“Medical Nightmare in Detroit”
It sounds like a medical nightmare is being uncovered in Detroit, Michigan. Hematologist-oncologist Farid Fata, MD was arrested August 6, 2013 and charged with Medicare fraud that involves $35 million. Worse than that is the nature of the alleged violations of safe medical practices. Prosecutors said that the 48-year-old Dr. Fata ordered toxic chemotherapy for patients who did not have cancer or whose cancer was in remission and that he has been “simply poisoning the patient.” Some employees at Dr. Fata’s high-profile practice challenged his actions before he was arrested and one employed oncologist told agents from the FBI and the Department of Health and Human Services that he discovered that Dr. Fata had ordered chemotherapy for a patient whose cancer was in remission. Others reported that Dr. Fata ordered intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) for patients whose antibody levels did not warrant the therapy. Also, employees challenged other practices they considered unethical, such as fabricating cancer diagnoses in patient records to justify insurance claims for chemotherapy and positron emission tomography (PET) scans. Of course, Fata “vehemently denies all the allegations.”
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