

Bostonian of the Year: Carmen Ortiz  - JumpCrisscross
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/12/30/bostonian_of_the_year_carmen_ortiz_2011/

======
Udo
It's been said in the other threads but it bears repeating: while Ortiz is by
all accounts an opportunistic US attorney on a mission to attain political
office, and as such will always be part of the system rather than strive to
change it, it's important to remember that the one pushing Aaron's case out of
proportion was really Steve Heymann.

To a certain degree it's appropriate to question the involvement and lack of
restraint displayed by powerful people running up the chain of command, but
let's not forget that in the end it takes a malevolent executing instrument to
make these things happen to victims who can't possibly defend themselves. This
instrument is Heymann, not Ortiz.

Of course, judicial and executive malevolence and malfeasance don't exist in a
vacuum. There are jobs that disproportionally attract certain kinds of people
who are, for want of a better term, somewhat evil. We as a society encourage
them (e.g. by measuring their conviction rate instead of how reasonable and
just they are in office) and then we are surprised by the appalling nature of
the system. We need to stop doing that, but I see no realistic way of
accomplishing this with any degree of public support in the current climate.

At the very least though we should recognize that these "public servants" have
way too much power and there are clearly not enough checks and balances in the
system to prevent this kind of abuse.

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denzil_correa
Link does not work. One of the working link is -
[http://www.bostonglobe.com/2011/12/30/carmenortiz/wLwkSgFqDQ...](http://www.bostonglobe.com/2011/12/30/carmenortiz/wLwkSgFqDQgRZY0iEKk4kM/story.html)

Quite aptly, this link is behind a pay wall. Other "free" links include

[http://www.mainjustice.com/2012/01/03/massachusetts-u-s-
atto...](http://www.mainjustice.com/2012/01/03/massachusetts-u-s-attorney-
carmen-ortiz-is-bostonian-of-the-year/)

[http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011...](http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/12/30/bostonian_of_the_year_carmen_ortiz_2011/)

~~~
jpdoctor
> _Quite aptly, this link is behind a pay wall._

Not really: Open up a private browser (ctrl-shift N on chrome, eg) then paste
the link.

~~~
denzil_correa
Even after using the incognito mode in Chrome the article is still is behind a
pay wall for me. Probably, it depends on the location - I am not based out of
the US.

~~~
Vivtek
I am - but it's not working for me, either.

------
jpdoctor
FTA: _By targeting corruption and white-collar crime, the US attorney is
restoring our faith in the system._

WTF? On what planet is Whitey Bulger either corruption and white-collar crime?
He was finally found in Santa Monica with $600K and a cache of guns in the
walls of a rent-controlled apartment.

As near as I can tell, she is a straight-up opportunist looking for political
attention.

~~~
danso
Whitey Bulger is just one case handled by the Boston office. Why is it so hard
to understand that "the other side" has multiple facets?

In the age of the internet there is no excuse for not doing your own research.
The Boston's office press releases here:
<http://www.justice.gov/usao/ma/news/2011/index.html>

The GSK settlement this past July (largest health care fraud settlement in US
history):
[http://www.justice.gov/usao/ma/news/2012/July/GSKsettlement....](http://www.justice.gov/usao/ma/news/2012/July/GSKsettlement.html)

~~~
ramanujan
Well, you might be interested in the technical guts of that GSK fine. It is
related to the idea that no one knows what is legal anymore, and in this case
too federal prosecutors drove a man (Peter Gleason) to suicide.

Very briefly, once you spend four billion[1] to get a drug approved by FDA for
purpose A, a doctor can choose to prescribe it for purposes B, C, and D -- and
can publish papers on said applications -- but you as the manufacturer are
prohibited from discussing these "off label" applications with other doctors
through your salesforce. Even handing out papers is a gray area. So a pharma
rep in an office with a doctor concerned about condition B and a patient who
suffers from condition B is prohibited, under this FDA theory, from remarking
on the utility of his company's drug for condition B. Since ~40% of
prescriptions [2] are for off-label uses of drugs, this is a very big deal.

The reason for this ban on "off-label marketing" is that the FDA wants you to
spend another few billion to take the new application through the entire New
Drug Application process; relying on distributed doctors rather than
centralized FDA for drug evaluation means FDA loses user fees and review
authority. Note that the drug has already been proved _safe_ as dosages in
off-label applications are very similar; FDA however does not want doctors to
judge on their own whether the drug is _efficiacious_ (these are terms of art
in the drug industry). Since FDA cannot regulate doctors directly due to the
AMA's clout, they go after drug companies who are under their purview and
block them from mentioning anything other than purpose A.

With that background, now to the GSK fine:
[http://www.justice.gov/usao/ma/news/2012/July/GSKsettlement....](http://www.justice.gov/usao/ma/news/2012/July/GSKsettlement.html)

    
    
      Global health care giant GlaxoSmithKline LLC (GSK) agreed 
      to plead guilty and to pay $3 billion to resolve its 
      criminal and civil liability arising from the company’s 
      unlawful promotion of certain prescription drugs
    
      Under the provisions of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, 
      a company in its application to the FDA must specify each 
      intended use of a drug.  After the FDA approves the 
      product as safe and effective for a specified use, a 
      company’s promotional activities must be limited to the   
      intended uses that FDA approved.  In fact, promotion by 
      the manufacturer for other uses – known as “off-label 
      uses” – renders the product “misbranded.” 
    

You might think that sounds a bit like restrictions on freedom of speech. A
federal court just agreed:
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732371700457815...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323717004578157771246020506.html)

    
    
      A federal appeals-court panel on Monday overturned the 
      conviction of a pharmaceutical salesman for so-called off-
      label drug marketing, saying he was protected by free-
      speech rights.
    
      The decision could threaten Food and Drug Administration 
      rules that prohibit the marketing of drugs for off-label 
      uses, or those that aren't specifically approved by the 
      FDA.
    

To make the circle complete, aggressive prosecutions of federal prosecutors
for "off-label marketing" resulted in the arrest and subsequent suicide of Dr.
Peter Gleason:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/22/business/22drugdoc.html?pa...](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/22/business/22drugdoc.html?pagewanted=all)

    
    
      Indictment of Doctor Tests Drug Marketing Rules
    
      At first, Dr. Peter Gleason thought his arrest was a joke.
    
      In the early afternoon of Monday, March 6, half a dozen 
      men in suits surrounded Dr. Gleason, a Maryland 
      psychiatrist, at a train station on Long Island and 
      handcuffed him.
    
      “I said, ‘Well, this is a gag,’ ” Dr. Gleason recalled in 
      a recent interview. “They said, ‘No, this isn’t.’ ”
    
      Dr. Gleason, 53, was taken aback because he was arrested, 
      and later charged, for doing something that has become 
      common among doctors: promoting a drug for purposes other 
      than those approved by the federal government.
    

That was from 2006. Gleason ended up killing himself after his career was
destroyed by this prosecution: [http://www.pharmalot.com/2011/07/florida-goes-
after-dead-doc...](http://www.pharmalot.com/2011/07/florida-goes-after-dead-
doc-for-off-label-marketing/)

    
    
      However, the state failed to note one important detail – 
      Gleason died this past February. The 57-year-old physician 
      recently saw his medical licenses suspended in 
      Pennsylvania and California, and the accumulated weight of 
      the events apparently led him to commit suicide, according 
      to his sister. We left messages with the Florida 
      Department of Health about the filing, but not have 
      received a reply (read the complaint here).
    

So, to recap here: a federal court has just ruled that the legal theory that
Gleason was prosecuted over, and that GSK was fined $3B over, is actually not
valid. And a man is dead because of it. Since this is an area I happen to know
something about...I'm starting to believe that if domain experts got into the
details of these high-profile federal prosecutions (especially for non-violent
crimes) they'd find much more abuses like this.

[1]: [http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2012/02/10/the-
tru...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2012/02/10/the-truly-
staggering-cost-of-inventing-new-drugs/)

[2]:
[http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID568402_code3...](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID568402_code365570.pdf?abstractid=568402&mirid=1)

~~~
danso
I appreciate the depth of your response but will have to say that that is a
vast oversimplification of the debate over off label marketing and
prescribing. The overprescribing of powerful narcotics and antipsychotics to
those who didn't need them (but from which doctors and the reps they worked
with profited from) has been harmful, to say the least.

------
hakanito
Working link:
[http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011...](http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/12/30/bostonian_of_the_year_carmen_ortiz_2011/)

------
mtgx
Did she go after the bankers' "white-crimes" and try to put them in jail for
35 years, too? No? Didn't think so.

There's definitely a 2-tier justice system forming, where they only prosecute
the "little-guy", and _hard_ , while they either completely ignore or just
settle for a fine with the more powerful people in the country. Judges also
are increasingly starting to avoid lawsuits against the Government, as well.

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Kjeldahl
Could be this one I guess:
[http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011...](http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/12/30/bostonian_of_the_year_carmen_ortiz_2011/)

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temphn
Carmen Ortiz, Bostonian of the Year.

[http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2012/11/04/ma...](http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2012/11/04/mass-
motel-owner-fights-move-seize-property/q4XIbqGpqzKZoV2UIZDDaN/story.html)

    
    
      Russ Caswell is not charged with any crime, but next week
      he'll be in a federal courtroom fighting to keep a motel
      his father built almost six decades ago. ...
    
      "They are holding me responsible for the actions of a
      few people who I don’t know and I've never met before,
      people who rent a room,’’ Caswell said. "Out of thousands
      of people who stay here, a handful do something wrong
      and they’re trying to blame me for it." ...
    
      "The government believed that this was an important
      case ... because of the important deterrent message it
      sends to others who may turn a blind eye to crime
      occurring at their place of business," said Christina
      DiIorio-Sterling, a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Carmen
      Ortiz.
    
      Under a provision of the forfeiture law known as
      "equitable sharing," if the government wins, the
      Tewksbury police department could receive up to
      80 percent of the proceeds from the sale of the motel,
      which is assessed at about $1.3 million, Caswell said.
    
      Criminal forfeiture laws require a person to be convicted
      of a crime before property can be taken, but civil
      forfeiture allows prosecutors to take properties without
      convicting anyone.

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Kjeldahl
Quote from the article: "By targeting corruption and white-collar crime, the
US attorney is restoring our faith in the system.". Talk about back-fire!

------
wildranter
404?

