VA. DOCTORS IMPLICATED IN OXYCONTIN CASES

Eighteen people who illegally sold large amounts of OxyContin and other
powerful prescription painkillers have pleaded guilty to drug charges in
federal court over the past two months, and for the first time have openly
implicated two northern Virginia doctors in a widespread conspiracy to put
the drugs on the black market.

In court proceedings and documents filed in U.S. District Court in
Alexandria, Va., federal prosecutors and investigators have publicly
identified the doctors as the sources of hundreds of thousands of pills
later sold throughout the region and in Appalachia. Prosecutors in court
have said the doctors were hubs of two separate sales schemes.

The pleas have come from patients of William E. Hurwitz, who recently
closed his McLean, Va., practice after learning of the investigation, and
Joseph K. Statkus, who runs a pain clinic in Centreville, Va. Authorities
said the two prescribed thousands of OxyContin pills a month, in some cases
without performing medical examinations. They say the pills went to abusers
in Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia.

The Drug Enforcement Administration cites 464 deaths in which OxyContin was
verified as the direct cause of death, or was a likely factor.

The nationwide investigation also focuses on more than a half-dozen deaths
thought to be linked to prescriptions from the doctors. Federal sources
said prosecutors are trying to use those deaths to trigger death-penalty
laws under drug kingpin laws if they are able to obtain indictments against
the doctors.

Hurwitz and Statkus said they've done nothing wrong, that they were duped
by phony patients, and that they have provided valuable services to chronic
pain sufferers.

Hurwitz said the investigation is political and that it veers away from law
enforcement and into how doctors do their jobs. "You don't ask a patient if
they've committed adultery or cheated on their taxes," he said. "But in
this particular area, doctors are expected to have perfect knowledge of
everything a patient does. ... Nobody could treat pain if they're going to
hold doctors to that standard."