TAMPA — The Laser Spine Institute may have closed its doors suddenly in March, but repercussions from the surgery center’s business practices continue to reverberate in the courts.
Two local lawsuits provide the clearest picture yet of the forces that led the Tampa company to shut down, resulting in the loss of some 500 jobs. Documents detail a years-long legal battle among three business partners, a penchant for paying large executive salaries and bonuses, and a struggle against mounting debt.
Another factor: ego. At one point, two of the founders dared their partner to sue them, telling him the company was making so much money it wouldn’t matter. When the partner called their bluff, his lawsuit ended up being a decisive blow that helped put Laser Spine in the grave.
That case came to a head June 30, when a judge in Hillsborough County Circuit Court awarded Joe Samuel Bailey $260 million in damages, capping what had been a 13-year battle between Bailey and Laser Spine founders, Dr. James St. Louis and Dr. Michael Perry.
Bailey accused them of breach of fiduciary duty, defamation, slander, violation of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, conspiracy and tortious interference.
Following two long bench trials and appeals, he now assumes a majority share in the remains of Laser Spine, which is undergoing an insolvency process. Similar to a federal bankruptcy filing, the process assesses all equipment and other materials Laser Spine owned or controlled and decides what is valuable enough to sell.
DUNEDIN — England Miano greeted every woman who walked into the Escape Root Juicery with open arms, wrapping each in a warm hug.
Some of the faces she had seen only on Facebook. Others, fellow parents, she’d known for some time.
Miano, 40, was hosting a meetup for people like her who challenge traditional health norms, like vaccinating their kids.
A mother of three who lives and works in north Pinellas County, Miano chose not to vaccinate her youngest after dealing with developmental issues with her second child. She believes vaccinations are the reason her son, Davis, has autism.
At the juicery, she and other Tampa Bay area moms gathered around plush chairs and colorful couches, sharing stories and self-care tips over lattes, veggie smoothies and organic champagne. Among the topics: CBD oil, yoga, whole foods and activated charcoal.
Miano and her guests are part of a small but increasingly vocal slice of the U.S. population who distrust doctors and federal health agencies, and who often base their positions on misinformation from fringe sources.
The medical community has sounded alarms. But so too have tech companies like Amazon and Instagram, which are trying to keep false information from spreading on their platforms.
Miano sees this resistance and works to push past it.
“Before Facebook started censoring so much, it’s where we shared a lot of facts and information,” she says. “Now our posts get deleted all the time. It’s so time-consuming to do the research. It’s not easy. But they don’t want it to be shared.”
At the same time, vaccine-preventable diseases are mounting a comeback.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reporting the largest number of measles cases nationally in 25 years. New York, Washington and Texas are seeing outbreaks.
Florida investigated 15 measles cases in 2018, up from the previous five years, when fewer than 10 cases was the norm.
Pinellas County reported three cases in unvaccinated adults last year — the first the county has seen in 20 years. And last month, researchers identified Hillsborough as the 17th most at-risk county in the nation for a measles outbreak.
Some doctors fear they’ll never be able to convince people like Miano and her friends that vaccines are safe and effective.
The mindset is similar to that of Joshua McAdams and Taylor Bland-Ball, the Tampa couple who recently ended chemotherapy for their 3-year-old son, Noah, in favor of alternative remedies, only to have a Hillsborough County judge order last month that the treatment resume.
“It’s hard to compete with these personal stories that people share on social media, and what parents see in front of their own eyes with their own children,” said Dr. Rebecca Plant, a pediatrician at Tampa General Hospital and an assistant professor with USF Health. “The latter is going to carry a lot heavier of a weight in their own hearts and minds than if I can sit there and spout all the numbers and recent publications.”
The conversation at Miano’s meetup turns to all the backlash they get, not only from doctors, but from neighbors and Facebook friends as well.
“I make suggestions that I think can help their children, who just look so sickly all the time, and they are so defensive,” one woman says. “I wish them no harm. I just want to help them.”
Another compares the reaction to how Nazis treated Jews: “We’re the most hated people in America right now.”
After six years or so covering retail and other consumer-related business topics for newspapers in Florida, I’m taking on a new beat.
I was named the health and medicine reporter at the Tampa Bay Times at the end of September. (There was some overlap of beats during and after Hurricane Irma.)
Got a story idea or tip? Please email me: jgriffin@tampabay.com
By Justine Griffin for the Tampa Bay Times. October 14, 2016
Orlando International Airport hasn’t ever had trouble recruiting new flights.
Airliners have been lining up for years to link new cities from around the globe to Disney World, Universal Studios and Central Florida’s other tourism attractions.
But last year, the Orlando airport introduced a financial incentive program meant to help lure new airline business.
The program mimicked what Tampa International Airport instituted more than five years ago, which has helped bring high-profile international flights like nonstop service to Frankfurt, Germany, on Lufthansa and service to Panama City, Panama, on Copa Airlines, to Tampa Bay.
The new incentive program in Orlando ultimately helped the airport draw a nonstop flight to Dubai on international airliner Emirates.
Tampa’s entry into the world of airline incentives didn’t come without controversy: Airport CEO Joe Lopano drew public criticism when he asked for permission to throw money at airlines after he arrived in Tampa in 2011. He eventually got the go-ahead, but it was new terrain for the airport.
First came the irritation when Deneen Wyman discovered she had bought expired baby formula at an area Walmart store on Sunday. Then came the added insult when she sought a refund and was sold yet another baby formula that had been outdated since May.
Shoppers in St. Petersburg took to Facebook to express their outrage over finding expired baby formula and other goods at a local Walmart three weeks ago. The post quickly went viral.
The Tampa Bay Times wrote a front page story about it and a local television station covered it.
At the time, Walmart said employees were working fast to fix the problem. They pledged to do better.
For the next three weeks, Tampa Bay Times reporters browsed the aisles of Walmart stores around Tampa Bay looking for more expired goods. We continued to find expired baby formula, sour cream, baby food, supplements and prenatal vitamins at Walmart Supercenters and Walmart Neighborhood Market stores in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties despite the media coverage that revealed the problem at local stores. Dozens of Times readers also wrote and called in with stories and photos about buying expired goods from Walmart stores in Brandon, Brooksville, Wimauma, Clearwater, Ruskin, Sebring and elsewhere.
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