Like We Said, There Really Are More Pain Clinics in Broward County Than McDonald's

By Michael J. Mooney Thu., Jul. 29 2010 at 3:22 PM

Categories: Crime, Politics, Vice Beat

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In March, after Dave Aronberg, a Democratic candidate for attorney general, said in a debate that there are more pain clinics in Broward County than McDonald's locations, we counted them. We found 71 sets of Golden Arches and more than 100 pain clinics.

The next month, that same stat showed up in the pages of Time magazine (uncredited, of course).

Now Politifact Florida, a spinoff of the Pultizer Prize-winning project from the St. Petersburg Times, decided to put Aronberg's statement through their "Truth-O-Meter" too. They contacted several of the same sources and found much of the same troubles we did. They even cited our first story in their research. In the end, though, Politifact came to the conclusion that the statement is, in fact,

true.

As we noted four months ago, the task of counting the exact number of pain clinics in this county is impossible, if for no other reason than that they come and go so quickly. They found more McDonald's than we did, but not nearly enough to outnumber the pill mills.

Politifact's conclusion:

So how is Aronberg's math? A grand jury report put the number of pain clinics at 115 by late 2009. The Broward Sheriff's Office puts the number at 144 as of July 28. We found the state health department database too confusing to evaluate, and no one to answer our questions. The best number we could determine for McDonald's locations was 73 -- Aronberg's campaign put it at 78 while the New Times said 71. No matter which number you pick, the number of pain clinics in Broward is dozens higher than the number of McDonald's. We rate this claim True.

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