DOCTORS' LICENSES SUSPENDED IN TREATMENT OF HEROIN ADDICTS

NEWARK, March 5 - A four-year legal fight over an unorthodox detoxification
treatment for heroin addicts ended today when two doctors who provided the
treatment agreed to a two-year suspension of their licenses.

As a deputy state attorney general prepared in a hearing today to ask the
State Board of Medical Examiners to revoke the licenses of the two doctors,
they agreed at the last minute to a settlement the board first offered on
Feb. 20.

The settlement requires the doctors, Lance L. Gooberman and David Bradway,
to pay the state $350,000 for legal costs in its court fight to end their
practices, $25,500 in civil fines, and $30,000 in restitution to the
families of seven addicts who died after the treatment and three others who
were hospitalized. After the doctors' suspensions, their licenses will be
restored on a probationary basis for three years.

Dr. Gooberman and Dr. Bradway, who were described in court documents as
former addicts, and their lawyers all declined to comment on the settlement.

Douglas J. Harper, the deputy attorney general, called the case a tragedy,
because of the deaths and because the two doctors had "put a blot" on a
detoxification method that holds promise for addicts trying to free
themselves from heroin use.

The treatment, called ultra rapid opiate detoxification, has been fairly
common in Europe since the early 1990's.

As the two doctors practiced the treatment in Dr. Gooberman's office in
Camden County between 1995 and 1999, addicts were placed under general
anesthetic and a drug, naltrexone, that prevents heroin and other opiates
from affecting the brain, was implanted in their abdomens.

The drug touched off immediate severe symptoms of withdrawal, but addicts
did not consciously experience them because of the anesthesia. Once they
regained consciousness, the addicts were discharged without medical
supervision, the state said when it started legal action in 1999.

Over the four years, the doctors treated about 2,350 addicts, according to
documents. Seven of them died, most from irregular heartbeat or severe
breathing problems, anywhere from 10 to 75 hours after treatment, the state
said. Dozens of others were hospitalized for various ailments, the state
contended.

In its 1999 civil complaint, the attorney general's office charged the
doctors with malpractice, negligence and professional misconduct, and
sought revocation of their licenses. No criminal charges were filed. But a
New Jersey administrative law judge, Jeff S. Masin, conducted 36 days of
hearings at the state's request last year.

Last November, he rejected the revocation request, saying that he had found
a "causal relationship" between the detoxification treatment and the
deaths, but that the state had failed to prove the conduct of the two
doctors was "substantially responsible" for the deaths.

He said some of the addicts who died had used cocaine after the
detoxification treatment, despite warnings not to do so, and suffered fatal
irregular heartbeats. Others died of aspirative pneumonia not related to
any improper conduct by the doctors, the judge said.

The judge did cite the doctors for violating five state medical standards,
including failure to screen heroin addicts for cocaine and failure to
conduct appropriate electrocardiograms on patients over age 40. The judge
recommended the doctors lose their licenses for six months.

The state appealed Judge Masin's ruling, leading to today's settlement.