D.A.’s Office to Attack Illegal Pharmaceutical Sales

Orange County prosecutors want to set up toll-free hotlines in three languages for residents to report illegal pharmaceutical sales in the county, according to a summary of plans by the district attorney’s office.

The hotlines in English, Spanish and Vietnamese are part of the district attorney’s response to the deaths over the last two years of two Orange County toddlers and a teenager who were injected by unlicensed personnel with illegally obtained medicine.

In addition, the Orange County Safe Healthcare Coalition, comprising public and private health care advocates, hopes to set up a toll-free line for residents to call and learn about free and low-cost medical care available in the community.

The two toddlers’ deaths spurred action by public officials and private citizens.

“Anyone would say that two deaths of little kids is two too many, and that’s a problem we want to address,” said Ron LaPorte, a Health Care Agency executive.

County supervisors, who were expected to take up the issue today, will instead hear from both the prosecutor’s office and the coalition at the Board of Supervisors night meeting April 27.

The telephone lines being set up by the district attorney’s office are designed to allow the public “to confidentially report incidents of illegal pharmaceutical sales,” according to the summary.

Prosecutors and police will be “undertaking a joint effort” to create training programs on health laws and coordinate prosecution strategy countywide for dealing with the problem, according to the summary.

One deputy prosecutor and one investigator would focus on the cases. The estimated annual cost of $235,000 for the district attorney’s effort would come from the county’s consumer prosecution fund, which receives money from those convicted of consumer fraud.

Unlicensed practitioners and clinics are prevalent mainly in immigrant neighborhoods, LaPorte said, and health care advocates need to figure out how much immigrants know about safe medical resources.

Through multilingual advertising campaigns, health care workers would try to persuade residents to go to approved facilities and licensed providers and to stay away from illegal and unlicensed operations.

In January, 18-month-old Selene Segura Rios of Anaheim died after getting an injection of what her parents were told was penicillin by an employee in the back room of Los Hermanos Gift Shop in Tustin.

A year ago, Christopher Martinez, 13 months, of Santa Ana died after an unlicensed practitioner injected the boy five times with drugs at a storefront clinic in Santa Ana.

In December 1997, a 15-year-old boy also died after being treated with allegedly illegally obtained medicine.

Tustin police are investigating the possible roles of Oscar E. King and his sister, Laura Escalante, who own and operate Los Hermanos.

Santa Ana police are looking into whether the King family provided the medicine injected into the Martinez boy. The family was cleared in the 1997 fatality. A coroner could not determine whether the drugs they supplied caused the boy’s death.