PA abortion doctors ran under-the-counter drug racket

Crazy story out of Pennsylvania today. Three abortion clinic workers, including two doctors, from the Allegheny Women’s Center in Pittsburgh have been criminally charged after the doctors illegally purchased thousands of diet pills for a clinic technician “to treat anxiety and depression”:

Providing the drugs was illegal because the doctors did not have a clinical relationship with the staffer, Mark Wagner, 48, and therefore abused their Drug Enforcement Administration licenses to dispense prescription medications, Attorney General Linda Kelly said.

The former medical director of the Allegheny Women’s Center, Dr. Alton Lawson, 72, of Pittsburgh, authorized an employee to order the pills known as Diethylpropion for Wagner, Kelly contended.

Wagner, of Pittsburgh, used the pills to treat anxiety and depression, though they’re most commonly used to treat obesity, according to the charges.

After Dr. John Barrett, 41, of Pittsburgh, took over as the clinic’s director, he continued ordering prescriptions for Wagner for 1,200 tablets at a time, whenever Wagner told the doctor he needed the drugs, according to a criminal complaint.

In all, the doctors ordered more than 20,000 tablets over several years for Wagner, who “did not pay for the drugs and viewed them as compensation for working overtime and for regularly providing clinic supplies and office refreshments,” according to a statement from Kelly.

I imagine there is a lot of “anxiety and depression” to go around inside an abortion clinic. Interestingly, the raid that busted Kermit Gosnell’s mill in Philadelphia was ordered because of Gosnell’s drug-laundering side business. And interesting that two more Pennsylvania abortion doctors now find themselves face to face with the law. Hope it’s a new trend…