GROUP WANTS TO NAME DUBIOUS DOCTORS

WASHINGTON -- Thousands of doctors who give up the right to prescribe
narcotics in federal plea bargains are avoiding a government listing
that helps hospitals and health plans identify questionable
physicians, consumer advocates say.

Public Citizen, a consumer group founded by Ralph Nader, is asking the
federal Drug Enforcement Agency to release nearly 3,000 doctor's names
to the Department of Health and Human Services.

"Patients are harmed when these data are not available," said Dr.
Sidney Wolfe of Public Citizen.

Wolfe said the problem means that many health care professionals --
like a California doctor who pleaded guilty to illegally receiving and
distributing anabolic steroids used for bodybuilding -- can get jobs
or hospital privileges without their histories being
scrutinized.

"These are people who have committed fairly horrendous actions," Wolfe
said. "I'm sure hospitals would like to know about them."

Public Citizen asked Attorney General John Ashcroft in a letter
Tuesday to direct the DEA to give federal health officials details on
at least 2,592 cases of doctors who, throughout the 1990s, gave up
their narcotics licenses when facing prosecution.

"For the last several years there have been a series of broken
promises by the DEA to provide this important information," said the
group, which successfully sued the DEA for its list of doctors who
have voluntarily surrendered their licenses.

Doctors whose licenses are revoked are published in federal documents
and with a few exceptions are noted on HHS' list, the group said. It
said that doctors who give up the licenses voluntarily before they can
be revoked should be treated the same.

Justice Department officials were not immediately available for
comment.

Since 1970, the Controlled Substances Act has regulated drugs that may
have medical use but also have high potential for abuse. Physician
violators have sold prescriptions, exchanged them for sex or helped
illegally import them, among other questionable practices, advocates
say.

Since 1986, Congress has required HHS to keep a list of doctors and
other health officials that could be tapped by the nation's hospitals,
state medical boards and HMOs.

The differences between the HHS and DEA lists have created a rift
between the agencies, says Public Citizen.

Wolfe said 286 doctors who had their licenses revoked are in the HHS
files. But from 1990 through 1999, the HHS file has not a single
report of a physician who surrendered a license, according to the
group. As of May, the group said, the DEA had not submitted any
reports of narcotics violators to HHS.

Officials with the HHS did not immediately comment.