CLEAR News - Summer 2002
2002:
Early Returns
by Anne Paxton
Amount of campaign contributions to California legislators made by Big
Five companies between January 2001 and February 2002: $235,000
Number of investigations against Big Five accounting firms that the California Board of Accountancy has opened in the last nine years: 2
Years after the 1994 Orange County bankruptcy that the California accountancy board disciplined the accounting firm KPMG for its role in the scandal: 8
Required number of months, under current rules, that California accountants are required to retain records: 0
Source: San Francisco Chronicle, 2/19/02
Percentage increase, over the last 10 years, in members of state accountancy boards who represent Big Five accounting firms: 100
Source: Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News, 3/1/02
Of 35 states that require teaching candidates to take the Praxis exam, rank of New Jersey’s minimum passing score: 35
Percentage of New Jersey’s prospective teachers who passed the Praxis last year: 97
Percentage of questions that a teacher candidate can answer wrong on some of the Praxis tests and still pass in New Jersey: 50
Source: The Star-Ledger Newark, 4/11/02
Number of felony charges related to a Congressional banking scandal, including theft of federal property and obstruction of justice, to which former U.S. Rep. Carroll Hubbard (D,KY) pled guilty before losing his law license in 1994: 3
Of 16 board members of the Kentucky Bar Association, number who voted against giving Hubbard back his law license: 16.
Of 7 Kentucky Supreme Court justices, who have the final say on lawyer discipline in Kentucky, number who voted to reinstate Hubbard’s license to practice law last October: 7
Source: Courier-Journal October 26, 2001
Annual online searches of the California medical board’s physician database by consumers: 3 million
Of 66 widely reported verdicts and arbitration awards against physicians from 1999 to 2002, minimum number that were missing from the database in a search by the San Francisco Chronicle: 22
Penalty against insurers for failing to notify the medical board of malpractice settlements or judgments of more than $30,000, as required under state law: None
Source: San Francisco Chronicle, 1/16/02
Number of deaths related to medication errors reported to the North Carolina pharmacy board in the last 10 years: 228
Number of those deaths resulting from an error by a health professional such as a nurse or pharmacist: 44
Number of states besides North Carolina that require all deaths related to medication to be reported to the state: 0
Source: The Star-Ledger Newark 01/31/02
Number of patients California physician Abdolvahad Steven Pirnia was accused of operating on while his license was suspended, during a trial in which he admitted to lacking records of operations and said, "Most of the time, I keep everything in my mind" 5
Minimum number of times Pirnia said, when arrested in August 2000 and asked questions about his practice, "I don’t remember": 3
Source: The Press-Enterprise Riverside 3/27/02
Dollar amount of money stolen by Ohio Attorney Timothy Fischer at a church blackjack festival in 1997: 20
Months of license suspension ordered against Fischer by the Ohio Supreme Court in June 2001: 6
Source: Ohio Supreme Court
Number of years since Daniel Callahan relinquished his Florida medical license in the face of sexual misconduct and malpractice allegations: 7
Callahan’s charge for a typical plastic surgery operation at his villa in Cancun, Mexico, including airfare, for patients he recruited in Florida: $5,900
Length in minutes of Callahan’s meeting this year with a 48 Hours producer in a Florida coffee shop, to arrange for plastic surgery to be performed in Cancun, Mexico: 45
Number of years Callahan might spend in jail, following his arrest in April, for practicing medicine without a license: 2
Source: CBS 48 Hours, May 3, 2002
Minimum number of South Carolina physicians who requested in January of this year that the state void a voluntary surrender of their license because they were legally insane when they entered into the agreement: 1
Source: State of South Carolina, Administrative Law Judge Division