Los Angeles: Top Officials a california based Online mental health Employees of the company were arrested for improperly prescribing addictive drugs. Adderall Supply disruptions amid the coronavirus pandemic are leading to a shortage of medicines for those medically in need, officials said Thursday.

Dawn Global Inc. founder and CEO Ruthia Hay and clinical president David Brody were arrested Thursday in Los Angeles and San Rafael. CaliforniaThe two are accused of conspiring to provide easy access to Adderall and other stimulant medications, which are largely used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, in exchange for a monthly subscription fee, the U.S. Justice Department announced.

Prosecutors said Done Global allegedly helped prescribe more than 40 million tablets of Adderall and other stimulant drugs and made more than $100 million in revenue. He and Broidy could not be reached for comment, and it was unclear whether they had hired attorneys. Done Global did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

He and Brody are accused of directing providers at Doane Global to prescribe stimulant drugs even if patients were not eligible for them, discouraging follow-up appointments, paying patients only based on the number of prescriptions they received, and mandating intake appointments to be less than 30 minutes, the Justice Department said.

“As alleged, these defendants exploited the COVID-19 pandemic to develop and execute a $100 million scheme to defraud taxpayers and provide easy access to Adderall and other stimulant drugs for no legitimate medical purpose,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement.

On Thursday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned of “potential disruptions in access to care” for people who rely on this platform or others. Telehealth There are medicines available on such platforms that could affect 30,000 to 50,000 patients across the country. There are persistent shortages of several prescription drugs used to treat ADHD, including Adderall. The CDC has urged people to avoid using medication purchased from anyone other than a licensed physician and pharmacy.

Last February, the Drug Enforcement Administration said it planned to reimpose a longstanding federal requirement to visit a doctor for narcotics like OxyContin or Adderall, amid growing concern that some startup telehealth companies were improperly handing out prescriptions for these drugs.

“In many cases, Dawn Global prescribed ADHD medications when they were not medically necessary,” DEA official Anne Milgram said in a statement. “Prescribing Adderall and other prescription stimulant pills to people who have no medical need for them only exacerbates this shortage and harms any American with a legitimate medical need for these medications.”

Prosecutors allege he and Brody continued to distribute the drugs in this manner even after learning through social media posts that Done Global patients had overdosed and died, the news release said. The two also allegedly lied to pharmacies and health insurance providers to ensure the prescriptions were filled and paid for, causing Medicare, Medicaid and insurance companies to overpay by about $14 million, according to the news release.

The maximum sentence for Hay and Brody’s charges is 20 years in prison.