I posted about this in the Sackler thread last night, but doctors are legally allowed to write prescriptions and are given a lot of discretion to do so. Unless the prosecutors can prove illegal intent (which is difficult), there’s not much they can do. The Supreme Court threw out a bunch of these convictions on a 9-0 decision, so unless there are other illegal acts involved, like tax evasion or using drugs to coerce patients into sex, most of the “pill mill” doctors were acting lawfully and most of the clinics maintained a veneer of legitimacy by requiring physical exams and MRI’s ( for which they charged dearly).
If you read the linked post you will see that I’m not excusing the doctors, but that I felt that manufacturers, distributors and pharmacies - along with some politicians and lobbyists- were equally culpable. It was a systemic failure of a profit-driven system, and one of the unintended consequences was the way that failure eroded public trust in the health care system.
Getting back on topic, I think it’s worth mentioning Louisiana state senator Fred Mills -who is also a pharmacist- who was the deciding vote in killing Louisiana’s proposed anti-trans legislation in committee. He basically said that when he looked into the issues that the facts and statistics did not back up the narrative that had been presented to the committee and that he wasn’t going to ban what appeared to be a safe and effective treatment for political reasons.