Pill Mills and Michael Jackson's Legacy of Love with Elizabeth Taylor

When king of pop legend Michael Jackson accepted the sedative needle in his arm for that last, fatal time he could not have known that he would precede his loving friend Elizabeth Taylor in death by nearly two years. She nicknamed Michael the King of Pop in the 1980's and their bond was known by friends and associates to be genuine love. The statement that Taylor released shortly after his death had called their relationship "the purest, most giving love" and his dedicated song "Elizabeth, I Love You" said it all. There was even speculation that some of Michael's facial enhancements, especially his eyes, were modeled on the unforgettable face of Elizabeth Taylor. A unique visage, daring you to try to look away, your eyes drawn magnetically and held by Elizabeth's in every scene. And by his.

"Michael Jackson shouldn't have died, of course," stated international correspondent Mihaela Biliovschi during her recent interview at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. "When do you think the U.S. authorities will do something about the medical mafia and designer drug abuses? What about DEA? How many more arrests do you need to see in south Florida alone before you understand the scope of the pill mill problem?"

When news of Michael's sudden death on the threshold of his great comeback tour rocketed across the Globe, Biliovschi was rushed to California to cover the story for her European newspaper. Almost immediately, she began focusing her attention on the story behind the story. Interviewing at Neverland Ranch, she could not imagine what odd stretch of medical practice would allow any doctor to administer such powerful drugs outside of a hospital setting. She wanted to see beyond the grieving fans and their shrines to Michael. Perhaps there is a medical mafia in the United States, empowered to cook special sedative cocktails for the wealthy celebrities, she explained to her director Marius Tuca in calls to Romania. How many celebrity deaths must tragically occur before legal authorities seek solutions?

Elizabeth Taylor, treated for addiction in 1988, stated seven years later in her interview with Diana Sawyer that it was she who insisted Michael seek treatment for his drug addictions. Not even Taylor's love for Michael was enough to break the chains of his addiction.

"It became real for me," Biliovschi said during this week's interview, "that first night going to the Beverly Hills mansion, taking pictures of the late-night mourners at the gates. Behind the death of this star I knew from TV, is an incredible, ugly octopus of abuse from drugs like Propofol and Oxycodone or Oxycontin with medical enablers and that is their business." Biliovschi also learned about Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor sharing a common bond, in losing their youth to stardom and battling chemical dependencies. All of their secrets laid bare in late but innocent nights together at Neverland Ranch; secrets including dangerous addictions.

In an article comparing the deaths of Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger, Anna Nicole Smith and Elvis Presley, subtitled "Dangerous Drugs and Expensive Doctors" in Jurnalul National newspaper, Biliovschi identified four key elements of designer drugs and celebrity deaths. "In each case, you have an expensive and personal doctor; huge money paid by the celebrity for medical salaries and drugs; a delay of 30 to 40 minutes or more before contacting medical emergency personnel during the accidental overdose; and a sudden unnecessary death where autopsy indicates cocktails of powerful drugs in the body. Basically, the victims are betrayed twice leading to their deaths. First, the powerful drugs are administered. Second betrayal, the delay while those around the celebrity call everyone from bodyguards to boyfriends before contacting emergency medical personnel. Presumably, incriminating evidence disappears during that time."

Of particular concern to Biliovschi is the rapid expansion of "pill mill" practices, from Los Angeles to Miami, where doctors prescribe powerful drugs with unnecessary prescriptions. "In one Florida case, a doctor allegedly prescribed 300,000 painkillers to two clinics under blank prescriptions," she recounts. "In another, from just March to April 2010 a doctor is alleged to have prescribed some 80,350 doses of narcotics without medical basis. As an additional tragedy, for the American taxpayer, government authorities allege that many prescriptions were charged to Medicaid on the backs of the U.S. taxpayers...how sick is that?" Biliovschi shakes her head. "If common citizens have such access to prescription narcotics, imagine what wealthy elites and celebrities have at their doorstep. Michael Jackson should be alive and performing today. End of story."

It was not the death, but Michael's life that was celebrated in 2009, at Neverland Ranch gates, the Beverly Hills mansion, the Jackson home in Encino and worldwide. Similarly, Elizabeth Taylor's remarkable career remains forever enshrined in the media as she was laid to rest at the Great Mausoleum in Forest Lawn Cemetary, her tomb near Michael's. She had beaten her addictions and lived to die at 79. Instead, Michael, succumbed to a powerful weakness supported by "the criminal silence and accomplice of the Medical Industry Mafia." Before leaving California, Biliovschi made sure to send commemorative T-shirts to her director in Romania which he and his twelve year old daughter wore immediately for a stroll on a Black Sea beach. Meanwhile, the journalist noted, the tentacles of the prescription drug octopus is free to grasp at large for new victims. "If famous stars like Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor struggling against drugs isn't enough to force changes in the luxurious medical mafia, then I can't imagine the addiction or death of which star will do it." And if recent arrests at Florida pill mills are any indication, the reach of this monster continues to expand.