Revoked: 'Doctor Fentanyl’ disappeared more than two years ago to avoid prison

A doctor believed to have fled the country after an Ontario judge sentenced him to 12 years in prison for fentanyl trafficking—with a pharmacist as his accomplice—has been banned permanently from practice by the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. George Williams Otto, whose controversial case earned him the nickname “Doctor Fentanyl,” has also been ordered to pay $6,000 in college costs, according to the decision document issued by the college’s discipline tribunal. “Dr. Otto committed a serious crime,” wrote the tribunal. “Its effect was to contribute to the opioid crisis by increasing the supply of illicit drugs available to people with substance use disorders. Moreover, prescribing unnecessary medication could have contributed to a shortage of fentanyl, making this medication unavailable to those who needed it. Trafficking schemes like this one also contribute to the stigmatization of those who need medications like fentanyl, by connecting it to the illicit drug trade." Working with two drug dealers and a Toronto pharmacist named Shereen El-Azrak—who was sentenced in October 2019 to 13 years in prison—Dr. Otto trafficked more than 4,000 fentanyl patches that earned them about $9,000 a week. Media reports that cited court documents said Dr. Otto got $1,000 per prescription he wrote while El-Azrak got $500 for each one she filled. Read: Toronto pharmacist sentenced to 13 years in prison for fentanyl scheme The revocation of Dr. Otto’s Ontario medical permit comes more than three-and-half years after his sentencing and more than two years after he failed to surrender himself to the prison that had previously released him on a $100,000 surety posted by his brother. As part of his bail conditions, Dr. Otto was prohibited from prescribing any controlled drugs. But according to the tribunal, over the course of a year while he was out on bail he wrote close to 800 prescriptions for Schedule 1 narcotics, mostly Tylenol 2 and 3. When he left his Toronto home in November 2020—two days before he was scheduled to go back to prison—he told his wife he was going to visit his brother in Thunder Bay, Ont., before reporting to the prison. He never showed up at his brother’s house or at the prison and his wife reported him missing shortly after, according to a Toronto Life article. The same article reported that Dr. Otto had likely fled to his home country of Uganda, abandoning his wife and four children and leaving his brother at risk of losing the $100,000 he had posted as bail. Read: B.C. poised for drug decriminalization experiment, but will it help stem deadly tide?

Revoked: 'Doctor Fentanyl’ disappeared more than two years ago to avoid prison

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