A local doctor is speaking out after being cleared of federal charges earlier this week.
A jury found Dr. Michael White, 63, innocent of all six charges brought against him after a raid of his office last June.
White was charged with six counts of prescribing a controlled substance not for legitimate medical purposes and not in the usual course of professional practice.
His license to practice medicine was suspended and his clinic was closed following an eight-month undercover investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Drug Enforcement Administration.
He was accused of prescribing diet pills to clients at his discretion and violating guidelines set by the state medical board.
White admitted he prescribed the pills but insists he did nothing wrong.
“I was innocent of everything,” White said. “The jury proved I was innocent.”
According to the state medical board, if a woman is 5 feet tall, she must be a minimum of 54 pounds overweight to receive diet pills, White said. That number increases three pounds with every inch. But he admits that if women came into his clinic and were close to the eligibility threshold, under the limit by only a few pounds, he still prescribed the pills.
“I disagreed with the medical board,” White said. “I believed it was legal. It is very hard for people to lose weight without some kind of help.”
White’s attorney, Rod Ray, said he argued before both the jury and the medical board that, as a doctor with more than 25 years of experience, White should have been able to prescribe diet pills at his discretion.
“He’s gone to medical school; he’s been practicing for over 25 years; he used his discretion to give someone diet pills,” Ray said.
And patients weren’t simply given a prescription and sent away, Ray said. Before receiving the prescription, they were required to watch a weight loss video and see both White and a nurse practitioner, who gave them advice about following a paleolithic, or “caveman” diet.
The diet emphasizes consumption of traditional Stone Age “hunter-gatherer” foods, including meat from grass-fed pasture animals, seafood, fruits, eggs, nuts and vegetables. It excludes grains, legumes, dairy, salt, refined sugar and processed oils.
White and Ray were quick to note that White was not charged with the same charges as Dr. Mark Burtman, who was also arrested during the June raid.
Burtman’s charges were related to wrongfully prescribing controlled substances like Lortab, a painkiller, and Xanax, a benzodiazepine commonly used to treat anxiety and panic disorders.
While both doctors’ offices were located on Bluecutt Road, the two were not affiliated, White said.
“I tried to help people lose weight; my whole thing had nothing to do with narcotics,” White said. “I had nothing to do with Dr. Burtman. We’re separate entities. They didn’t charge me with being a ‘pill mill.’ They charged me with giving unnecessary medication I thought was necessary.”
White was an anesthesiologist for more than 25 years before opening a pain clinic on Bluecutt Road. He worked primarily with patients who had chronic back and neck pain, often giving them injections to relieve the pain. He also opened a weight loss clinic in the same office but said he voluntarily closed it a year before the raid.
“It was like a conspiracy to me,” White said. “They tried to punish me for something I didn’t do.”
Agents with the DEA used confidential informants from fall 2010 until the raid in June 2011, which Ray said proved White was not acting in a manner that put his patients in danger.
“If he was doing something so awful and terrible and heinous, why did they let him continue for eight months?” Ray asked.
Ray estimates the experience has cost White “hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
“He had a very lucrative practice,” Ray said. “They almost broke him.”
But White said he is more concerned with his patients than the money.
“I’m still trying to recover from it,” White said. “It was a very frightening and grueling experience, and my patients are the ones who suffered.”
Though he hasn’t been able to see them in an official capacity, he said they have called and said they were praying for him.
Many also wrote letters of support for White, saying he did nothing wrong and was shut down “because he is really good at giving nerve blocks for pain,” Ray said.
White plans to apply for the reinstatement of his license as soon as possible, but while he is anxious to get back to practicing medicine, he said he will not reopen the weight loss clinic.
“I’m hoping to get my license back, but I am never going to do weight loss again in this state,” he said. “It’s too vindictive, too touchy.”
In addition to being found not guilty, two charges of conspiracy and perjury were dropped before the trial, which was held in United States District Court in Oxford.
Burtman pleaded guilty to his charges and will be sentenced in Oxford Monday.
Sarah Fowler covered crime, education and community related events for The Dispatch.
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