LOS ANGELES (AP) — The district attorney who filed murder charges against a California doctor in prescription drug deaths of three patients says the case is highly unusual but may serve as a warning shot to unethical physicians who become pill pushers.
Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley says his office will continue to prosecute greedy and unethical doctors in an effort to stem the epidemic of prescription and illegal drug abuse which claims more lives each year than traffic accidents.
Drug enforcement officials agree with Cooley, alleging that Dr. Hsiu-Ying “Lisa” Tseng knew that her prescriptions could have a deadly result because others in her care had died before the three men named in the charges.
The problem is so great that the federal Drug Enforcement Agency has shifted agents who once chased Mexican and Colombian drug traffickers to investigating doctors who push pills illegally.
