The Virginia doctor sentenced to maximizing the opioids associated with seven high deaths.
A doctor with a long history of Virginia in Medicine, without any care, is going to jail after many years of writing opioid prescriptions. David Alingham, who owns a clinic called the Oakton Primary Care Center, was sentenced to 13 years behind bars. Federal prosecutors say instead of helping people recover, it played a major role in spoiling their addiction. He says he gave more than 400,000 pills like oxycdon and amphetamines in northern Virginia and Richmond – often for no medical reason.
65 -year -old Elangham not just wrote many versions – he did so by ignoring the red flags. Some of his patients failed to do drug tests or were known to use street drugs such as phenotheel and heroin. Nevertheless, Virginia’s doctor continued to write the script. Prosecutors say he even went to use the name of another doctor for lying in medical records and approval of prescriptions. In one case, he helped a patient try to take the custody of his children by making the drug screen results, though he knew he was addicted and dealing with drugs. The same patient died in large quantities when Alingham gave him several prescriptions, including a drug for a drug when it is used properly – but not when taken along with opioids.
The loss was not just medical. Some of the former Patients in Elngham lost everything. One woman said she had never struggled with drugs before seeing it, but after having a high amount of pain, she bowed. He lost his home and declared his new life unidentified. “I am very ashamed that he has made me disabled,” he told officials. Another former patient said she had the same experience, she had fallen into the spiral that she could not escape due to prescriptions at her clinic.
Alingham’s actions attracted the attention of both pharmacies and medical boards. The CVS Health saw that since 2020, the number of oxyd codon prescriptions coming from it had increased fivefold. About half of the high dose prescriptions. When the CVS stopped filling them, he told staff and patients to go to small, independent pharmacies instead. Then, during the federal raid in 2023, he asked an employee to delete text messages and give the agents wrong information. These measures further added legal problems they face.
The judge did not sentence a Virginia doctor to life imprisonment, though he was within his jurisdiction, which led to the prosecution. Instead, he was given 13 years after he was convicted of a number of serious allegations, including lying in terms of drug distribution and health care. His defense argued that it meant fine but made poor decisions. He said he believed that he was helping patients avoid street drugs by trusting patients and writing prescriptions.
Between 2016 and 2023, at least seven of his patients were killed shortly after receiving prescriptions. A man who had been watching Elngham for four years, died within weeks of a week of obtaining a new version of anti -relieved drugs and oxycodone. His widow said in court that Elngham had misused the confidence that comes with the doctor, and describes the results as “destructive”.
In this case, the deepest access to the opseed crisis in the United States has been highlighted, where thousands of lives are lost every year. In just 2022, more than 100,000 people died of large quantities of drugs, most of them were associated with fatalities. These numbers show that the crisis affects people of all backgrounds and communities. For some people, the choice of a reliable doctor made a difference between rehabilitation and tragedy.
Sources:
Feeds say the addiction of the drug doctor’s ‘sloppy’ methods increased by 7 fatal amounts in VA
Doctors suggested low opioids by excessive letter
