DOCTOR SUSPENDED OVER DRUG-RELATED DEATHS

State Order Says Physician Improperly Prescribed Oxycontin

An Apalachicola doctor, who reportedly prescribed drugs that contributed to
the deaths of six of his patients, has been suspended from practicing medicine.

Thomas G. Merrill "was prescribing controlled substances, such as
OxyContin, to patients without any medical justification for doing so,"
according to an emergency suspension ordered by Florida Health Secretary
John Agwunobi.

OxyContin is a prescription painkiller that is is highly addictive and
often linked to overdose deaths.

The Health Department also plans to seek Merrill's formal suspension and
discipline.

The emergency suspension was ordered Friday. Merrill now has 30 days to
contest the emergency suspension with the Department of Health and the 1st
District Court of Appeal.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement began a yearlong investigation
after several people they arrested on drug-trafficking charges said they
were Merrill's patients and got the drugs from him, the order said.
Patients interviewed by investigators said Merrill "commonly prescribed
controlled substances to them without performing physical examinations or
diagnostic tests on them," according to the suspension order.

Those medications include pain-relief patches, sleeping pills, muscle
relaxants and antidepressants, the order said.

Several patients also said Merrill "would sometimes issue prescriptions to
his patients' family members when his patients were not Medicaid recipients
and their family members were."

"He has demonstrated a willingness to excessively and inappropriately
prescribe dangerous and addictive" drugs, Agwunobi's order said. "Nothing
short of (his) immediate suspension ... will protect the public from Dr.
Merrill."

Merrill's home phone number is unlisted, and the phone at his office rang
unanswered Monday.

He is a doctor of osteopathy, a branch of medicine that places greater
emphasis on the body's muscular and skeletal systems. But osteopathic
doctors can perform surgery and prescribe drugs.

Agwunobi's order called Merrill one of the state's "leading prescribers of
controlled substances to Medicaid recipients." In 2000-03, Merrill
prescribed $429,285 worth of medication to Florida Medicaid patients,
according to the Agency for Health Care Administration.

Gov. Jeb Bush is asking for a statewide database tracking patients taking
any of more than 100 potentially addictive medications such as OxyContin.
Proponents said the database would help prevent abusers from going to
multiple doctors to fill the same prescription.

The bill was tabled after Democrats and Republicans alike objected on
privacy grounds. Laws setting up such databases exist in 17 other states
and have not been challenged on privacy grounds.

There were 3,300 prescription-drug-overdose deaths in Florida last year,
according to state drug-control-office director Jim McDonough. That's an
average of nine a day.