Hal Pyzyna said he was pressured into consenting to an injection at an Addiction Recovery Care facility. His mother says the shot, along with an inadequate warning about its effects, led to his death.
Hal Pyzyna of Lexington was 35 when he died of an opioid overdose a little more than a month after leaving an Addiction Recovery Care facility. (Photo provided)
Striving to stay sober, Hal Pyzyna succeeded for nearly a decade until the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020 — the stress causing him to relapse into drug use, said his mother, Kristine Pyzyna.
She hoped he would get help through a court diversion program that in 2022 referred him to Crown Recovery Center in Springfield.
Instead — just days after he became violently ill from an injection of Vivitrol, a powerful anti-abuse drug his mother says her son was pressured to accept — he left Crown Center, operated by Addiction Recovery Care, or ARC, the state’s largest provider of drug and alcohol treatment.
And little more than a month later, Hal died at 35 from a drug overdose.
Kristine Pyzyna believes Vivitrol, a name-brand drug that blocks effects of opioids, was a factor, along with improper administration of the medication at ARC and lack of adequate education for her son. The drug, while considered effective, comes with serious risks including potential for a fatal overdose if a patient uses drugs before the injection wears off because of reduced tolerance to opioids, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Now, Pyzyna, a nurse and health lawyer who lives in New Jersey, is relaying those concerns to Kentucky and federal regulatory authorities and some state legislators who oversee health policy, seeking stricter oversight of ARC and its use of Vivitrol.
“There is no doubt in my mind or in the minds of all who knew Hal and loved him that Hal would be alive today, had he not received the Vivitrol injection administered by ARC,” Pyzyna said in an Oct. 26 letter to Sen. Stephen Meredith, R-Leitchfield, chairman of the Senate Health Services Committee, that she provided to the Lantern.
Meredith’s office didn’t comment.
Pyzyna’s letter was copied to the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which administers Medicaid, a major funder of treatment services in Kentucky, and to the state nursing and medical licensure boards. Copies also went to the private health insurers, or managed care organizations, that handle most of Kentucky’s Medicaid claims, including those of her son.
‘Heartbroken for this mother’
ARC, in a statement, said it could not comment on individual cases because of medical privacy laws or confirm whether Hal was a patient.
But Vanessa Keeton, vice-president of marketing for the for-profit, Louisa-based company, said ARC remains committed to providing quality care for those affected by drug and alcohol addiction.
“We are heartbroken for this mother who, like too many parents across our nation, has endured the loss of a loved one to the addiction crisis,” Keeton said in an email. “Our mission at ARC is rooted in the belief that everyone deserves a chance to recover and to find their God-given destiny.”
A spokeswoman for Alkermes, a global pharmaceutical company that holds the patent for Vivitrol, said in a statement that the drug is approved for use to aid in treatment of alcohol or opioid dependence and its safety is “well-established” when used under FDA guidelines.
“The medication plays an important role in the addiction landscape,” the statement said.
However, Vivitrol “may not work for everyone” and patient education about the drug is a critical part of its use, the statement from Alkermes said, adding that FDA prescribing guidelines contain several important warnings including “the vulnerability to opioid overdose.”
ARC employs an array of treatment services including medication for drug and alcohol avoidance for patients who are informed of the options and “are given the choice of which treatment pathway is best for their goals,” Keeton said.
And she said ARC’s programs are accredited and employ a “large, comprehensive medical team” to oversee care.
But Pyzyna, who as administrator of her son’s estate has assembled his medical and other records, believes the records show missteps in her son’s care, especially with the use of Vivitrol, which comes with strict FDA protocols.
She said recent news reports of possible problems at ARC prompted her to pursue complaints she had been considering after she began collecting Hal’s records, some of which she provided to the Kentucky Lantern.
“Hal was a wonderful young man,” she said in her letter to lawmakers and regulatory agencies. “Hal struggled with opioid use disorder, a terrible chronic disease that must be managed throughout one’s lifetime.”
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