DEA raids hormone clinics run by Hixson man accused of dog hoarding

The medical clinic Hormone Replacement Specialists sits empty before its official closing time on Friday in Chattanooga. The Drug Enforcement Agency is investigating the clinic.
The medical clinic Hormone Replacement Specialists sits empty before its official closing time on Friday in Chattanooga. The Drug Enforcement Agency is investigating the clinic.

Federal agents raided two medical clinics and a home connected to a Hixson man arrested in December for keeping more than 60 animals in a Dunlap , Tenn., house, an agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency confirmed Friday.

DEA agents spent half the morning at Hormone Replacement Specialists at 5550 Highway 153 and neighboring Holistic Health & Primary Care on Friday, said Brad Byerley, resident agent in charge of the DEA's Chattanooga office.

"It's an ongoing federal investigation so I can't elaborate any more than saying we were there," he added.

photo Geoffrey Peterson is charged with animal cruelty in Sequatchie County, Tenn.

State records show that 54-year-old Geoffrey Deane Peterson works at Holistic Health & Primary Care. And the hormone replacement clinic identifies Peterson as "Dr. Deane Peterson" on its website; however, Peterson is a family nurse practitioner, not a doctor.

But that didn't stop Peterson from issuing 373 prescriptions for Oxycontin and 105 prescriptions for morphine during 2012, according to a database developed by ProPublica, a public interest journalism group. Those numbers include prescription refills.

In fact, 92 percent of Peterson's patients filled a prescription for a Schedule II drug during 2012 -- while on average, other nurse practitioners in Tennessee only prescribed those drugs to 14 percent of patients, the database shows.

The Drug Enforcement Administration categorizes Schedule II drugs as having a high potential for abuse and dependence.

Nurse practitioners are authorized to prescribe medications in Tennessee, as long as they work under the supervision of a physician, said Shelley Walker, spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Health.

State records show Peterson's supervising physician is his father, Walter Peterson Jr. The elder Peterson graduated from medical school in 1958, according to licensure records at the Department of Health.

The Holistic Health clinic is registered with the state, Walker said. But hormone replacement clinics are not required to be licensed by the Board for Licensing Health Care Facilities, she added.

"We do not regulate hormone replacement clinics," she said.

One former patient thinks no regulation is exactly what Peterson wanted. The man, who asked to remain anonymous, said he believes Peterson is running a pill mill -- prescribing powerful narcotics for nonmedical reasons -- out of the clinics where he works.

"All you have to do is tell him what you want and he'll write you a prescription for that," the former patient said.

The patient said that while both Walter Peterson's and Geoffery Peterson's names were listed on the prescription forms, during the year he attended Holistic Health & Primary Care, he never saw Walter Peterson at the clinic.

"He's never there," he said. "He's like 80 years old."

He added that some pharmacies refused to fill the prescriptions he obtained from Holistic Health & Primary Care and that many people paid cash for their prescriptions.

"He's got people going there who have had kidney stones for two years," the man said. "That must be a kidney stone made of concrete."

In addition to Peterson claiming the title of doctor on the website for Hormone Replacement Specialists, a biography on the site also claims that he holds seven degrees, including a master's in nursing and a doctorate from Vanderbilt University.

A spokeswoman for Vanderbilt confirmed that Peterson did earn his doctorate from the university in 2006, but the degree is in higher education administration and is not a medical degree.

He does, however, hold the master's in nursing, she confirmed.

The DEA's visit to Peterson's clinic came a day after Barbara Long, a woman known as "Aunt Bea," was convicted of running a handful of pill mills in Chattanooga. She faces up to 210 years in prison.

Contact staff writer Shelly Bradbury at 423-757-6525 or sbradbury@timesfreepress.com with tips or story ideas. Editors Ellis Smith and Judy Walton contributed to this report.

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