A retired Queens doctor was arrested yesterday for allegedly selling 130 prescriptions for oxycodone.
Dr. David Duffy, who practiced internal medicine until his retirement in 2013, is accused of "gross overprescribing" to three patients at his former Astoria office, writing them prescriptions for what totaled out to 30,000 oxycodone pills over the course of six months, or the equivalent of 55 pills per day for 81 days straight. I am not a "real" doctor but that's probably not great for your liver!?
Between January 2010 and June 2013, Duffy allegedly wrote 585 prescriptions for 127,384 oxycodone pills to the same three patients—which breaks down to roughly 41 pills per patient per day for 1,033 days.
He also failed to acknowledge clear indicators that patients were selling the drug, even in instances when they admitted to "pill shopping" among various doctors or acknowledged that they were addicted.
“Medical professionals have a privilege to prescribe drugs which might be addictive and dangerous if inappropriately used," Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget G. Brennan said in a statement. "When they knowingly abuse this privilege in violation of the law we will prosecute them just as we would any street drug dealer.”
