Docs to blame for Heath's drug death?

The tabloids are really mad at doctors.

Red tops of the world are blaming the medical profession wholesale for prescribing the cocktail of lethal drugs that killed actor Heath Ledger on January 22. "Doctors doomed Heath Ledger with prescription drugs" screamed Australia's Daily Telegraph.

The painkillers oxycodone (aka hillbilly heroine) and hydrocodone, and the anti-anxiety drugs diazepam and alprazolam were found in Mr Ledger's system. His death has been ruled an accident.

An "investigation" into who was responsible for writing the scripts is now underway by the New York Drug Enforcement Administration. No word on how long looking at the doctor(s)' names on the pill bottles will take.

We all loved his star turn as the muttering gay cowboy in Brokeback Mountain, but can the sweet sorrow associated with this "bright young talent snuffed out" (as William Shatner put it) really blind us to the fact that poor judgement may have been to blame? (Er, check out those red sunglasses.)

Happily, the bad rap doctors are getting from the scandal sheets is not stopping them from weighing in on the case - especially to defend their profession. "No doctor would prescribe that cocktail," opined Dr James Zacny of the University of Chicago's Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care to the Telegraph. "It doesn't make sense that one doctor would prescribe all those," agreed Dr William Lee, a Dallas internist in the same paper. "It's more likely that he got them from different prescribers."

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