CNN reported yesterday the unbelievable story of a Detroit-area doctor who authorities say intentionally gave cancer treatment drugs to patients who did not need them, including some who didn’t actually have cancer.
50 year old Dr. Farid Fata was sentenced on Friday to 45 years in prison and had pleaded guilty in September to giving chemotherapy to misdiagnosed patients, telling some they had a terminal blood cancer called multiple myeloma. He pleaded guilty to 13 counts of Medicare fraud, one count of conspiracy to pay or receive kickbacks and two counts of money laundering and .
Federal prosecutors have tagged him the “most egregious fraudster in the history of this country.” To Fata, they said, “patients were not people. They were profit centers.”
The hematologist-oncologist however gave an emotional apology in court, saying he was “ashamed” of his actions.
“I have violated the Hippocratic oath and violated the trust of my patients,” Fata said, according to CNN affiliate WDIV. “I do not know how I can heal the wound. I do not know how to express the sorrow and the shame.”
But to the dozens of Fata’s victims who filed into U.S. District Court in Michigan throughout the week to watch his sentencing, his apology doesn’t carry any weight. Several of them will have to live with the toxic effects of his, at times, unnecessary treatments, for ailments they did not have for the rest of their lives.
Geraldine Parkin, the wife of one former patient said in court, many were “tortured until their last breaths.”
This is such an unbelievable story of how the ‘love’ for money and unexplained greed can push a man to engage in despicable acts….really shameful!
