled, according to court records. She faces between 12 and 15 years in prison at her mid-July sentencing, according to sentencing guidelines.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/08/2158019/first-miami-defendant-in-nations.html#ixzz1JWM85A6L

Autopsy of Florida School Board Shooter Shows Antidepressant in His System

ANAMA CITY — The man who held the Bay District School Board hostage before killing himself last year had an antidepressant, acetaminophen and foot fungus medication in his system, his autopsy revealed.

The report on Clay Duke was released Wednesday by the Bay County medical examiner’s office.

Duke, 56, killed himself Dec. 14 after firing several shots at school board members during a public meeting. Duke was brought down by three bullets from Mike Jones, the district’s chief of safety.

A toxicology report revealed that at the time of Duke’s death, he had atropine, a drug commonly used in emergency rooms to resuscitate dying patients; acetaminophen; Terbinafine, used to fight fungal infections in fingers and toes; and Citalopram, an antidepressant found in Celexa, in his system.

Forest Laboratories Inc., which makes Celexa, notes on its website the company urges patients to “call a health care provider right away if you or your family member has any of the following symptoms, especially if they are new, worse, or worry you: thoughts about suicide or dying, attempts to commit suicide, new or worse depression, new or worse anxiety, feeling very agitated or restless, panic attacks, trouble sleeping (insomnia), new or worse irritability, acting aggressive, being angry, or violent, acting on dangerous impulses, an extreme increase in activity and talking (mania), other unusual changes in behavior or mood.”

American Psychiatric Association Stunned Again with Ghostwriting Controversy

Like an aging, punch drunk fighter struggling through the twelfth round, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) can’t seem to slip the punches coming its direction. Last week, a host of blogs went after them for refusing to print a letter written by three academics that was critical of a medical textbook the APA published with help from the ghostwriting company Scientific Therapeutics Information (STI).

The letter criticized the APA for failing to publish records that explain the provenance of the textbook, including drafts, contracts with STI and/or GlaxoSmithKline, and any communications regarding editing. The text’s purported authors are Dr. Charles Nemeroff of the University of Miami and Dr. Alan Schatzberg of Stanford University.

As The New York Times reported, the textbook was funded by GlaxoSmithKline. Author and blogger Dr. Danny Carlat reviewed the book and wrote that it read like “an advertisement for Paxil.”

Yesterday, a writer over at MIWatch landed a blistering combination on the APA. When she poked them for a response, the APA covered up and peeked back through their gloves. “The APA’s official response has been unconvincing,” she jabbed.

She then landed a solid uppercut.

American Psychiatric Association’s Ghost Written (Allegedly Pharma Funded) Book Magically ‘Disappears’

File this under The Case of The Missing Book. When last seen, Scientific Therapeutics Information was at the center of an ongoing controversy over an allegedly ghostwritten book – yes, an entire book – that was published in 1999 by the American Psychiatric Association. Funding came from a grant provided by SmithKline Beecham, which is now part of GlaxoSmithKline (back story).

The listed co-authors were Charles Nemeroff, who chairs the psychiatry department at the University of Miami medical school, and Alan Schatzberg, who until recently chaired the psychiatry department at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Both men were at the center of a long-running probe by the US Senate Finance Committee into undisclosed conflicts of interest among academic researchers. They were also regular speakers for Glaxo, which makes the Paxil antidepressant

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