Via America’s Lawyer: A whistleblower reveals migrant women at a detention center in Georgia have been subject to forced hysterectomies and other sterilization procedures by a doctor dubbed the “uterus collector.” Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: News that migrant detainees were undergoing forced sterilization procedures captured the nation’s interest only for a few minutes and of course, then they moved on. It’s corporate media is such, it’s such a train wreck.
Farron Cousins: Well, you know, the president got sick and, oh my God. And there was a debate and we missed the real stories that are happening in this country.
Mike Papantonio: Talk about this. This is a nauseating story. The only thing, the only positive on this, the only positive is, is at this point, they don’t have all the evidence on this case. If they do, this is a very, very ugly case.
Farron Cousins: Right. So basically to take it back, I guess, about a month or so ago, a whistleblower nurse who had worked at this detention facility, woman by the name of Dawn Wooten came out and said, listen, there is evidence that says there is an abnormally, large number of hysterectomies being performed on the women in this Georgia detention facility. Shortly after that you had some of these women start coming forward and say, yes, I’m, I’m actually one of them. I had a hysterectomy. They didn’t exactly tell me why it was happening, or they may have exaggerated the number of cysts that I had because of follow-up at another appointment said, no, this was not surgically necessary.
Mike Papantonio: See, that’s where, that’s where the screw turns, you see. This doctor who they call the uterus collector.
Farron Cousins: Oh god.
Mike Papantonio: I mean, that’s his, that’s his name, the uterus collector. Well, he says I did this because there was this, this large number of cysts, ovarian cysts that really concerned me. And I don’t know how many women he saw, but right now there’s at least five to seven women that I’ve been able to calculate in these stories. Is that number sound about, right?
Farron Cousins: Right. So far from what we know, that’s how many there are, but this doctor has a bit of a troubled history. I was, I was looking through it actually earlier today, trying to find more backstory on this man. And it turns out back in 2015, he got popped by the DOJ. A very easy slap on the wrist, kind of pop.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: But he had submitted, according to the DOJ, fraudulent claims under Medicaid and Medicare. And he was fraudulent billing. He was saying, oh, I performed this procedure, this procedure and this procedure, it turns out he didn’t perform them. He was just doing it to get extra money. And that was five years ago that he was fined for it, activity going all the way back to 2013. So this to me is one of those stories had they actually punished the man.
Mike Papantonio: Right, right.
Farron Cousins: He wouldn’t have been around to do this.
Mike Papantonio: It’s, it’s always the same story.
Farron Cousins: It is.
Mike Papantonio: They will not perp walk CEOs of corporations. They will rarely perp doctors for this kind of thing. They slap them on the wrist and then they move on. But you see that, that fits so perfectly into this story.
Farron Cousins: It does.
Mike Papantonio: Obviously, if he’s doing a hysterectomy, the billable number on that is higher. He comes up with an X Ray to remove cysts. Well, you know, it, it, it’s a fairly substantial number of, of involvement of cysts and those types of blockage possibilities that raise the need for surgery. And so the women that were looked at at least a few of them went back for a second opinion, said, did they, did he really have to do that? And then of course it’s, it’s, it’s Monday, it’s Monday night quarter, Monday morning quarterbacking.
Farron Cousins: Right.
Mike Papantonio: But the doctors say, no, he didn’t. But if you look at this guy’s history, you have to believe that you can’t change the stripes on a zebra, you know.
Farron Cousins: Well, and I think to me, you know, that’s a big part of this too. This isn’t necessarily a, the Trump administration is sterilizing people.
Mike Papantonio: No, no.
Farron Cousins: This is a, you’ve got a real bad doctor who has a very serious and very real history of up billing. And he found out, okay, I can’t say I’m doing a procedure and not do it. So I’ll just do the procedure. I think that’s what this evolved into with the doctor.
Mike Papantonio: Because it’s more money.
Farron Cousins: Right. Well, I can’t just say I did it. They’re going to notice if this woman didn’t have it. So let me just do it. I’ve done it a hundred times. I know how to do it. It’s fast. It’s easy. I can bill it, more money for me. This is a migrant who cares and that’s the other part of it. They think, well, it’s not a US citizen. It’s not somebody who can go to a lawyer. They’re here illegally. I’m ok.
Mike Papantonio: But, honestly, I don’t see this as an ICE undertaking to get these people. That’s, that’s where this story gets a little weird.
Farron Cousins: Right, right, right. I think there’s, I think there’s a big disconnect between the two.
Mike Papantonio: It’s a doctor. It’s, it’s the doctor.
Farron Cousins: Right.
