Yale cancer doc gets probation for alleged alcohol abuse
The state Medical Examining Board has placed a Yale Cancer Center doctor’s license on probation for five years, saying his excessive abuse of alcohol affects his ability to practice as a physician.
The board accepted a consent order that said Dr. Harris E. Foster Jr. abused alcohol to excess at various times between 2012 and May of this year.
Last week, the cancer center’s web site listed Foster as a professor of urology at the Yale School of Medicine and as the director of female urology and neuro-urology at the center in New Haven. After a reporter inquired about his status, the cancer center’s web site on Tuesday only listed him as a urology professor.
In signing the consent order, Foster admitted no guilt or wrongdoing but chose not to contest the matter. During probation, Foster must attend therapy and support-group sessions and pass random drug and alcohol tests, the order said. He is also barred from conducting medicine in a solo practice for five years.
The board also approved two cease-and-desist orders for two women that the state Department of Public Health said have been practicing medicine without a license.
Zaadia Arzu of Stratford agreed to a consent order that said from November 2017 to March 2018, she administered vaccinations, inserted intravenous catheters and administered medication to one or more patients without a medical license. She also used the initials “M.D.” on her business card and a business sign during the same time period, the consent order stated.
The board also ordered Lauren Stone of Wilton to stop practicing homeopathy without a license. That branch of medicine embraces a holistic, natural approach to the treatment of the sick.
A consent order she agreed to said she treated six patients for a variety of ailments, including joint pain, liver dysfunction, autism, Lyme disease, infections, liver and kidney inflammation, anxiety and “stabbing stomach pain” with plant extracts as antimicrobials, non-prescription substances and colloidal silver. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has taken action against some manufacturers of colloidal silver products for making unproven health claims.
While admitting none of the allegations, Stone chose not to contest the matter and agreed to stop practicing medicine without a license, the consent order said.
Mariella LaRosa, Stone’s Waterbury attorney, said that Stone has a master’s degree in nutrition sciences and believed she was practicing appropriately in that field while her patients continued to be under the care of physicians.
The board also dropped the charges against a Weston psychiatrist who had been accused of letting his secretary sign prescriptions for controlled substances for herself and for patients he had not examined. The action came because Dr. Harry Brown has voluntarily surrendered his medical license, DPH Staff Attorney David Tilles said.
In August, the board rejected a consent order that would have imposed a $25,000 fine against Brown, with some members saying the proposed penalty was too lenient. It would have been the fourth time Brown had been disciplined by the state board.