Michigan oncologist Farid Fata has pleaded guilty to falsely telling his patients they had cancer, billing their insurance companies, and then giving the patients unnecessary chemotherapy. In July 2015, Fata was sentenced to 45 years in prison. His arrest came after Fata’s new office manager, George Karadsheh, tipped off federal investigators. Karadsheh said he started asking questions when staffers started to leave the practice.
Karadsheh tells Dateline NBC that one doctor, an oncologist, told him he was leaving the practice because Fata was administering chemotherapy to patients who didn’t need it. “He (the doctor) was also explaining that patients who were on hospice were taken off hospice and put on chemotherapy, put back on chemotherapy,” says Karadsheh. “He also pointed out that patients who were receiving chemotherapy without disease were receiving it to the very last day of life. So at that point I discovered that there may be some issues there.” Many of Fata’s former patients and their families are telling their stories and voicing their anger on Dateline NBC on January 17 at 8pm.
