Dr. Julio Diaz to be Target of Solvang Family’s Wrongful Death Lawsuit. Attorney says suit to be filed in patient death linked to Santa Barbara physician accused of over prescribing pain medications.
Julio Diaz Support Foundation ( OUR BACK YARD )
January 2012 LA TIMES: Dr. Julio Diaz has been under investigation for allegedly prescribing addictive painkillers and other commonly abused drugs to patients who had no legitimate need for the medications.
The affidavit details the deaths of 12 patients. A Times review of coroners' reports identified several additional cases in which patients were treated by Diaz or received prescriptions from him and later died of overdoses.
In an interview with The Times in October, Diaz initially said he was aware of only one fatal overdose within his practice. After being questioned by reporters about individual cases, he acknowledged multiple deaths and said he shared blame in some of them.
"I do feel responsible," Diaz said in the interview, conducted in an examination room in his two-story office, which is wedged between a sports bar and a discount store. "I was the one providing the medications and perhaps there were some hints there that I should have known they were going to overdose."
Looking back, he said, the overdoses "gave me a good lesson."
Among those who died: A 49-year-old father who overdosed on painkillers after recently completing a 60-day drug rehab; a 35-year-old mother found dead in her bedroom by her young daughter, who was hosting a friend for a sleepover; an out-of-work county bus driver who overdosed on painkillers and other drugs as she grew increasingly depressed over the upcoming anniversary of her 20-year-old son's overdose death, which she attributed to her son taking painkillers that Diaz had prescribed to her.
The woman's husband, Amos Barajas, was one of several deceased patients' loved ones who raised concerns about Diaz's alleged overprescribing.
DEA Agents Arrest ‘Candy Man’ ~ Accused of Facilitating Addiction and 11 Fatal Overdoses
A 77-page affidavit unsealed this week by the DOJ lists the medications that Diaz reportedly over-prescribed most often: Oxycontin, Percocet, Vicodin, Norco, Fentanyl, and Methadone, to name some. Most of these drugs are taken to relieve moderate to serious pain. Many are habit-forming, and extended use increases a patient’s tolerance. The affidavit explains that numerous area health practitioners – physicians, psychiatrists, nurses, pharmacists – had written to the state medical board in recent years, expressing concern about Diaz’s prescribing practices and the frequency in which his patients would overdose, experience withdrawal symptoms, or have other issues with their medications.
Diaz, known to many as the “Candy Man,” is also accused of trading pills for sex.
CRY FOR HELP, lost, alone and steps away from homeless. PILLS FOR SEX LABOR
Sandy Parnell, the wife of the Governor of Alaska, described Sex Trafficking as “modern day slavery.”
Source: United States Attorney's Office COMMENTS
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