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Palermo. False prescriptions for one million euros: two doctors and a large pharmaceutical company on the stand

Photo of Redazione Fedaiisf Fedaisf editorial staffMarch 18, 2018
692 3 minuti di lettura

Palermo, he prescribed growth hormone under the table: a researcher at the Policlinico under investigation

Alessandro Ciresi under investigation for fraud, forgery, abuse of office and violation of health laws. The head of Endocrinology Carla Giordano is also involved. A seizure of assets of 104 thousand euros is triggered 

by FRANCESCO PATANE' – R.it Palermo – 8 March 2018

Palermo, prescriveva sottobanco l'ormone della crescita: indagato ricercatore del PoliclinicoThey had created an illegal system for prescribing growth hormone-based therapies outside hospitals, a drug with serious side effects, considered the last frontier of doping and for this reason subjected to very strict controls, which only the structures indicated by the regional health department can give to patients.
Instead, the researcher Alessandro Ciresi and the director of the complex operating unit of Endocrinology of the Palermo Polyclinic, Carla Giordano, privately administered growth hormone (commonly called GH) to children who had never been followed by the hospital over three years. Over two hundred six-monthly treatment plans which cost the ASP over 800 thousand euros.
The deputy prosecutor Claudia Ferrari and the deputy Sergio Demontis investigated Alessandro Ciresi for aggravated fraud, false ideology, abuse of office and violation of the consolidated text of health laws. Also under investigation is Carla Giordano, the director of Endocrinology at the Polyclinic, who is accused of crimes of false ideology and abuse of office. In three years, from 2013 to 2016, the Nas carabinieri ascertained the prescription of 204 six-monthly therapeutic plans which bore the stamp of the Polyclinic and the signature of the Giordano manager, but in reality they were drawn up by Ciresi in the researcher's private office and in the private Sant'Arsenio medical center. According to the prosecutor, the most serious position is that of the Polyclinic researcher: the Nas carabinieri yesterday seized his assets real estate and money for a total of 104 thousand euros.
A provision signed by the investigating judge Wilma Mazzara at the request of the prosecutor. The sum is equivalent to the gross salary received for three years at the Policlinico by the researcher originally from Termini Imerese. A fee that - according to the investigators - he could not have received because, in addition to his activity as a researcher in the university hospital, Cerasi also carried out his medical profession privately.
Hence the charge of fraud, aggravated by the fact that it was committed against the public administration. Ciresi had the exclusive bond as a full-time researcher.
The Nas investigation was triggered after the report of the heads of the pharmaceutical department of the Asp of Palermo, where we had noticed the dizzying increase in the prescriptions of GH-based therapeutic plans. In particular, the Nas ascertained that "as many as 204 treatment plans, concerning 133 patients, over the years 2014, 2015 and 2016 - writes the investigating judge in the seizure order - for a cost of 849,789.86 euros, were drawn up by a non-qualified doctor".
The military then ascertained that the researcher visited and was charged (between 35 and 40 euros) for the visits to the patients he carried out in his office and in the private medical centre. Visits that shortened waiting times for patients but had a cost for this.
Another challenge to the researcher concerns his consultancy contract with the pharmaceutical company Merck Serono, the same that produces the drug. A contract for 10 thousand euros a year which, in addition to breaking the exclusive bond with the Polyclinic, violated article 171 of the consolidated text of health laws which punishes those who obtain "utility" from pharmaceutical companies for the prescription of drugs. An illicit behavior of which Ciresi was aware, so much so that in an intercepted conversation he explained to a patient how to respond to investigators. She informs him that the carabinieri have asked her for therapeutic plans and she tells him: "... but I... I, she used to do them here... I didn't come there", referring to the fact that the prescriptions weren't given at the Polyclinic. And Ciresi immediately corrects her: "Nooo... her daughter used to come there... to pick them up at the Polyclinic...". And the patient, including the coded message, reassured the researcher: "Yes, yes, yes... all right, I'll say this...".
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Photo of Redazione Fedaiisf Fedaisf editorial staffMarch 18, 2018
692 3 minuti di lettura
Photo of Redazione Fedaiisf

Redazione Fedaiisf

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