Druggist admits to more dilutions
About 4,200 patients believed to be affected
Kansas City, Mo. ? Pharmacist Robert R. Courtney watered down dozens of drugs over the past decade, possibly affecting 4,200 patients, federal authorities said Friday.
“The scope of the dilution is simply staggering,” FBI spokesman Jeff Lanza said.
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He said Courtney now admits diluting 72 drugs including antibiotics, chemotherapy drugs, and blood-clotting agents that he mixed and sold through his two pharmacies in the Kansas City area. Lanza declined to say whether other workers at those pharmacies are suspects.
When Courtney confessed in August 2001, he acknowledged diluting four chemotherapy drugs involving 34 patients. The new revelations multiply the potential victims by hundreds. Authorities now believe Courtney diluted 98,000 prescriptions, issued through about 400 doctors, potentially affecting about 4,200 patients.
Doctors who ordered drugs from Courtney are being notified by state agencies in Kansas and Missouri, Lanza said. It’s up to those doctors to notify their patients, he said.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said all the drugs Courtney claimed were diluted had been administered intravenously or through injections. None were oral medications or dispensed in pill or tablet form. Investigators now say Courtney says he began diluting drugs in 1992, perhaps earlier.
Courtney, 49, pleaded guilty in February to 20 counts of tampering and adulterating or misbranding the chemotherapy drugs Taxol and Gemzar. He could have gotten 196 years if he had been convicted. In exchange for his plea, prosecutors agreed to recommend 17 1/2 to 30 years as long as Courtney told the truth about his dilutions. No sentencing date has been set.
Lanza acknowledged that there was no way to know for sure if Courtney was telling the truth. But, Lanza said, “He has no motivation to lie about this.”
Courtney’s attorney, J.R. Hobbs, declined to talk in detail about his client’s new admissions. “Mr. Courtney continues to accept full responsibility for his conduct. He is complying in all aspects of his plea agreement,” he said.
Lanza said Courtney’s admissions “developed over time” since his February plea. The debriefings ended about two weeks ago, but it took until Friday to come up with a plan for notifying doctors, patients and the public about the new allegations, Lanza said.
In his plea, Courtney also acknowledged that he and his corporation, Courtney Pharmacy Inc., weakened the drugs Platinol and Paraplatin, conspired to traffic in stolen drugs, and caused the filing of false Medicare claims.
The pharmacist, who has been jailed since August, has said he began diluting medications to help pay more than $600,000 in taxes and fulfill a $1 million pledge to his church.
Courtney has been stripped of his pharmacy licenses and forced to sell two pharmacies, in Kansas City and in suburban Merriam, Kan. He also faces a possible fine of $15 million and about 300 civil lawsuits accusing him of fraud and wrongful death.
Some of the lawsuits also accuse two pharmaceutical companies Eli Lilly & Co. and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. of knowing about the dilutions and doing nothing. Both have denied any wrongdoing.
At the time of his plea, Courtney told a crowded court he never thought of the consequences of diluting cancer drugs and did not mean to harm anyone.
“I have had a long period of time in isolation to reflect on my conduct,” he said. “I keep asking myself ‘Why?’ Why would I commit crimes so profoundly inconsistent with my faith, beliefs and my relationship with my Lord and Savior?
“In my daily readings, I can find no rational explanation. … I am guilty and I accept full responsibility. To the victims, I am extremely sorry.”