A Michigan oncologist is being held on a $9 million bond after being charged for intentionally misdiagnosing some of his patients with cancer in order to make millions off their expensive treatments. Prosecutors say Dr. Farid Fata of Oakland Township has been falsely billing the Medicare system for tens of millions of dollars since at least 2009, during which time he has collected about $65 million from the system for his own personal gain.
According to NBC News, FBI agents arrested Fata on the morning of August 7 and proceeded to raid his office, confiscating boxes of medical records, computers, and other potential evidence that they believe proves his guilt. Official reports claim that Fata “intentionally misdiagnosed patients with cancer to justify unnecessary treatments,” which in turn generated large sums of money for Fata’s personal bank accounts.
Among his many alleged crimes, Fata is being accused of administering chemotherapy to patients who were already in remission from cancer. FBI officials say he also signed so-called “end of life” patients up for chemotherapy, even though the treatment is incapable of providing them any benefits whatsoever. In another case, Fata apparently ordered nearly five times the normal dose of chemotherapy for one of his patients.
If this is not bad enough, detectives say in one instance one of Fata’s cancer patients fell in the doctor’s office and badly injured his head. Rather than rush the patient to the emergency room, Fata forced him to first undergo his routine chemotherapy treatment, after which the paramedics were eventually called out and the patient taken to the hospital. The injured patient later died from his incurred head wounds, which means Fata could also be found guilty of manslaughter.
“If he did commit these crimes, then I think the word ‘monster’ is a very good description for him,” said Jeff Berz, the son of one of Fata’s patients, to The Today Show.
In his ruling, judge admits conventional cancer treatments are ‘poison’
Initially, Fata faced a $170,000 bond while the case against him proceeded. But the government later asked that it be upped to $9 million after learning that Fata may have access to the millions of dollars in loot he stashed from his crimes. Based on an initial review of the case, presiding U.S. District Judge Sean Cox believes the evidence against Fata is strong.
“The weight of the evidence against Defendant is significant,” wrote Judge Cox in a letter, also admitting that conventional cancer treatments are inherently deadly.
“This is not the typical type of health care fraud case where a health care provider is alleged to have over-billed for services actually performed or billed Medicare for services that were not actually performed. Rather, the government alleges that Defendant has intentionally misdiagnosed patients with cancer and then actually provided them with unnecessary treatments that are essentially poison.”
In Fata’s defense, two of his female patients actually showed up at the court room on the day of his arraignment with signs to protest his prosecution. According to reports, Sally Kelly and Theresa Pickering yelled out, “We love you, Dr. Fata,” as the accused doctor was escorted out of the court room by Marshall’s Service agents.
Sources for this article include:
http://www.businessinsider.com
http://science.naturalnews.com
