America’s Frontline Doctors Accused of Wrongful Death; CDC Lab Woes; Transplant Risk

Welcome to the latest edition of Investigative Roundup, highlighting some of the best investigative reporting on healthcare each week.

America’s Frontline Doctors Accused of Wrongful Death

After Jeremy Parker died in early 2022, his wife and kids filed a wrongful death lawsuit against America’s Frontline Doctors (AFLDS), a right-wing organization with ties to former President Trump. Parker died shortly after taking hydroxychloroquine, which was allegedly prescribed to him by Medina Culver, DO, who is associated with AFLDS, The Intercept reported.

The lawsuit alleges that Parker’s doctor never performed a physical prior to prescribing the drug. An anonymous hacker sent The Intercept AFLDS documents back in September 2021. These records purport to show that Culver was one of hundreds of U.S. doctors prescribing unproven treatments for COVID-19.

Bruce Bannister, DO, a Nevada doctor who served as an independent expert in the lawsuit, said that a physical exam or labs should have been done prior to writing a prescription. Bannister said that “to a reasonable degree of medical probability … his ingestion of hydroxychloroquine caused Mr. Parker’s death.”

The Intercept also provided links and screenshots to the hacked documents.

CDC’s Lab Ops Overhaul

Three and a half years after a testing debacle early in the pandemic, the CDC is still trying to overhaul its lab operations, according to KFF Health News.

As COVID-19 was sweeping the U.S. in early 2020, the CDC distributed a test that didn’t give accurate results. Rather than test at public health labs, samples had to be sent back to the CDC. Kirsten St. George, chief of New York’s state public health lab, told KFF Health News that this left people “sort of blind to what the situation was with the disease.”

The flawed diagnostic test was a critical misstep, an independent panel later determined. The same panel found structural issues at the CDC, including the leadership that developed the test, insufficient preparedness to develop tests for new pathogens, and having non-laboratory experts make clinical decisions.

The panel determined that the CDC needed major changes, which former director Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH, began to enact before stepping down as head of the CDC.

Jim Pirkle, MD, PhD, associate director for laboratory science and safety at the CDC, told KFF Health News that funding is a key barrier to making improvements. But inaction could contribute to an ongoing lack of trust in the agency, the article stated.

Was Hospital Too Lenient With Transplants?

Methodist University Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, which has a transplant program known for taking on high risk cases, may have gone overboard, according to a ProPublica investigation.

Tyler Waite was a complicated liver transplant candidate from the start. Though only 25, his chronic drinking damaged his liver. His sobriety never lasted long and his BMI put him at further risk. Per ProPublica‘s reporting, multiple experts confirmed that without a transplant, Waite would have died imminently. Several liver transplant centers ruled him out but Methodist accepted him.

The James D. Eason Transplant Institute often takes on high-risk transplant cases denied by others. ProPublica detailed that the liver transplant program had been investigated twice from 2014 to 2018 by the United Network for Organ Sharing, though a Methodist spokesperson told ProPublica that the program was no longer under investigation.

After a 2018 audit, leadership committed to hiring a chemical dependency expert and an alcohol addiction unit, but the changes had not been made by June 2020 when Waite had his transplant. Multiple experts told ProPublica that overlooking psychosocial issues like addiction can lead to more suffering in the long run.

Waite’s health went downhill with complication after complication. From his transplant at Methodist in June 2020 through the end of the year, Waite had eight unplanned surgeries to treat complications, and ultimately died.

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