Steve Day's autopsy showed severe black lung. This proved a top doctor wrong & now the program he leads is suspended. http://t.co/eHgxfu3X7d
— ProPublica (@ProPublica) October 9, 2014
From Chris Hanby’s Buzzfeed article:
After working underground in the coal mines of southern West Virginia for almost 35 years, Steve Day thought it was obvious why he gasped for air, slept upright in a recliner, and inhaled oxygen from a tank 24 hours a day.
More than half a dozen doctors who saw the masses in his lungs or the test results showing his severely impaired breathing were also in agreement.
The clear diagnosis was black lung.
Yet, when I met Steve in April 2013, he had lost his case to receive benefits guaranteed by federal law to any coal miner disabled by black lung. The coal company that employed the miner usually pays for these benefits, and, as almost always happens, Steve’s longtime employer had fought vigorously to avoid paying him. As a result, he and his family were barely scraping by, sometimes resorting to loans from relatives or neighbors to make it through the month.
Like many other miners, he had lost primarily because of the opinions of a unit of doctors at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions that had long been the go-to place for coal companies seeking negative X-ray readings to help defeat a benefits claim. The longtime leader of the unit, Dr. Paul Wheeler, testified against Steve, and the judge determined that his opinion trumped all others, as judges have in many other cases.
Today, however, there is final and overwhelming evidence that Wheeler was wrong: Steve’s autopsy.
On July 26, what was left of Steve’s lungs gave out. He was 67 years old. The doctor who performed the autopsy found extensive black lung. With the permission of Steve’s family, I shared his autopsy report with three leading doctors who specialize in black lung and related diseases. Each said essentially the same thing: Steve had one of the most severe cases of black lung they had seen…
Reached by phone, Wheeler said, “I’d love to talk to you, but the hospital has asked that everything be referred to the legal team.”
A Johns Hopkins spokesperson would not comment on Steve’s case, but noted that the black lung X-ray-reading program headed by Wheeler has been suspended, pending an internal review. The spokesperson refused to provide details about the review, saying only that it “is proceeding as rapidly as possible, and I can assure you that Johns Hopkins takes it very seriously.”…
Nicole
I sure hope the coal company paid Wheeler enough in bribes to cover his upcoming legal bills.
Wait. No I don’t. Eff him. Says a Coal Miner’s (Great grand-)Daughter.
Corner Stone
We have to nationalize the health care industry. Period.
We’ve been sacrificing all of our future for the profit of a small handful.
When Johns Hopkins is co-opted, it’s just over.
Corner Stone
I guess as long as someone has been paid for their expert opinion it’s been corrupt, but god damn.
Blanche Davidian
“Who made the mine owner?
Say the black bells of Rhondda.
And who killed the miner?
Say the grim bells of Blaina.
the Conster
Capitalism is the most deadly ideology on earth. Its optimum model of unfettered growth is identical to cancer.
Punchy
Do docs normally require bribe money to pay for the Porsche and jet ski? But absent that, just why would they act so insanely negligent? Something doesn’t add up.
danielx
@Nicole:
It does make one wonder how much he personally and Johns Hopkins as an institution have profited from mining company money over the years. Kind of like that quack pathologist in Mississippi….
gian
@efgoldman:
The autopsy isn’t free.
Broke families scrambling to pay for rent and funerals. Makes me wish for a coal fired he’ll for Mr wheeler.
And whoever the next whore to fill his shoes turns out to be
Mike J
Not quite Bobby Thomson, but the Giants win the pennant.
The Dangerman
@Mike J:
Spectacular bullpen work; only 2 jacks in 2 innings.
JCJ
@Nicole:
And as the grandson of a coal miner (who had black lung) I agree. I am curious as to what this doctor was stating the cause of Mr Day’s poor lung function was.
Hawes
Johns Hopkins reputation will trump Wheeler’s billable services. He’s roadkill. Deservedly so.
jl
@The Dangerman: SF Giants and some of these damn kids today on the series. Who are they again? Whippersnappers is what.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Hyperbole is rather popular around here at times.
Corner Stone
We just can’t keep this up. This unfettered, unregulated capitalism just can’t continue.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: It comes in battalions.
Corner Stone
Why do an onside kick there with over 2:00 minutes left?
Corner Stone
How do you overthrow a 6’5″ TE from 6 yds away?
Easy, if you suck as bad as Geno Smith does.
Linnaeus
I strongly recommend that folks read the investigative stories linked to in the article. Riveting reading, and you’ll be rightly outraged by how many of these miners get fucked over.
Mike in NC
I just turned on MSNBC and they’re running this nonsense about the Ebola infected nurse in Dallas being driven to NIH. It looks exactly like OJ and the white Bronco bullshit from 20 years ago. Our fucking media strikes again.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: Brigade strength at least.
It starts at the source with Cole, but we all do it on occasion.
Linnaeus
@Corner Stone:
Careful, now. That’s commie talk.
Corner Stone
“Yeah. I’m thinking I’m back.”
jl
@Hawes: Johns Hopkins is one of country’s premier hospitals and medical schools. How much of Hopkins was in on this? Sadly sounds like Hopkins was in on to some extent. Wheeler was not some lone old saw bones affiliated with the hospital. Story said that he was part of a ‘unit’ (whatever that means) that may have been acting as hired guns for the coal companies. Wonder if this ‘unit’ had anything to do with the medical school?
So, question about involvement of Hopkins hospital and medical school I am curious about. Or at least one or both tolerated it for some reason.
Mike J
@Corner Stone:
Love comes in spurts.
dmbeaster
As with climate change deniers, all of the big money to be earned is serving the interests of big money that profits from anti-science. That John Hopkins medical experts prostituted themselves in this mannetr is still shocking.
But the history for this is long. From obvious ones like cigarettes dont harm you to a long litany of others: chlorofluorocarbons and ozone, toxic shock syndrome, leaded gasoline, fracking, endless food additives.
jl
@Mike in NC: Are they going to follow some damn medical van half way across the country? And who would be chasing it, except a bunch of doofus reporters with supposedly nothing better to with their and others time but to waste it?
lurker dean
this is enraging. what a piece of shit wheeler is.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike J: Voidoids! Without peaking.
Linnaeus
@jl:
Can’t find it right now, but I read somewhere about how much money Hopkins charged to have the X-rays in this particular program read. Wouldn’t be surprised one bit if that played a role.
Tommy
Where I live you can’t get away from coal. We dig it up everywhere. The Democrat in my district is running on a platform of clean coal. He is running ads non-stop about it. I went and looked. There are only 9,000 jobs in the area related to coal. Used to be tens of thousands. No longer the case. What the freaking hell ….
Mike J
@jl:
N173PA is in Hawaii.
kindness
Dr. Wheeler passed judgement on over 1500 cases. Not once did he see Black Lung disease.
Wheeler’s soul is toast, he sold it. But John Hopkins is a place I will never again trust nor consider ‘top notch’. They sold their reputation.
Linnaeus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Honestly, a little hyperbole every now and then doesn’t bother me much. This country already is pretty much the Church of Capitalism, 24/7.
jl
@Linnaeus: Hopkins is I believe non-profit like I think Presby of Dallas is. Hopkins Hospital affiliated with Johns Hopkins University and medical school.
The unregulated money, market share and revenue race in US healthcare corrupts both for-profit and non-profit institutions.So, sadly, I would not be too shocked if the hospital and, even sadder, the school looked the other way and tolerated it because of revenue. Hope it ain’t so, but…
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: Single spies.
Omnes Omnibus
@kindness:
Wheeler used the reputation of the University to grift. Can you establish that the University was in on it?
jl
@kindness: Hopkins ranked one of top five hospitals, very often number one, in US for years and years. If part of it crooked, too bad for them.
Linnaeus
@jl:
I hope it isn’t so and will be glad to be shown otherwise. But that’s a question that needs to be asked and answered.
jl
@Omnes Omnibus: But the story said Wheeler was not just the sole doc at Hopkins doing radiology work for the coal companies. He was part of something the story calls a ‘unit’ apparently all doing the same kind of work.
So, I think it is a natural question that should be asked. If Wheeler was some old ass who was using his affiliation to gin up crooked work that is one thing, but appears to not entirely be the case.
Corner Stone
@efgoldman:
Who would pay them to look? When they could be chasing Ebama.
Tommy
@Omnes Omnibus: Maybe it is cause I lived on the east coast. Around Johns Hopkins. Took some classes there. If I get sick I’ll roll the dice and be at Johns Hopkins for medical care.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: This seems to contradict your battalion assertion. Please explicate.
@jl: Is the unit a bunch of junior residents and/or lab techs who basically worked for Wheeler? I suspect so. I may be wrong.
mai naem
This American Life had a show last year about some doctor in one of the Plains states who was pulling this stuff on some little mining town. I don’t remember the details, it wasn’t coal mining but mining of some sort that produced a carcinogenic powder that was everywhere and the company was using a doctor to deny deny deny. I don’t know how somebody can live with themselves doing something like this. This is on the same level as the pharmacist in Indiana who was sending lower doses of chemotherapy drugs than ordered to make extra $$$. Seriously evil.
jl
@Omnes Omnibus: The story in the link did not give any details, so I don’t know. Maybe ‘unit’ refers to a specialty radiology department in the hospital? I have no clue.
So, I think this is something that should be looked into, not making any charges about it.
danielx
@JCJ:
There was no evidence that Steve had any of the illnesses Wheeler suggested as alternatives — tuberculosis, bird tuberculosis, or a fungal infection caused by exposure to bird or bat droppings. The judge made no determination about what was causing Steve’s obvious disability, just that it wasn’t black lung.
Because hey, the guy might have kept parakeets.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tommy:
“Because” not “cause.” Jesus. If you want to be casual, please use “’cause.”
/pedant – Jesus, fuck.
jl
@efgoldman: I’m just saying that since it is not some lone old doc, it needs to be looked into. Out on the left coast, all sorts of unsavory things happen in distinguished non-profit high profile medical centers affiliated with big name schools. Some of it is stink from the rotting head, some of it is not. Some of it involves medical schools needing cash, some of it does not.
So, just saying because ‘unit’ is used and more than one doc implicated, it’s a question that needs to be asked.
jl
@efgoldman: Do those hack legal hired guns have ‘go-bags’?
mai naem
@jl: Non profit doesn’t mean they’re altruistic. Its just the tax treatment they get.
Omnes Omnibus
@jl: Fuck, yeah.
kc
@efgoldman:
Here’s a story from a year ago: abcnews.go.com/Blotter/investigation-johns-hopkins-tough-questions-black-lung-money/story?id=2072143…
catclub
@efgoldman: I bet the key point is autopsies that can be reported back to the Judge.
If there is no lawyer bringing it back up, the case will end when the miner dies.
g
This is criminal.
jl
@efgoldman: OK, I missed the comment and link. This needs to be looked into, unless the Hopkins lawyers with their ‘stop bags’ can get their way.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
There’s an NPR story from 2013 about it as well:
(Emphasis added.)
I’m not sure why this is in the news again nearly a year later. It doesn’t seem like much is new in the Buzzfeed story.
Cheers,
Scott.
Omnes Omnibus
@g: I know what you mean, but in the real world it is not criminal. Wheeler argues that he interpreted the data in a particular way – if he was wrong, he is so sorry – no one is perfect – Oops. It is hard to beat in court as as a civil case let alone a criminal one.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: Oh, sorry about that. It was from earlier when I was flirting with Cervantes.
“When sorrows come, they come not single spies. But in battalions”
Probably too obscure at this point, my bad.
mai naem
Kind of OT but I’ve been thinking about this since the Duncan guy died. We have a family friend who got very very sick after getting a post surgical knee infection. We have some mutual family friends – a husband and wife physician couple who told the this lady’s family to get her moved to the County Hospital because she would get better infectious disease care. The County Hospital has a rep for being the “charity hospital” so a lot of people don’t like going there because all the poors go there. Anyhoo, she got moved and the infection got taken care of. I wonder if Duncan’s family had the same opinion of whatever is considered the “charity” hospital in Dallas and that he probably would have gotten better care there and they wouldn’t have sent him home because he didn’t have insurance.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: You went Hamlet at this time of night? Really?
JCJ
@danielx:
I have seen pigeon breeder’s lung en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_fancier's_lung and within the last two years I saw a case report on “popcorn lung” webmd.com/lung/news/20070426/7-new-cases-of-popcorn-workers-lung so those are not out of the question for a patient with bad lungs. I have also seen cases of silicosis and asbestosis. One common thread to all of these was exposure to the causative agent. What is horrendous here is not even considering black lung to be a possibility, perhaps with garden variety COPD from smoking or other exposures.
Violet
@Omnes Omnibus: Is there not a case that when he keeps saying “no black lung” and then autopsies show it was black lung that there is a pattern of incompetence at the very least? And given the money that has clearly changed hands, it could be bribery? It seems that malpractice could be argued if there are enough examples.
Violet
From the article:
Of course. What else would it be named?
Omnes Omnibus
@Violet: Incompetence does not necessarily equal malpractice. He interpreted certain data in a certain way. It was within the technical limits of the profession. Etc. That is the argument he will make and, sadly, he was probably careful enough that he he would win in such a suit.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: No, actually I went obscure Shakes this morning at about 9am CT.
This is what the NBA calls “continuation”.
Listen, I’m sorry. I’m about to autoclave myself for a couple days, just to be sure.
Violet
@Omnes Omnibus: On a single case, no. But a pattern of cases where he is wrong in the same way over and over and there is money involved and he is the only one reading the results that way…I don’t know. Lawyers involved so they’ll get rich.
Violet
@Corner Stone: Shakes the Clown?
Violet
@Omnes Omnibus: From the article:
So Wheeler’s “opinions” contradict medical literature. And medical literature supports the diagnosis of black lung. There’s a pattern of being wrong AND going against medical literature. Seems like malpractice.
Also:
Again, against standards and prevailing medical texts.
Corner Stone
@Violet: Nope, more like Bill Murray in Quick Change.
And honestly, if you haven’t seen this one you absolutely have to. Amazeballs.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: Best of luck. You demented fuck.
@Violet: It will never happen. The best you can expect is that plaintiff’s counsel bring up his record as a way of impeaching him as a witness. It does work. If someone has testified in 100 trials (hypothetically) and always for one side, most jurors are smart enough to notice.
Omnes Omnibus
@Violet: Being wrong =/= malpractice.
David M
Why do the judges in these cases get a pass? Simply based on his obvious bias, they should have known not to listen to Wheeler.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: Somebody needs to consider masturbation. Just stay away from the easy clicks Tommy seems to have at the ready on his personal computer.
Corner Stone
@David M:
IME, judges are awful fucking people. Arrogant, self-referential, and so full of themselves it’s not clear where they end and smug asshole begins.
Chickamin Slam
Remember kids, nothing’s as precious as a hole in the ground!
>.> youtube.com/watch?v=Ofrqm6-LCqs
Blue Sky Mine
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittenoom,_Western_Australia
The workers in that hole … not as much.
jl
@Corner Stone: Then, from what I have seen, that type of judge is sort of like professional expert witnesses. Probably feel an affinity for each other. I have not had to deal with many bigshot academics who make regular money out of that line of work, or particularly like to do it. The ones I have seen who do have been very ‘special’ types of people.
Edit: though judges I have seen as a jury member have not seemed to be awful people. But, since statistics is my trade, I’ve never had the honor of getting onto a jury where any kind of expert witness testimony is important. Lawyers don’t seem to want statisticians on juries, and if there is any expert witness, I know it is just a matter of time before I am thanked for my service before the trial starts, even if I don’t see how stats is relevant to expert testimony at all.
Violet
@Omnes Omnibus: If the treatment falls below accepted standards of practice then it’s malpractice. In this case there is a pattern of this doctor doing just that. Over and over. From the article:
And here’s the pattern:
Wheeler has found no cases. Not one. At some point “being wrong” is malpractice.
Violet
@Corner Stone:
Warning!
Mandalay
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
The journalist had been covering the story while Steve Day was still alive, and he (and apparently nobody else) got hold of the autopsy and showed it to three black lung experts:
That’s what’s new. I’m not very keen on BuzzFeed, but TBF this journalist has done the grunt work, and really earned his scoop on a compelling story.
Uncle Cosmo
A couple of years ago I went to Johns Hopkins for a routine colonoscopy, which was supposedly covered in full under my health insurance. No complaints re the environment, procedure, or the activities of the staff. The doc came by & said he’d found a couple of pinhead-size polyps & was pretty sure they were nothing to worry about but sent them off to their lab anyway for evaluation..
Before my MD had the results I got a bill in the mail for nearly $700 for the lab work, over & above the insurance. Which is probably (like Wheeler’s x-ray reading charge) about 10x what it actually cost.
I wonder if the business model for Johns Hopkins isn’t to squeeze its patients & their insurers for every penny & stiff the support staff in order to offer big buck$ to superstar doctors & surgeons in order to maintain that #1 hospital rating. Whoring for coal companies (& any other bunch of robber barons with loot to exchange for the brand name) would fit right in with that, wouldn’t it?
mclaren
And where is Obama’s hand-picked Attorney General, Eric Holder, amidst this orgy of top-one-percenter employer fraud?
Nowhere to be found.
Hold ignores this kind of criminal employer fraud while cracking down hard hard hard on people like…Aaron Swartz for the bogus non-crime of “violating the terms of service” at MIT by downloading too many academic papers walled up behind a paywall by the greedy corrupt monopoly JSTOR.
Or take the case of Silicon Valley’s technoctopus, where the greedy corrupt tech giants Apple and Google and Ebay and Intel committed 3 BILLION dollars worth of wage theft from their employees — and what was Eric Holder’s response?
Nothing.
Not a god damned thing.
Holder’s DOJ toadied and crawled cravenly into an obsequiously egregious `agreement’ with the criminal Silicon Valley tech giant wage thieves “that does not constitute admission by the Defendants that the law has been violated or of any issue of fact or law.” And, no fine. Let me repeat that: $3 billion in stolen wages; no admission of guilt, no fine. The only punishment is an agreement to submit to periodic checkups on compliance with antitrust law as regards to illegal wage-fixing cartels. (See the DOJ settlement sections labeled “Required Conduct” and “Compliance Inspection.”)
Meanwhile, Holder’s Depart of Injustice continues to crack down on marijuana dealers and bust people with SWAT teams for importing orchids without a license.
Eric Holder is a disgrace. He needs to be disbarred pronto and indicted for collusion and corruption with the billionaire one-percenter thieves he coddles and enables by refusing to prosecute their blatant crimes.
Gian
@Omnes Omnibus:
I think it’s criminal, but it would take serious resources to even tryto prove it.
hundreds of miners with black lung and he 1) says I’m a fucking expert I fucking know and 2) none of them have black lung
and 3) the other doctors who examined the guy are wrong and I’m right.
he’s obviously lied under oath, but how many times, which times etc. he’s a damn perjurer for hire, and that’s fucking criminal. proving it? that’s another matter.
now if a medical board can pull his license for incompetence, I’d love to see him lose it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Violet: Legal malpractice has very specific requirements. If you want to win a suit. Your personal opinion, or mine, doesn’t really matter in a court. I think the guy is a bought and paid for scumbag, but that doesn’t mean he committed malpractice. You may not like it, but it is what it is.
John Revolta
If I recall correctly this fuck was paid 750 bucks for every x-ray he “read”.
Never found a single case of black lung.
Nice work
if you can get itif you’re a soulless hellfiend.Mandalay
@Violet:
Right, and Wheeler seems to have gone way past that point. IANAL but even claiming incompetence won’t be plausible. To have never once found black lung really makes it look like his findings were preordained.
Chickamin Slam
@Gian: I had a college professor who apparently specialized in hydrologic geology. He was in fact a paid shill for Burlington Northern. Inside his office was a plaque from them some sort of “Man of the Year” award from the railroad. “Of course that fuel depot won’t damage the aquifer.” “You can trust my science.”
… Sure enough the depot did leak … Imagine that.
But hey the railroad funded his trips to explore South America so it’s all good.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gian: @Gian:
No, “he had an interpretation of the data that turned out to be incorrect.” How can you prove that he lied?
GregB
We need to get some of this bastards DNA and see if it matches Dr. Mengeles.
jl
@Uncle Cosmo:
” I wonder if the business model for Johns Hopkins isn’t to squeeze its patients & their insurers for every penny & stiff the support staff in order to offer big buck$ to superstar doctors & surgeons in order to maintain that #1 hospital rating. ”
I don’t think it has to with preserving a high rating. It does have to do with the simple fact of being a large health care provider in the United States, whether for or non-profit. I think the rankings have more to do with association with a top ranked medical school. Sometimes associated professional schools have a lot of say in the operation of their school medical center, and sometimes they are treated almost as badly as the hired help. Sometimes the professional schools are proud of their medical center, sometimes that have, uh, let us say ‘conflicted’ emotions…. I deal with a couple of bigshot medical centers (thank God neither they or a med school cut my check) and the relationship varies widely.
PurpleGirl
@jl: These types of cases — disability cases heard before administrative law judges (ALJ) — do not have juries. They are decided by the ALJ alone. Sometimes they can be appealed but that is very hard and expensive to do. The expert witness(s), such as Dr. Wheeler, carries a lot of weight. What makes Black Lung cases special is that they are covered by specific federal law dating from the New Deal era to help miners. (I had a friend who became a ALJ for NYS’s disability office.)
The disability system has its own doctors that it constantly refers patients to for case review. I don’t remember the particulars anymore but I was seen by a doctor in the system and I didn’t have a high opinion of his skills, but he was a doctor they used and sent me to.
jl
@PurpleGirl: Thanks for the info. I was talking about drunk driving cases and drug busts. But I did not understand the difference, so thanks.
Chickamin Slam
@John Revolta: Reminds me of that scene from Thank You for Smoking. Nick Naylor is talking about where he works. The researchers there have yet to prove that smoking causes cancer.
“This is where I work, the Academy of Tobacco Studies. It was established by seven gentlemen you may recognize from C-Span. These guys realized quick if they were gonna claim cigarettes were not addictive they better have proof. This is the man they rely on, Erhardt Von Grupten Mundt. They found him in Germany. I won’t go into the details. He’s been testing the link between nicotine and lung cancer for thirty years, and hasn’t found any conclusive results. The man’s a genius, he could disprove gravity.”
suzanne
@mai naem: Are you talking about Maricopa Medical Center? I am desperately hoping that Prop. 480 passes, because that facility is about fifty years old, but the design is about seventy years old, and it is just not clean or safe or up to modern standards. The doctors are good, and they have some of the best isolation care (not full biocontainment) in the city, but I would not choose to go there myself. I stick to Banner or Mayo.
Violet
@Omnes Omnibus: We’ll see I guess. A suit will either be brought or not. Johns Hopkins may leave him to twist in the wind claiming he was a rogue actor and they had nothing to do with it. If they throw him under the bus then he may have far fewer resources to defend himself.
I think some enterprising lawyers could decide there is a case. Whether it can be proven is another thing entirely.
Mandalay
@Gian:
I think you are being a bit glib over #3 not being problematic for Dr. Wheeler since the presence or absence of black lung is not simply a matter of opinion, and….
IANAL but I don’t think it would be that hard to show that his diagnoses “below the accepted standard of practice in the medical community”.
The tougher part would be to show that he caused injury or death. His sleazy role was to get benefits to be denied, so in theory he could openly admit that his treatment fell far short of “accepted standards”, but he could still argue that he never caused injury or death.
Omnes Omnibus
@Violet:
Oddly, that was rather my point.. Our opinions don’t really matter.
Violet
@Omnes Omnibus: His interpretation of the data did not meet current and accepted medical standards for interpretation of that data. If he didn’t lie he was incompetent. If he wasn’t incompetent then he lied.
MattR
@efgoldman:
Sounds about right. And interestingly Wheeler graduated Harvard med.
@Uncle Cosmo: @jl:
Probably has more to do with the federal government cutting research grants and the hospital looking for other ways to make up the difference. Which is also probably why Wheeler was given so much leeway (or lack of oversight) with his unit as long as he was bringing in new clients on a regular basis. Either that or because the hospital was worried that the coal companies could influence Congress to further cut their federal funding.
Gian
@Omnes Omnibus:
he’s either not the expert he says he is, or he’s lying about the conclusion reached. He can’t both be an expert better than all the other doctors and wrong the same way every time.
but heck the quotes and replies are all messed up in the thread.
jl
@MattR: Maybe. I think it has more to do with simply being a large provider in the US healthcare system. As I said above, the relationships between med and other professional schools and medical center vary widely from place to place from what I’ve seen.
Any medical center has to worry a lot more about keeping the various Medicare revenue streams flowing, competing with high profile for-profit and non-profit med centers and consoildated chain-providers for business and referrals from large medical groups, HMOs and insurance companies. Research funds are doodly squat compared to regular patient revenue for the medical center, though not for the various schools and academic departments that work with the schools.
A lot of really bigshot big money superstar doctors are not going want to deal with the money and service time and practice restrictions required to get affiliated with a high profile med center through a school, and they are certainly not going to want to deal with all the weird tertiary care referrals that will come through often with no big guaranteed reimbursement streams. They would rather deal with a high profile for or non-profit center where they can be the total bigshot without a lot of smart MD/PhD nerds showing them up, or academic, referral and service BS getting in their way.
jl
Real question in my mind is what is Wheelers relationship to the Hopkins school. If he was teaching at the school, he would have to deal with pushback from his school department and peer review. But I know nothing about the nature of governance at Hopkins, but the relationships are more complicated than some people here seem to think.
As efgoldman said, these university-medical center operations can be hugely complex, siloed and complexly fractured places with weird and (believe it or not, when you put docs, academics and US health care biz together) highly dysfunctional governance.
MattR
@jl:
Johns Hopkins Hospital is part of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine . It accounted for $1.75 billion of the $5.5-6 billion operating budget for the School of Medicine which receives nearly half a billion federal research dollars. IIRC, other parts of the Hopkins university system receive another half a billion dollars in federal reseach grants. I know i received some alumni emails urging me to contact Congress about the affects of the sequester on the university. (I was an undergrad there in a non-medical field)
(EDIT: One of my points being that Hopkins had much more to lose than just the couple million dollars they were paid for Wheeler’s service, though I also agree about it being a huge beauracracy with who-knows-what kind of complex or siloed organizational setup)
mai naem mobile
@suzanne: yep I’m talking about MMC. They give good care esp when you consider their financial constraints. Good Sam and Tbird are good. Maryvales bad. Mayo in AZ is just making money off the Minn. Mayo name IMHO. was originally at Chandler. I wouldnt take my worst enemy to Chandler.
Citizen Alan
@efgoldman:
Right. Because a death toll of untold millions is perfectly fine so long as you don’t flaunt it.
MattR
@Gian: I am not saying it applies to this case, but I can see a scenario where someone is an expert and then they become so arrogantly sure of their expertise and brilliance that they believe themselves to be ahead of the time and able to see and understand things that their colleagues can’t, even when those things run counter to conventional wisdom. Every now and then those people are actually right and they completely revolutionize their field and force everyone to rethink everything they thought they knew.
jl
@MattR: Thanks for the info. That is a pretty good chunk, I have to admit. And not a smaller academic medical center.
Edit: wikipedia says around 1000 beds.
Arclite
I hope the survivors sue the ever-loving shit out of the doctors and the coal company. It’ll be worth 30% to the lawyers to make them pay $10s of millions.
God fucking damn I hate our system sometimes.
Arclite
@Omnes Omnibus:
How could they not be aware? It was either gross negligence if they didn’t know, or they were in on it. Either way, how can you trust them?
Arclite
@mai naem:
You live with yourself very nicely on $500K per year, thankyouverymuch.
Kay
Relying on private lawsuits to regulate a facility that gets so much taxpayer money is wrong. It takes years to sue, and the litigants have to be willing to devote thousands of hours and years of their lives to winning their case. They shouldn’t have to rely on a lawsuit or private lawyers.
Federal prosecutors and agencies find all kinds of creative ways to reach people and entities they want to reach. They can hold this doctor and this facility accountable for stealing from these people, because that’s what they did- they were taking payment from coal companies to deny money that should have gone to the miners.
I don’t care how prestigious the facility or hospital is- they’re thieves. They robbed these people. They should be punished the same way any garden variety crooks would be punished, and ARE punished, every fucking day of the week and as a matter of course in the justice system.
Larv
@MattR:
It’s been awhile since I read the original series on black lung at CPI, but that’s my recollection of how Wheeler came off. Not as a boughtand paid for shill so much as an extraordinarily arrogant true believer and tea-partier. He was convinced that the miners were all malingerers trying to make a buck off the poor coal companies, and that bias colored the way he read the x-rays. I recommend that everyone go read that original series, it’s fucking fantastic reporting. It’ll make you even angrier than this Buzzfeed piece, though.
brantl
True douchebags, medical variety. I hope they sue the asshole for malpractice, and since he is acting in his capacity as a doctor when he gave the testimony, I bet they can..
brantl
@efgoldman: They built cars that blew up, just becase they were a couple of bucks cheaper to build than cars that wouldn’t. Other companies sold defective heart-valves, rather than fix them, because they were cheaper. Our water is being poisoned by frackers (and they have caused earthquakes in Ohio), just for money. Miners, there wives and children, were killed in company towns so that they could keep them at low wages. Miners are killed on a regular basis in mines where the safety precautions are sidestepped to save profit. Yes, capitalism is deadly, in the laissez-faire dream of the Libertarians and the Republicans.
Lee
Late to the party, but with John Hopkins this is one of those things the internet is made for.
Just let the definition of Santorum, if you use the phrase “John Hopkins Doctors are corrupt” (or whatever phrase) is will start to appear in search results.
Elizabelle
@Larv:
Thanks for link. Gonna check this out.
Anne Laurie: thank you for spotlighting this. Had no idea, and how tragic and wrong.
I hope CPI and other good investigators examine other industries too. I suspect the rot, cruelty and corruption is thick.
Howard Beale IV
@Linnaeus: Wanna bet is was read overseas on contract?
Elizabelle
Chris Hamby of the Center for Public Integrity won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting his work on this. Well deserved, Chris.
Links to PDFs of Mr. Hamby’s work.
Paul in KY
That ‘Dr’ Wheeler helped kill that poor man.
I hope he get’s what’s coming to him.
the Conster
@Citizen Alan:
Exactly. Goldman Sachs is more responsible for the immiseration and impoverishment of millions more people than any tyrant could ever dream of. They may not herd them into camps, kill them and pile the skulls outside their Wall Street headquarters, but the corporations they finance steal our life’s work and hollow out the communities that we live in, poison the earth, air and water, create unhealthy junk for mind and body and corrupt every institution we rely on. They may not outright kill us, they just leave us to die. But, their hands are clean and their suits are nice and their shoes and cars are shiny, and
greedprofit is rewarded uber alles.Omnes Omnibus
@Violet: I was attempting to use “air quotes.” It obviously fell flat. His defense in any civil suit will be that something along the lines of what I said. I also think he has a very good chance of not being found liable.
Howard Beale IV
@efgoldman: I’ll see those battalions and raise you a Feiger.
@Uncle Cosmo:
A colonoscopy where no polyps are found is indeed covered 100%. The second anything is found the colonoscopy immediately becomes a surgical procedure, with all the co-pays and deductibles immediately in play. Ain’t the US medical system the best in the world?
Howard Beale IV
@brantl: Better still-I hope the go for his licesne-but since licensing is at the state level, odds are that even if they yank it, he can go to another state and set up in another state. That’s another reason why you don’t want to go live in Texas-they get every other state’s bad doctors, and heaven help you if you get butchered by one of them.
Violet
@Omnes Omnibus: As we all know, the law and justice are hardly related. He’ll probably get off. Just like a lot of rich, well-connected scumbags do.
Gex
It’s all in a day’s capitalism to do and am say whatever to make a buck, but Johns Hopkins has a reputation they’d like to maintain, do they not?
Being the go to guy to get a specific result should have been an alarm for that institution. Just chalk them up as yet another institution that has been undermined by the era of corporate supremacy.
JR in WV
@Omnes Omnibus:
But, you know, cause is a perfectly good English word, in the dictionary.
Look it up, and see that it fits into a sentence just as Tommy used it.
It isn’t pedantry when you’re wrong.
JR in WV
@Violet:
Patriot is a really big company, and while Massey Coal was still in business was the second most dangerous place to work underground. It may be a tie now that Alpha has absorbed Massey… many of the previous middle managers of Massey still work in those mines being run by Alpha, so there you go.
The reason Upper Big Branch exploded and killed all those miners was (partly) that the water sprays at dust generating points weren’t working. Of course keeping the dust down with water spray is how you combat black lung, as well as coal dust explosions.
So the two go hand in bony skeletal hand…
OkayGo
That doctor is a sellout. This kind of thing happens all the time, though, on both sides. There are plenty of doctors who are the preferred docs for unions to send their workman’s comp cases to, and pretty much anyone with back pain gets a letter from them saying that it’s because of their working conditions and they need to take a paid break from work. For some inexplicable reason, these injuries happen more frequently on Fridays and Mondays…
Spike
Now that Dr. Wheeler has some spare time on his hands, maybe he should give Roger Goodell a call and offer his services in reviewing brain injury cases.
My Truth Hurts
Shouldn’t this doctor and anyone in cahoots with him lose their license to practice medicine at the very least? An evil breach of professional ethics. Just disgusting. Universal health care now. Remove all profit from medicine and health care. Standardize prices and break the patent monopolies held by drug companies. Provide care for everyone.
My Truth Hurts
@OkayGo: you are so full of crap your eyes are brown. “Both sides”? “unions”? No mention of Obama, Ebola or Benghazi?
Epicurus
I would be less interested in suing or sanctioning this doctor than making sure he never, ever gets to read another X-ray from any of these cases again. As our resident legal advisor has pointed out, he would probably prevail in a malpractice case. Hard as it may be to swallow, we will probably have to chalk up those who died as “sunk costs” and do everything in our power to prevent this man from “practicing” medicine anywhere. Sadly, I am quite sure the AMA would do all it could to prevent itself (and its members) from any such embarrassment.
Barbara
@Howard Beale IV: Similar thing with mammograms. They are fully paid for, unless you’ve had breast cancer. Then forever after, a mammogram isn’t a “screening,” which is the procedure that the insurance covers, they are “diagnostic,” and that comes with co-pays and deductibles.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the ACA, but the “free screenings” it provides for is something of a bait and switch.
As for the Johns Hopkins story, sorry, but there were certainly some professional co-workers who knew what the real story was and who putzed out of doing anything, and shame, shame on them.