麻豆传媒

A Los Angeles physician and his girlfriend have been charged in a scheme that allegedly involved hiring "body brokers" to pay patients with addiction to get unapproved naltrexone implants, .

Randy Rosen, MD, and his girlfriend Liza Visamanos billed more than $660 million for the procedures and ultimately took in about $51 million, the Orange County District Attorney's office said. (Rosen is licensed in pain medicine and anesthesiology, though the DA's office describes him as a surgeon.)

Two years ago, Rosen was the subject of a that found he was hiring recruiters who lured in patients suffering from addiction with cash. Reporters for the network said a recruiter named Carter offered them $750 to get the procedure at Rosen's office.

The piece also told the story of Brennen Berry, a 22-year-old addict who was paid $1,000 to get the implant with Rosen and died 3 months later of an overdose. Berry's insurance was billed $59,000 for the procedure but it paid only a "small fraction of that."

In a statement, Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer called Rosen and Visamanos "real-life Frankensteins."

"Vulnerable sober living patients who were trying desperately to battle their addictions were treated like human guinea pigs just to make a buck," according to Spitzer. "I refuse to allow these body brokers to exploit and traffic human beings as part of a sick and twisted plot to line their own pockets."

According to a bail motion , the surgeries were billed for sums as high as $80,000 apiece. Rosen allegedly used two body-broker groups that provided patients in exchange for kickbacks of the insurance proceeds. Those groups would pay patients $500 to $2,000 per procedure as incentives to return for multiple procedures.

Rosen also allegedly performed unnecessary drug tests on these patients and sent them for processing to Lotus Laboratories, which is owned by his girlfriend. The lab billed more than $3 million for the tests.

California law prohibits referrals in which the physician or an immediate family member has a financial stake in the referral center.

Last week, Rosen pleaded not guilty to 88 felony counts in two separate cases, and Visamanos pleaded not guilty to 56 felony counts in the two cases. Four other people have also been charged in connection with the alleged scheme.

This is not the first time that unapproved naltrexone implants have caused controversy. Last year, for plans to test their naltrexone implant on Louisiana prison inmates and homeless people in Philadelphia who suffered from addiction.

Such trials are "in violation of federal laws protecting human research subjects," according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Only one prisoner received the implant before the Louisiana Department of Corrections halted the program. No homeless people in Philadelphia were implanted because the company couldn't get state approvals.

BioCorRx enlisted a recovery support organization, One Day at a Time, to help find subjects, according to the Inquirer.

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