The Collin County Observer

No one in Collin County remembers the last time that a sitting District Court Judge was opposed in a primary election. It's just not done here - at least not until this year.

Judge Charles Sandoval, a 12 year incumbent District Court Judge, lost his bid for re-election Tuesday, when he was defeated in the Republican primary.

Sandoval, whose praise of Prometa was frequently quoted by Hythiam Inc. in its promotional literature, lost to Suzanne Wooten, a McKinney attorney and mediator.

The Prometa protocol is a controversial treatment program for methamphetamine, cocaine and alcohol addiction. It uses a combination of 3 powerful prescription drugs with nutritional and counseling therapies. The program uses FDA approved drugs "off-label" (for treatments not approved by the FDA). Critics (including this writer) maintain that the program is untested, unproven and little more than a scheme to sell Hythiam stock.

Judge Sandoval's judicial career is the latest of a series of Prometa casualties nationwide.

Last week, the Washington state legislature killed the already approved $500,000 state funding for Prometa.

And, in January, Hythiam's stock hit a low of $2.18 a share avalanching down from a 52 week high of $9.00 and causing the Motley Fool to characterize Hythiam as a "deathbed stock".

In October, 2007, Pierce County, Washington suspended a $400,000 Prometa test program after a county audit determined that their was little evidence the program was effective. The death knell for Pierce County's program came after a chain of ethical wrongdoings by Hythiam and county officials were uncovered.

In February, 2007, Fulton County, Georgia discontinued its Prometa program. The court spokesman wrote that, "We discontinued the program because it had not been effective for our Drug Court defendants... We do not plan to use the program in the future.”

“[Hythiam] proposed that we pay them about $80,000 for the pleasure of having them experiment with some of our felons in our drug court program,” said Judge Ron Wilper, a member of Idaho's drug court coordinating committee.

“We’re hicks, I grant you that,” he added. “But we didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. I said, ‘Give us a buzz when you prove it.’”

Judge Sandoval contacted Hythiam last year and with little public input or oversight, began a pilot program on 20 probationers in his court. On his website, Sandoval claimed to save the county $400,000 in the pilot tests.

Attempts by The Collin County Observer to see documentation of the financial claims were answered by Sandoval with, "This office has no records of the Prometa pilot program."

While Sandoval and Hythiam touted great successes with Collin County's program, others, including the county's own probation manager disputed the data.

In spite of it's spotty record, the last Texas Legislature appropriated $2 million for "Medically Targeted Substance Abuse Treatment" program grants. The grants were written to allow more pilot program testing of Prometa. Collin County received a grant of $158,000 under this program. So far our inquiries have not found any experiments or expenditures of the grant money.

These pilot programs, whether funded by Hythiam or taxpayers are used by Hythiam as marketing tools. Look at the last pilot done in Collin County. All records are kept by the company. Collin County and Sandoval's court have little or no recruitment or results data. All was turned over to Hythiam, which then issued glowing press releases (and no data).

The lack of records is glaring, and troublesome - especially since one of Collin County's test subjects died before the end of the study. (The cause of death was noted as "suicide".)

All attempts by the Collin County Observer to gain insight into how the test subjects were recruited, what promises were made, and what rewards or consequences were offered were rebuffed by the county and court. Collin County and its court had no such records, even though many of the test subjects had just been released from jail - presumably to take part in the program.

Most governments recognize that prisoners have limited capacities to give permission or refuse experimental programs run by their jailers. Most researchers would also discount the word of probationers who could be re-jailed for giving answers that indicated the program wasn't working and they were using drugs.

Sandoval may be Prometa's latest casualty, but given the unscientific standards used in these "pilot programs", I doubt he'll be the last.

Collin County needs to get out of the medical experiment business before more people get hurt.

Bill

Previous Prometa posts:

Judge's ties to Prometa questioned

Politicians and drugs

DMN-Texas' Prometa program for treating meth addicts draws skeptics

Further reading:

Pierce County auditors Report

Testimony Of Dr. Haning, MD (and others)to the Hawaii Senate Committee on Health

Hythiam's Press Release on Collin County

Data show mixed value of Prometa, Tacoma News Tribune

Is this meth treatment too good to be true?, Las Vegas Sun

New $2 million meth treatment program raises question in state, Texarkana Gazette