SECOND DOCTOR TESTIFIES LUYAO'S DECISIONS 'DANGEROUS'

FORT PIERCE -- For the second time in as many weeks, a suspended Port
St. Lucie doctor was forced to quietly listen as another doctor Monday
described some of her medical decisions as "dangerous" and her patient
evaluations as "overly simplistic."

Dr. David Brown, a pain management specialist at the University of
Texas' M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, was the prosecutors' third expert
witness in their case against Asuncion Luyao. As the second week of
testimony in the trial begins, prosecutors have called more than 25
witnesses, including two other experts, an addiction specialist and a
toxicologist.

The state is not expected to rest its case until later this week, and
prosecutors are scheduled to call several more witnesses to testify
against the 64-year-old doctor.

Luyao is charged with six counts of manslaughter, six counts of
trafficking oxycodone and one count of racketeering. Prosecutors say
she issued excessive prescriptions for powerful narcotics and wanted
to keep her patients addicted in order to continue to collect the $80
office fee required for a refill.

They say that practice lead to the drug-related deaths of six former
patients.

Her attorney, Joel Hirschhorn, says Luyao was a kind and caring
doctor, whose treatment for many of these patients was based on their
lies to her. He says she acted in a prudent manner when treating her
patients.

Brown, however, testified that based on his review of her files, her
treatment of the six who died was "outside the standard of care
generally accepted in the United States for a pain medicine physician."

Overall, Brown said he found that Luyao's encounters with her patients
were "excessively brief," and many times she did not have any sort of
treatment plan other than to prescribe narcotics. Often she would
order no diagnostic tests or X-rays before giving a patient a
prescription, he added.

She appeared to ignore "red flags," he said, such as continuing to
prescribe to patients who claimed they lost their previous
prescription.

While Hirschhorn pointed out that addicts are entitled to pain
treatment, Brown said they are not entitled to be treated with these
sorts of addictive painkillers.

Hirschhorn also attempted to show the jury the differences between
Brown's practice and Luyao's.

Hers was a "storefront" in a small town, he said, while the M.D.
Anderson Cancer Center is a world-renowned clinic. He is expected to
call his own expert, who found Luyao acted within reasonable standards
of care.