http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/83493.php

Many Nursing Homes Being Acquired By Wall Street Investment Firms 26 Sep 2007 As Wall Street investment firms in recent years have acquired thousands of U.S. nursing homes, they have "often reduced costs, increased profits and quickly resold facilities for significant gains," but by "many regulatory benchmarks, residents at those nursing homes are worse off, on average, than they were under previous owners," the New York Times reports. In an analysis of data collected by CMS from 2000 to 2006, the Times found large private investors who have purchased nursing homes have increased their profits by cutting expenses and staff, sometimes below minimum legal requirements. The analysis includes information from more than 1,200 nursing homes purchased by large private investment groups since 2000 and more than 14,000 other homes. In recent years, large private investment groups have agreed to purchase six of the nation's 10 largest nursing home chains, containing over 141,000 beds -- 9% of the nation's total -- in addition to owning at least another 60,000 beds at smaller chains. The Times reports that chains owned by private investment companies were 41% more profitable than the average facility in 2005, with privately owned homes earning $1,700 per resident, according to reports filed by the facilities. The Times analysis shows that many nursing homes acquired by private investment groups before 2006 scored worse than national average rates for 12 of 14 indicators of care, including bedsores and preventable infections. Before they were taken over, those same facilities often scored at or above national averages. According to the Times, the complexity of the corporate structures that are established when an investment firm acquires nursing home properties makes it difficult for family members to sue. About 70% of attorneys who once pursued lawsuits against nursing homes have stopped doing so because the cases have become too expensive or difficult, according to estimates from Nathan Carter, a Florida plaintiffs' lawyer. Corporate complexity also makes it harder for regulators to know when one company controls several properties and to collect on fines levied. Advocates for industry reform say that "anyone who profits from a facility should be held accountable for its care," the Times reports. Comments Ronald Silva, president and CEO of Fillmore Capital Partners -- which paid $1.8 billion last year to buy one of the nation's largest nursing home chains -- said nursing homes are "essentially unlimited consumer demand as the baby boomers age," adding, "I've never seen a surer bet." Jack MacDonald, an executive with a company owned by Fillmore, said the Times analysis was incomplete, adding, "We are focused on becoming a better organization today than we were 18 months ago. We are confident that we will be an even better organization in the future." In addition, investment groups say that they "deserve credit for rebuilding an industry on the edge of widespread insolvency," the Times reports. Arnold Whitman -- a principal with Formation Properties I, a fund that has bought nursing home properties -- said, "Legal and regulatory costs were killing this industry," adding, "We should be recognized for supporting this industry when almost everyone else was running away." However, Charlene Harrington, a professor at the University of California-San Francisco who studies nursing homes, said, "The first thing owners do is lay off nurses and other staff that are essential to keeping patients safe." She added that the chains "have made a lot of money by cutting nurses, but it's at the cost of human lives." Toby Edelman, a nursing home expert with the Center for Medicare Advocacy -- a not-for-profit group that counsels people on Medicare -- said, "Private equity is buying up this industry and then hiding the assets. ... And now residents are dying, and there is little the courts or regulators can do" (Duhigg, New York Times, 9/23). Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org/. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation© 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

Posted by Justice Lover at 10:48 AM 0 comments

Thursday, October 29, 2009

DECEPTIVE BIG PHARMA-PSYCHIATRY PROPAGANDA HAS BEEN CAUSING WIDE SPREAD ABUSE, SUFFERING AND DEATH TO VULNERABLE PEOPLE

by Justice Lover

The deceptive Big Pharma-psychiatry propaganda has been publicising psychiatric poisons as "safe medications" for many years now. One fatal result has been that health care professionals - from physicians to nurses, nursing homes to foster children care administrators - have been using and misusing those deadly drugs excessively on the vulnerable people under their care.

Those horrendous practices would stop only when the owners and managers of Big Pharma would be prosecuted for crimes against humanity, and when psychiatry would be outlawed.

The following brief newspaper report reveals only the tip of the iceberg, nevertheless it is very important to read it.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-il-nursinghomes-drug,0,6380462,print.story

www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-il-nursinghomes-drug,0,2138808.story

chicagotribune.com

Paper: Psychotropic drugs misused at nursing homes

Associated Press

1:49 PM CDT, October 27, 2009

CHICAGO

Some Illinois nursing homes are misusing psychotropic drugs on residents, leading them to experience dangerous side effects and fatal falls, according to a report in the Chicago Tribune. The newspaper said that it found 1,200 violations involving use of the drugs since 2001, affecting nearly 3,000 nursing home residents.

The report was based on a review of state and federal inspection reports and appeared in Tuesday editions. In one case, the newspaper said a woman with Alzheimer's Disease at a facility near St. Louis was given injections of two anti-psychotics for symptoms that later turned out to be a urinary tract infection. Near Peoria, an 86-year-old woman with congestive heart failure was given an anti-psychotic because she was teasing another resident.

In more than 600 violations since 2001, nursing homes gave residents psychotropic drugs without the residents' permission and, in more than 700 cases since 2001, homes gave psychotropics without a good cause. Federal law bars nursing homes from giving the drugs without a doctor's order, a patient's consent and a justification for the treatment. Psychotropics include antipsychotics, antidepressants and anti-anxiety medicine. In the central Illinois city of Effingham, a nursing home resident on several psychotropics fell eight times in 2006, breaking her spine in the last fall and dying 11 days later.

The state cited Evergreen Nursing & Rehabilitation Center in Effingham for failing to evaluate whether the drugs caused the woman to fall. Robert Hedges, the nursing home's co-owner, said the woman had medical and behavioral problems and a history of falling. "We tried to get her family to agree to physical restraints, and they declined," Hedges said. "You cannot have a staff member sitting there and holding a resident in a wheelchair all the time." Lloyd Berkley, 74, was given an anti-psychotic drug at a nursing home near Peoria. Hours later, he fell and suffered a fatal head injury. Berkley was among 12 residents of Illinois nursing homes whose deaths led to citations involving misuse of psychotropics, the Tribune found. "This is the first time he'd been in a nursing home, which is hard for us because we had to put him there," Berkley's daughter, Pati Jockisch, told investigators, according to state records. "We didn't have a choice and we'd promised him we never would." After investigating Berkley's death, the Illinois Department of Public Health fined Pekin Living and Rehab Center $55,000. The family settled a lawsuit against the facility for $380,000. Petersen Health Care, which acquired the nursing home and changed its name to Timbercreek Rehab and Health Care, declined to comment. The report is part of a Tribune series on nursing homes titled "Compromised Care."

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Information from: Chicago Tribune, http://www.chicagotribune.com/

Posted by Justice Lover at 9:00 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

HOW THE BIG PHARMA-PSYCHIATRY COMBINE CONTROLS NOT ONLY THE PATIENT-VICTIMS BUT ALSO THEIR ADVOCACY GROUPS

by Justice Lover

The AHRP article below, with the NYT article it comments on, shows that the Big Pharma-psychiatry combine crimes are well protected not only by the state but also by the patients-victims own families and advocacy groups. NAMI is the USA's biggest of such advocacy groups, and it has been working for the Big Pharma-psychiatry combine, rather than for the patients-victims.

ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION

A Catalyst for Public Debate: Promoting Openness,

Full Disclosure, and Accountability

http://www.ahrp.org/

FYI

Senator Charles Grassley has hit the bull's eye when he asked the NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) to submit financial documents showing where it gets its funding. The documents submitted to Sen. Grassley confirm that NAMI is a front organization for pharmaceutical companies who underwrite ¾ of NAMI donations—in 2006 to 2008 that was a hefty $23 million.

In return, NAMI devotes its efforts to help increase industry profits: NAMI promotes the most toxic drugs in pharmacopoeia to its ostensible constituents—the families of persons diagnosed with mental illness—disregarding the irrefutable, documented evidence of these very

drugs’ propensity to induce debilitating, irreversible severe adverse effects.

See: Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker:

http://www.ahrp.org/infomail/05/08/29a.php

Rather than putting its efforts on improving the quality of life with humane care for the mentally ill, NAMI has been instrumental in promoting the expanded use of toxic drugs even for use in children.

And NAMI has been instrumental in lobbying state and federal legislators for unrestricted use of these highly toxic drugs and increased taxpayer fundingthrough Medicaid.

Documents have surfaced during the course of litigation indicating the extent to which NAMI cavorted with one or another drug maker, promoting their antipsychotic drugs.

For example, the case against Pfizer brought by states attorney general:

See: http://freepdfhosting.com/efe2733fd4.pdf

Pharmalot reported (Oct 23) that Jim Daily, NAMI Kentucky official, accepted money to be on the AstraZeneca consultant program to promote Seroquel:

NAMI refers to AstraZeneca as “a strong effective partner.

"The purpose of the Seroquel Consultant Program is to discuss ways that AstraZeneca can better partner with our consumer groups at the national, regional and local levels…” See, AstraZeneca letter to Daily:

http://freepdfhosting.com/1be71009bc.pdf

Furthermore, Mike Fitzpatrick, NAMI’s Executive Director, made presentations at an AstraZeneca meeting (2003) when he headed NAMI’s policy research institute. His presentation, Pharmalot reports, included details on the crisis in state budgets at the time, Medicaid funding and tips on building community coalitions - at state and local levels - to further support for using antipsychotics.

The agenda at the meeting included a discussion of MAP initiatives. MAP is an acronym for Medication Algorithm Project, a program that began in Texas as a means of determining when to prescribe psychotropic drugs - such as Seroquel and other antipsychotics - for people in state-run programs.

However, MAP has drawn controversy as an alleged stalking horse for drug makers that simply want to boost prescriptions.

See: http://www.pharmalot.com/2009/10/nami-astrazeneca-is-a-strong-effective-partner/

Beyond these questionable activities for a 501-C3 non-profit actively working to divert much needed Medicaid funds on behalf of corporate interests, the real crime is NAMI’s betrayal of the people it claims to represent.

How many families were persuaded by corporate-generated propaganda disseminated by NAMI (in return for "donations") into urging their loved ones to ingest antipsychotic drugs—such as Risperdal, Zyprexa, Geodon,

Seroquel, Abilify?

How many family members suffered catastrophic, drug-induced debilitating, irreversible harm as a result of false claims disseminated by NAMI about these drugs' safely profile and benefits?

How many families buried loved ones who died as a result of a toxic drug reaction from the drugs promoted by NAMI?

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav

veracare@ahrp.org

212-595-8974

18thoutlawpsychiatry.blogspot.com/