Detroit Area Doctor Sentenced to 45 Years in Prison for Providing Medically Unnecessary Chemotherapy to Patients
Detroit Area Doctor Sentenced to 45 Years in Prison for Providing Medically Unnecessary Chemotherapy to Patients. Oncology makes money by treating you for cancer with chemo, radiation, and surgery.
I am bringing this to your attention since many of you will never see the article. People blindly trust doctors and standard medicine therapies without investigating whether the treatment actually extends life or the odds of the standard medicine therapy working on your cancer at your stage of sickness. This blind trust is tragic.
This is not a recent case, but from 2015, but it is still going on today (read this whole article) and that doctors do not tell patients all the facts. I am sure there are more recent cases as well.
They are told not to investigate any treatment other than what they dictate. You will be told that trying alternative therapies will not work.
Yet, people die every day after having weeks and months of chemo rounds, radiation, and having parts of their body cut out, including breasts. So, the standard cancer treatment does NOT guarantee you will survive the cancer.
Many of the cancer treatments also cause 2nd cancers several years later.
Education is the power to make your own medical decisions after being given all your options, not just the standard surgery, chemo, and radiation.
I encourage you to read this and continue reading it on the link at the end of these first statements from the article.
Statement from the Department of Justice below!
“A Detroit area hematologist-oncologist was sentenced today to serve 45 years in prison for his role in a health care fraud scheme that included administering medically unnecessary infusions or injections to 553 individual patients and submitting to Medicare and private insurance companies approximately $34 million in fraudulent claims.’
“Rather than use his medical degree to save lives, Dr. Fata instead destroyed them in pursuit of profit,” said Assistant Attorney General Caldwell. “Time and again, Dr. Fata callously violated his patients’ trust as he used false cancer diagnoses and unwarranted and dangerous treatments as tools to steal millions of dollars from Medicare, even stooping to profit from the last days of some patients’ lives. While no sentence can restore what was taken from his patients and their families, the sentence imposed ensures that never again will Dr. Fata lay hands on another patient.”
“Health care fraud has been a serious problem in Michigan, but no case has been as egregious as the conduct of Dr. Farid Fata,” said U.S. Attorney McQuade. “Dr. Fata did not care for patients; he exploited them as commodities. He over-treated, under-treated, and outright lied to patients about whether they had cancer so that he could maximize his own profits.”
In 2024, healthcare fraud cases reached unprecedented levels, with the Department of Justice recovering $2.75 billion and charging numerous defendants in significant fraud schemes.
Key Statistics and Trends
Record Recoveries: The DOJ reported recovering $2.9 billion in total, with over $1.67 billion specifically related to healthcare fraud in the first half of 2024 alone.
Defendants Charged: A total of 193 defendants were charged in a nationwide enforcement action, including 76 medical professionals across 32 federal districts.
2 Sources
Notable Cases
COVID-19 Test Fraud Scheme: Brian Cotugno and James Matthew Thorton “Bo” Potter were charged in a scheme involving the sale of Medicare beneficiary identification numbers, leading to nearly $20 million in fraudulent claims for over-the-counter COVID-19 tests.
Amniotic Allograft Fraud: Alexandra Gehrke and Jeffrey King were indicted for a scheme that fraudulently billed Medicare $900 million for unnecessary amniotic grafts, targeting vulnerable patients and receiving over $330 million in illegal kickbacks.
Pharmacy Fraud: Co-owners of Rocky Hill Pharmacy in Tennessee faced charges for a scheme involving forged prescriptions and falsified signatures, resulting in over $8.5 million in fraudulent claims.
Dental Fraud: A dentist and five employees in California were charged with defrauding the Medi-Cal program of nearly $900,000 by billing for services that were never rendered.
Laboratory Fraud: A Texas laboratory owner was charged in a $79 million scheme involving fraudulent respiratory tests, while eight individuals in Brooklyn were indicted for a $68 million Medicaid fraud scheme.
3 Sources
Conclusion
The year 2024 has seen a significant increase in healthcare fraud cases, with various schemes targeting vulnerable populations and exploiting the healthcare system. The DOJ’s efforts to combat these fraudulent activities have led to substantial recoveries and numerous indictments, highlighting the ongoing challenges in ensuring integrity within the healthcare sector.
Read the whole story in its entirety here on this link. Do not stop reading until the end of this Substack!
“Risk of developing second cancers after radiation therapy
Below, I am posting this information from the American Cancer site word for word to prove my point. Did your doctor ever give you this information when advising you on your cancer options?
Radiation therapy was recognized as a possible cause of cancer many years ago. In fact, much of what we know about the health effects of radiation has come from studying survivors of atomic bomb blasts in Japan. We also have learned from workers in certain jobs that included radiation exposure, and patients treated with radiation therapy for cancer and other diseases.
Leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome
Past radiation exposure is one risk factor for most kinds of leukemia, including acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), a bone marrow cancer that can turn into acute leukemia, has also been linked to past radiation exposure. The risk of these diseases after radiation treatment for cancer depends on a number of factors, such as:
How much of the bone marrow was exposed to radiation
The amount of radiation that reached the bone marrow
The radiation dose rate (how much was given in each dose, how long it took to give the dose, and how often it was given)
Most often, these cancers develop within several years of a person’s radiation treatment. Then the chance of developing a new cancer slowly declines over the following years.
Solid tumors
There is also a risk for other cancers, which are mostly solid tumors, after having radiation therapy. Most of these cancers develop 10 years or more after radiation therapy. The effect of radiation on the risk of developing a solid tumor cancer depends on factors such as:
The age of the patient when they were treated with radiation. For example, the risk of developing breast cancer after radiation is higher in those who were treated when they were young compared with those given radiation as adults. The chance of developing breast cancer after radiation seems to be highest in those exposed as children. Risk decreases as the age at the time of radiation increases; women who had radiation after the age of 40 have a lower risk of breast cancer. Your age when you get radiation treatment has a similar effect on the development of other solid tumors, including lung cancer, thyroid cancer, bone sarcoma, and gastrointestinal or related cancers (stomach, liver, colorectal, and pancreatic).
The dose of radiation. In general, the risk of developing a solid tumor after radiation treatment goes up as the dose of radiation increases. Some cancers require larger doses of radiation than others, and certain treatment techniques use more radiation.
The area treated. The area treated is also important, since these cancers tend to develop in or near the area that was treated with radiation. Certain organs, such as the breast and thyroid, seem to have a higher risk for developing cancers after exposed to radiation than other organs.
Risk of developing second cancers after chemotherapy and targeted therapy
Chemotherapy
Some types of chemotherapy (chemo) drugs have been linked with different kinds of second cancers. The cancers most often linked to chemo are myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and acute myelogenous leukemia (AML). Sometimes, MDS occurs first, then turns into AML. Acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) has also been linked to chemo. Chemo is known to be a greater risk factor than radiation therapy in causing leukemia.
The risk gets higher with higher drug doses, longer treatment time, and higher dose-intensity (more drug given over a short period of time). Chemotherapy agents that have an increased risk for second cancers include:
Alkylating agents (mechlorethamine, chlorambucil, cyclophosphamide, melphalan, lomustine, carmustine, busulfan)
Platinum-based drugs (cisplatin, carboplatin)
Anthracycline topoisomerase II inhibitors (etoposide or VP-16, teniposide, mitoxantrone)
Targeted therapy drugs
Some drugs used to treat cancer are called targeted therapy drugs because they were designed to find and attack certain genes or proteins that are in specific types of cancer. Targeted therapies are newer, so not a lot is known about the risk for second cancer yet. More will be known as more patients get these types of drugs and become survivors who are monitored for future health problems and second cancers.
Vemurafenib (Zelboraf®) and dabrafenib (Tafinlar®) are drugs that target the BRAF protein. They are used to treat melanoma and are being studied for use in other cancers. People taking these drugs have a higher risk of squamous cell carcinomas of the skin.” from the American Cancer Society page
You are not being given all the facts and information when consulting an oncologist! Do your own research!