Dr. Chun along with the Insys rep Daniel Tondre. 52, Tampa, FL were both found guilty in May, 2022 for conspiring to pay and receive kickbacks and bribes, in the form of speaker fees, in return for prescribing the fentanyl spray Subsys. So basically, the war against drugs has given the government an avenue to recoup the costs of pharmaceuticals prescribed to patients. There are other expensive non-opioid drugs that are prescribed daily, but we don’t see those doctors or pharmaceutical companies being charged with fraud, now do we?
The government position was that Insys, through its sales representative, Tondre, marketed Subsys to Chun by holding bogus and sham speaker events. They brought out that Insys paid Dr. Chun $2,400 to $3,000 per speaker event and claimed that this payment was in return for writing more and higher dosages of Subsys prescriptions, calling them kickbacks and bribes of more than $278,000 paid to Chun over 3 years to induce him to prescribe Subsys, all of which the government is now collecting, even though it wasn’t money they spent, but what Insys paid Dr. Chun for his time.
The mechanism of having speaker events for pharmaceutical companies to inform area physicians of the use of their product is a standard practice and should not be criminalized. And it isn’t a case of “I’ll make you a speaker if you prescribe our drug”. Instead, the doctor likes the drug and has prescribed it for his/her patients BEFORE he is offered a speaking position. I know how it works, because I was a potential speaker for a competitor of Insys, Cephalon. It is just as Dr. Chun stated in 2019:
“I have been a licensed medical doctor in Florida with an expertise in anesthesiology and interventional pain management for almost 25 years. Throughout my career, I was invited to participate in various physician speaker presentations organized by pharmaceutical companies. The purpose of these presentations was to educate others in the healthcare industry about certain pharmaceutical products that I felt could significantly benefit patient care, including fewer side effects, quicker and more extensive pain relief, and evolving delivery methods.
These speaker presentations had absolutely no impact on my prescribing habits. I have always been dedicated to my patients and have provided them with the highest medical care. At all times, I prescribed medications that were medically necessary for my patient’s care and based upon what was best for each individual patient, which meant considering every patient preference for a certain medication, every patient’s reaction to a particular drug, the number of side effects, and the most economical choice for each and every patient. The patient has always been and will always be my first priority.
If a company that I spoke for attempted to influence doctors to write prescriptions via speaker fees, I can assure you that I was not one of those doctors. I became a physician to help people and for the love of medicine. That is and has always been my only motivation. Throughout my 25-year career, I have never received any form of reprimand from the Florida Board of Medicine or any other regulatory agency. I spent my career treating patients with chronic pain that severely limited their ability to perform even the most basic activities. I dedicated my career to helping my patients achieve some form of relief and a better quality of life. I am proud of this legacy.”
Dr. Chun was targeted because he was one of the top five paid doctors on the payroll for Insys from 2013 to 2016. I also claim he was targeted because he is a minority physician. The statements by the FBI and HHS agents both insinuate that Dr. Chun ignored patient care for personal financial gain.
In May 2019, Insys’ founder John Kapoor was convicted of federal racketeering conspiracy charges for Insys’s practices in instructing doctors how to prescribe the company’s opioid medication SUBSYS. He was sentenced to five-plus years in prison and has 2 more years to spend in prison.
Linda Cheek is a teacher and disenfranchised medical doctor, turned activist, author, and speaker. A victim of prosecutorial misconduct and outright law-breaking of the government agencies DEA, DHHS, and DOJ, she hopes to be a part of exonerating all doctors illegally attacked through the Controlled Substance Act. She holds the key to success, as she can offset the government propaganda that drugs cause addiction with the truth: The REAL Cause of Drug Abuse.
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Dr.Thomas Whitten, (age 76, with heart problems) formerly of Greensburg, PA, is serving a 5-year sentence for this same charge. He is at USP Hazelton in West Virginia. I know he would like any help or advice in fighting this charge.
I’m in disbelief! Pharmaceutical companies have always instructed medical personnel on using their products. Isn’t that what they are supposed to do??? People and judges need to be educated. I do my best to do this every chance I get. In fact, I just posted a rather long comment on Nextdoor.com to someone who posted (erroneously of course) that several people have OD’d and/or died from Fentanyl by just touching a tissue or other object having a trace on it. Thank goodness she fact-checked what I said and learned I was correct. She actually said she was going to correct her statement. Sadly, many people won’t do that. I explained how our own government has been duping the public and the plight pain patients are going through based on lies. I always say that EVERYONE should care about this issue because they don’t know what can happen to them or a loved one tomorrow, whether it might be a bad fall or a cancer diagnosis. There is so much misinformation floating around about legally prescribed opioid pain meds, doctors, and pain patients that (sadly) our own government has propagated.
Up until the time someone with the applicable legal authority starts “turning the table” on these unjustifiable (and likely illegal) acts being perpetuated by the DEA and DOJ they are obviously going to continue and likely become even more damaging.
For starters, government agents need to be held legally accountable for the countless innocent patients wherein they’ve knowingly destroyed any resemblance of some type of quality of life.
They should also be held accountable for the countless suicides of Chronic/intractable pain patients and military veterans. It is unreasonable to believe the government agents responsible for the unjustified closure of pain physician practices are not 100% aware of the likely consequences being unjustly placed upon INNOCENT pain patients.
Consequently, the government agents responsible for such unjustifiable acts should be held accountable for doing so. Perhaps then – agents will stop and consider the needless torture and shortened life spans of the countless (often unaccounted for) innocent patients they are seriously negatively afflicting.
What you say is true. But to do that we have to get a law through Congress removing immunity from these officials when they break the law. Right now they are protected. As the Bureau of Prisons authorities said to me when I pointed out the laws they were breaking, “Well, sue me” with a snear on their face.
In order to get immunity changed, we have to show how the laws are being corrupted, and the way to do that is get on board my ecourse and end the attacks on drugs, doctors, and pain patients. When we get the Controlled Substance Act repealed, we can put in the law exactly what you state.
Update on Dr. Kondan, he was sentenced a couple of weeks ago to 2 to 7 years for doing nothing wrong… Our society is out of control…..
And people won’t learn what will stop it! So the suffering will not only continue, it will get worse.