Osmin Morales, MD convicted

https://doctorsofcourage.org/osmin-morales-md/

Following only a 7 day trial, 72 y/o Osmin Morales, MD, an interventional pain management physician in South Miami, FL was convicted Jan 12, 2024 of conspiracy to unlawfully dispense and distribute controlled substances, and six counts of unlawfully dispensing controlled substances. Just shows how the government propaganda is still convicting innocent doctors and people need to help stop this.

So how is this being accomplished? In the DoJ report, they even say

“Under federal law, a physician is authorized to dispense (prescribe) controlled substances only when there is a legitimate medical basis for doing so, and the dispensing is consistent with accepted standards of professional medical practice.”

But then, to continue the government propaganda, the report says that Dr. Morales

“established a purported pain management clinic in which he issued prescriptions for controlled substances, principally oxycodone, morphine, and alprazolam… to most patients who sought them, without any appropriate medical basis.”

But when questioned, government agents always say they can’t determine legitimate medical practice because they aren’t doctors. They don’t have to, though, since they have everyone in America believing their propaganda that opioids cause addiction.

To stop these attacks on doctors, we must get the CSA repealed. Why? Because opioids need to be treated like any other non-controlled drugs that a doctors prescribes. For example, according to the government report (which we, BTW, can take with a grain of salt),

1. Morales “issued prescriptions…without examining the patients, often when he was not even present in the clinic. He also often pre-wrote many prescriptions for controlled substances and provided them to his office managers to hand out for cash payments of $250 to regular patients”, adding at the end of the statement their accusation “with the purpose of unlawfully maximizing the clinic’s profits.”

If this was standard medications and not controlled substances, none of these actions would be considered illegal by anyone, even the DOJ. They shouldn’t be considered illegal for controlled drugs either.  If a doctor can’t be at the office every day, but patients need their medications to continue, and the prescriptions, by law, can only be written for a month at a time, then it shows a compassionate, caring physician to make sure the regular patient can pick the scripts up. And if the doctor wants to consider that an office visit and doesn’t bill insurance for it, then the standard office visit price should be allowed.  $250 is low for a standard office visit today. The doctors not taking insurance in my area charge $350. And Florida is probably even more expensive.

2. A pain medicine expert witness, Dr. Rubenstein, testified that none of the patient medical records he had examined contained any proper medical basis for the use of opioids, such as oxycodone or morphine, nor any basis for the use of benzodiazepines, such as alprazolam. The pain medicine expert also testified that the combination of opioids and benzodiazepines that Morales regularly prescribed, both of which are central nervous system depressants, created an enhanced risk of overdose and death.’

These “pain medicine experts” that the government pays to say whatever they are told to say on the witness stand will someday answer for their crimes to humanity.  How can they say, in this day and time when a pain patient doesn’t even know if they will get their pain medicine, that there isn’t a need for an anti-anxiety medicine like alprazolam?  And the attacks on opioids and benzodiazepines is purely bogus government propaganda to attack physicians. They have been prescribed together for 50 years without any major problems.

3. The trial also exposed discrepancies in Morales’s medical records, which purportedly detailed patient examinations during periods when he was confirmed to be out of the country by U.S. Customs and Border Protection records.

But what about telehealth?  Couldn’t the doctor have conducted a virtual visit with these patients? Telehealth is accepted today. And if a pain management physician is alone in his practice, there must be a way for patients to receive their prescriptions in a timely manner so they don’t suffer or go into withdrawal. It would appear, though, that the DOJ report on the trial doesn’t mention this possibility. The visit could even have been conducted by phone call. Since pain patients have to be evaluated monthly, and usually the prescriptions are just continued, a face-to-face is not needed. It is even in the Controlled Substance Act that a face-to-face only has to be conducted every 24 months.

4. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent testified that Morales prescribed opioids to over 1,000 patients, frequently at maximum doses, and a substantial number of these patients had criminal records related to drug dealing.

There is no such thing as a “maximum dose” with opioids.  If they are using the 90mme’s based on the CDC guidelines, even the CDC came out with a revision stating that is wrong.

5. In addition to job security of the DOJ offices and DEA agents, here is the main reason for these attacks: “Assistant U.S. Attorneys Emily Stone and Mitchell Hyman are handling asset forfeiture.”

At the age of 72, Dr. Morales has savings, a home, cars, maybe a boat, that the government will confiscate so they can divide the proceeds among all of the divisions that helped in the investigation, from federal agencies to local law enforcement.

The media plays into this–even the websites for doctors. The headline on Becker’s ASC Review, a website for medical professionals, was

Florida physician found guilty of selling prescriptions for cash

Those really guilty of using prescriptions for cash are the government agents, such as U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe, DEA Special Agent Deanne L. Reuter, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Frank Tamen, Theodore Joseph O’Brien, Emily Stone and Mitchell Hyman, and the US Customs and Border Protection which helped in the case creation.

Filed under: General Problems