inewsource published a two-part investigation last week called REWIRED. The stories detail an experimental brain treatment, a Navy SEAL’s psychotic break and an internal investigation at the University of California San Diego, one of the country’s top research institutions.
Since the articles are lengthy, we compiled the top seven takeaways from the investigation for the TL;DR crowd.
The only thing you need to know going in: TMS stands for transcranial magnetic stimulation, a relatively new medical treatment that uses electromagnetism to affect the brain. Clinical trials have shown TMS is effective in battling major depressive disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder and migraines.
That’s all. So without further ado:
1. A former Navy SEAL underwent hundreds of experimental brain treatments by a UCSD doctor, then had a psychotic break.
Former Navy SEAL John Surmont turned to Dr. Kevin Murphy, at the time a UC San Diego vice chancellor, to treat his traumatic brain injury and PTSD. Murphy used a “personalized” version of TMS that isn’t scientifically proven to be effective. Surmont felt the treatment was helping at first but later began showing signs of mania, like singing loudly at inappropriate times and exhibiting abnormally high energy.
Murphy supervised at least 234 personalized TMS treatments given to Surmont. Eventually the veteran’s manic symptoms became so bad that he self-admitted to the San Diego VA psychiatric ward. After discharge, Surmont went on a weeks-long breaking-and-entering spree in Los Angeles — where he thought he was on a covert military mission — that resulted in several arrests and years of court hearings.
Murphy said he continued to treat Surmont even as his manic symptoms worsened because “these people are sick, my friend. What are you supposed to do, stop treating someone?”
2. The UC President’s Office is investigating Murphy for allegedly misusing a $10 million research donation
A UCSD whistleblower complaint prompted the UC President’s Office to investigate whether Murphy used a $10 million university gift to enrich his private businesses. Murphy denies this, though he acknowledges he wasn’t great at inventory or auditing.
The $10 million was supposed to be used for Murphy to research his experimental brain treatment, but all that research has been suspended while the investigation continues. University officials won’t talk to us until the investigation is complete, but they expect to wrap it up shortly.
3. Experts criticize Murphy’s claims about his treatment’s success and scientific basis
Murphy’s unique version of TMS involves taking readings of patients’ brainwaves to offer each person a customized treatment. The doctor said he’s treated thousands of patients this way who suffer from autism, cerebral palsy, depression, anxiety, ADHD, PTSD, sleep disorders and a bad golf swing — all to great results. He claims his treatment is effective on more than 90% of his patients and that it works better than traditional TMS, which doesn’t incorporate a patient’s brainwaves into the treatment.
However, there is no clinical trial or published research supporting Murphy’s claims. Experts we spoke with were concerned that Murphy was misleading patients, especially vulnerable people who may be willing to try anything if they think it might help with a debilitating condition.
4. Murphy’s technology will be used to treat active duty military
The U.S. Special Operations Command, which oversees the Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force special operations, is expected to soon begin testing Murphy’s treatment on military personnel to examine its effects on “human performance.”
Murphy’s private company, PeakLogic, signed a contract with SOCOM that gives the federal agency the ability to test how Murphy’s treatment improves “symptoms experienced by military personnel who suffer from chronic pain,” a SOCOM spokesman said. It will take place at the Air Force Research Laboratory and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
UCSD policy requires its faculty and staff to get approval from the university when conducting outside research, but Murphy told us he never went through that process because it’s his private company engaging in research — not him. University policy applies to all faculty research and doesn’t contain an exemption for private businesses.
5. A former top UCSD attorney is part of the university investigation.
While Murphy was opening his private businesses devoted to his version of TMS, he struck up a relationship with Michael McDermott, who was then the chief counsel of the UCSD health system. McDermott’s job was to give campus health officials legal advice.
We looked through business filings and found McDermott was a corporate officer for one of Murphy’s nonprofits and one of his companies while working at UCSD. McDermott also managed a company that contracted with Murphy’s TMS clinic in exchange for 15% of its revenue. The attorney never listed those business interests on university disclosure forms during his two-year tenure.
During the internal UC investigation, Murphy frequently cited McDermott as proof that he did nothing wrong: The doctor was working with a university lawyer as he opened and grew his businesses, so he figured he had UCSD’s approval.
6. Murphy plagiarized a competitor’s work.
In 2016, Murphy pitched a study to the San Diego VA to test how effective his treatment is for patients with PTSD. Murphy’s research proposal included details of a previous study he said he’d performed, along with data and charts.
The data and charts were not Murphy’s: He took them from a competitor’s study and kept the language verbatim throughout sections of his proposal, except he substituted the name of their treatment for his.
“This is what would be considered by scientific professionals to be plagiarized material,” an expert told us. (You can read Murphy’s explanation for what happened here.)
7. Murphy repeatedly told us information that wasn’t true or supported by evidence.
Many of the things Murphy told us over 13 hours of interviews weren’t supported by evidence or were incorrect.
For example, Murphy claimed that in the six months leading up to Surmont’s psychotic break, the veteran was homeless, doing drugs on the streets of Los Angeles and hadn’t shown up for treatment. When we presented the doctor with evidence disproving each of those statements, he told us his previous claims were based on his personal belief or opinion, along with the fact that he sees thousands of patients and can’t be responsible for remembering the history of each.
As for the UC investigation, Murphy claims more than a dozen people at the university who had a hand in overseeing the $10 million gift for his research, or worked with him to set up his companies, or worked for him to manage his funds, were incompetent or so jealous of his success that they wanted to see him fail. We couldn’t verify most of those claims.
“I’m on the bleeding edge of this,” Murphy said. “And so everyone’s shooting arrows in my back, going, ‘Stop him. Stop his research. Whistleblower him. We want this. Sue him. Make him look bad. Whatever it takes.’ Because this is really a big deal.”
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| All Staff Percentages are based on 15 total survey responses. The numbers include full-time and part-time staff, full-time fellows and full-time and part-time interns. | Newsroom Percentages are based on 15 completed survey responses to this question. | Business Percentages are based on 15 completed survey responses to this question. | |||
| Gender Identity | Gender Identity | Gender Identity | |||
| Women | 80% | Women | 82% | Women | 75% |
| Men | 20% | Men | 18% | Men | 25% |
| Sexual Orientation | Sexual Orientation | Sexual Orientation | |||
| Straight | 87% | Straight | 82% | Straight | 100% |
| LGBTQ-identifying | 7% | LGBTQ-identifying | 7% | ||
| Not specified | 7% | Not specified | 7% | ||
| Speak a language beyond English at home | 33% | Speak a language beyond English at home | 18% | Speak a language beyond English at home | 75% |
| Race/Ethnicity | Race/Ethnicity | Race/Ethnicity | |||
| White | 67% | White | 73% | White | 50% |
| Hispanic or Latinx | 20% | Two or more races | 18% | Hispanic or Latinx | 50% |
| Two or more races | 13% | Hispanic or Latinx | 9% | ||
| Age | Age | Age | |||
| 20-29 | 40% | 20-29 | 45% | 20-29 | 25% |
| 30-39 | 47% | 30-39 | 45% | 30-39 | 50% |
| 60 or older | 13% | 60 or older | 9% | 60 or older | 25% |
* The percentages in the charts have been rounded and may not add up to 100.
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CEO, Editor and Founder: Lorie Hearn, loriehearn@inewsource.org
Lorie Hearn is the chief executive officer, editor and founder of inewsource. She founded inewsource in the summer of 2009, following a successful reporting and editing career in newspapers. She retired from The San Diego Union-Tribune, where she had been a reporter, Metro Editor and finally the senior editor for Metro and Watchdog Journalism. In addition to department oversight, Hearn personally managed a four-person watchdog team, composed of two data specialists and two investigative reporters. Hearn was a Nieman Foundation fellow at Harvard University in 1994-95. She focused on juvenile justice and drug control policy, a natural course to follow her years as a courts and legal affairs reporter at the San Diego Union and then the Union-Tribune.
Hearn became Metro Editor in 1999 and oversaw regional and city news coverage, which included the city of San Diego’s financial debacle and near bankruptcy. Reporters and editors on Metro during her tenure were part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning stories that exposed Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham and led to his imprisonment.
Hearn began her journalism career as a reporter for the Bucks County Courier Times, a small daily outside of Philadelphia, shortly after graduating from the University of Delaware. During the decades following, she moved through countless beats at five newspapers on both coasts.
High-profile coverage included the historic state Supreme Court election in 1986, when three sitting justices were ousted from the bench, and the 1992 execution of Robert Alton Harris. That gas chamber execution was the first time the death penalty was carried out in California in 25 years.
In her nine years as Metro Editor at the Union-Tribune, Hearn made watchdog reporting a priority. Her reporters produced award-winning investigations covering large and small local governments. The depth and breadth of their public service work was most evident in coverage of the wildfires of 2003 and then 2007, when more than half a million people were evacuated from their homes.
Managing Editor: Laura Wingard, laurawingard@inewsource.org
Laura Wingard is the managing editor at inewsource. She has been an editor in San Diego since 2002, working at The San Diego Union-Tribune, KPBS and now inewsource. At the Union-Tribune, she served in a variety of roles including as enterprise editor, government editor, public safety and legal affairs editor, and metro editor. She directed the newspaper’s award-winning coverage of the October 2007 wildfires and the 2010 disappearance of Poway teenager Chelsea King. She also oversaw reporting on San Diego’s pension crisis.
For two years, Wingard was news and digital editor at KPBS, overseeing a team of four multimedia reporters and two web producers. She also was the KPBS liaison with inewsource and collaborated with inewsource chief executive officer and editor Lorie Hearn on investigative work by both news organizations.
Wingard also worked at the Las Vegas Review-Journal as the city editor and as an award-winning reporter covering the environment and politics. She also was the assistant managing editor for metro at The Press-Enterprise in Riverside. She earned her bachelor’s degree at California State University, Fullerton, with a double major in communications/journalism and political science.
Assistant Editor and Senior Reporter: Brad Racino, bradracino@inewsource.org
Brad Racino is the assistant editor and a senior reporter at inewsource. He has produced investigations for print, radio and TV on topics including political corruption, transportation, health, maritime, education and nonprofits.
His cross-platform reporting for inewsource has earned more than 50 awards since 2012, including back-to-back national medals from Investigative Reporters and Editors, two national Edward R. Murrow awards, a Meyer “Mike” Berger award from New York City’s Columbia Journalism School, the Sol Price Award for Responsible Journalism, San Diego SPJ’s First Amendment Award, and a national Emmy nomination.
In 2017, Racino was selected by the Institute for Nonprofit News as one of 10 “Emerging Leaders” in U.S. nonprofit journalism.
Racino has worked as a reporter and database analyst for News21; as a photographer, videographer and reporter for the Columbia Missourian; as a project coordinator for the National Freedom of Information Coalition and as a videographer and editor for Verizon Fios1 TV in New York. He received his master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri in 2012.
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