Medicine blamed in killing of doctor
By Angela Rozas | Tribune staff reporter
August 17, 2007
A relative of the man implicated in the 2006 slaying of a Loop dermatologist issued a statement Thursday blaming in part an acne drug prescribed to him for his alleged actions.
Hans Peterson, 29, turned himself in to French authorities on the island of St. Martin last week and allegedly confessed to killing Dr. David Cornbleet in October. Authorities are trying to extradite him to face murder charges in Illinois.
An e-mail sent by a Peterson relative who did not identify himself said that the family has received a lot of hate mail and decided to issue a statement to "stop the harassment."
"The Peterson family is writing to educate those righteous Chicagoans who are sending the hate mail and phone calls and to tell our perspective to the decent Chicagoans on who are the villains in this tragedy as there are many fingers to point," the e-mail began. "It is that way in many tragedies."
The Cornbleet family declined to comment on the wide-ranging accusations made in the e-mail but urged whoever wrote the e-mail to advise Peterson to agree to be extradited to the United States to face trial.
The e-mail is signed by an anonymous member of the Peterson family, but a person who answered the telephone at the Peterson family home in Oregon confirmed that the e-mail was a statement from the family.
The e-mail contended that Peterson was in a "depressive psychosis" in the summer of 2002 when he was prescribed the drug Accutane after meeting with Cornbleet. In another e-mail, the family member said that Peterson took the drug one or two times, but stopped taking it after feeling adverse effects.
"The Peterson family has suffered for over 5 years, and we have lost a family member who was a sweet and gentle soul before this tragedy," the e-mail said. "Our hearts do go out to the Cornbleets -- the other victims in this tragedy."
The family statement blamed the Food and Drug Administration and the manufacturer of the drug, Roche Pharmaceuticals, for allowing the drug to remain on the market and physicians for prescribing it.
"So...who are the [villains] in this tragedy?," the e-mail said. "Roche Pharmaceuticals for continuing to have this drug on the market ...The FDA for allowing this drug to remain on the market ...Any physician that would prescribe this drug without heeding the warnings."
Warnings on Accutane's prescriptions caution that it possibly can cause depression or psychosis and acknowledges reports of people on the drug exhibiting aggressive behavior. But the company maintains there is no reliable scientific evidence that the drug causes those symptoms, according to its Web site.
The family member also contended in the e-mails that Peterson told his family that Cornbleet spent only a few minutes with him before prescribing the drug and did not ask him about his medical history. Peterson allegedly told French authorities the drug caused him to be impotent.
"In the horrible summer of 2002 when Hans went into depressive psychosis, he related to us that Dr. Cornbleet spent only a few minutes with him before handing him a prescription for Accutane," the e-mail said. "He did not ask any questions about psychiatric problems and did not tell Hans that he was prescribing a dangerous drug."
Relatives of Cornbleet, who was widely described as a caring and attentive doctor who worked long hours to meet his patients' needs, took strong issue with the contentions of the Peterson family. "It's not indicative of how my father ran his practice, and if Hans would like to discuss this in a civil manner, we would welcome it in an American court," said Jon Cornbleet, the victim's son.
The younger Cornbleet and his family this week are trying to garner public support for extraditing Peterson. That has been complicated because Peterson, a U.S. citizen whose mother is French, obtained French citizenship while in St. Martin. The French do not extradite citizens who may face capital cases.
An affidavit filed in federal court to obtain an arrest warrant for Peterson was unsealed Thursday and provided more detail about how authorities tracked Peterson to St. Martin.
According to the document, Peterson boarded an Executive Air flight in Puerto Rico for the French West Indies Dec. 29. In May, Peterson's former roommate told the FBI that he had kept in telephone contact with the suspect and that Peterson had asked him to have his mail forwarded to the island.
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Since I moved to Chicago, screen shots of the suspect have been in every store I've gone into with a reward being offered by the family... The murder of this dermotogist was all over the news.
The family of the suspect's reaction just irks me to no end... The drug maybe was responsible for him going into a psychotic state, but did the same drug make him run away from his responsibility... I strongly doubt drugs make a person board a plane for St Martaan and tell your roommate to forward your mail there...
When a person is prescribed a drug, doesn't the pharmacist give them a pamphlet explaining the side effects, yeah a lot of it is mumbo jumbo but the side effects are usually in plain english... Isn't it up to a person to ask about what they are putting into their body? The suspect isn't coming across as an illiterate person...
Accutane is some potent stuff, and women who are put on it, it's pretty much mandatory to be on a secondary method of birth control because the risk of birth defects are so strong...