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StumbleUponDavid L. Bryson: After losing his job as a staff physician for a state facility in Texas, the 66-year-old joined thepillbox.com in 1999. Bryson had undergone alcohol dependency treatment four years before, according to Texas medical board records, and filed for bankruptcy protection in 1999. In less than three years for thepillbox.com, he wrote 20,000 prescriptions -- the majority for hydrocodone and Xanax -- and collected nearly $1 million in fees. In 2002, the Texas medical board revoked his license for prescribing dangerous drugs to people he had not examined. Bryson pled guilty in a related federal case and is serving a 24-month sentence.
Allen L. Browne: In 1999, the 46-year-old obstetrician pled guilty to sexual exploitation of a minor and was sentenced to 10 months in prison. Browne was caught secretly videotaping his girlfriend's teenage daughter showering and using the bathroom in his home in Mesa, Arizona. He kept his license but closed his practice in March 2000. Soon after, he began writing prescriptions for hydrocodone, codeine and alprazolam for a website based in a Mesa auto parts store. In seven months, Browne wrote 2,568 prescriptions, earning $36,520. He surrendered his medical license in 2003.
Marvin Gibbs: The 56-year-old gynecologist had recently lost privileges at an Arizona hospital when he was approached in 2000 to write prescriptions for an online pharmacy. In 10 months, he wrote over 9,000 prescriptions for controlled substances, according to records of the Arizona Medical Board. "What in God's name were you thinking," a board member asked during a hearing, "prescribing to folks you have no idea who they are, where they're coming from, what they're doing with the medications?" In May 2003, the board put Gibbs on 10 years' probation.
Ricky Joe Nelson: Unemployed and reeling financially after the collapse of a business venture, the 47-year-old physician signed on in 2000 to write prescriptions for an Internet pharmacy in Oklahoma. In just a few months, he wrote over 5,000 prescriptions for controlled substances, according to trial testimony. In 2002, a federal jury convicted him of conspiring to distribute controlled drugs and launder $175,000 through an offshore bank account. His sentence: 51 months in prison.
"This is not Albert Schweitzer on the other end of the computer," says Dr. Lee S. Anderson, president of the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners. "These people know what they're doing -- and they are doing it for the money."
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