Case Files 22: Rady Children’s Part 6

Speaker 1 True Story Media.

Speaker 1 Hello, it's Andrea, and today we are sharing part six of our coverage of the lawsuit against Reedy Children's in San Diego. We are jumping back into the middle of my conversation with Dr.

Speaker 1 Becks about a neurologist, Dr. Paolo Bolognese, who came up in this lawsuit who has quite a colorful history.

Speaker 1 So in the previous episode, we went through some of the main themes of the 45 malpractice lawsuits that we found that he is named in.

Speaker 1 And today, we're going to dive into his connection to the case we've been discussing, as well as another case of suspected Munchausen by proxy abuse in California.

Speaker 1 We'll also be covering the lengthy whistleblower complaint against him. It is a lot.

Speaker 1 This is our final episode of case files for this season because next week, Thursday, June 19th, we are launching season six of Nobody Should Believe Me.

Speaker 1 The team has been working so hard on this season. It is our most ambitious yet, and I really think it's our best.

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Speaker 1 So with that, we will jump back into our discussion on the wild world of Dr. Paolo Balagnese.
I'll see you on the other side, my friends.

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Hey, it's Andrea.

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Speaker 1 Back to our case, if I am a parent and both of these parents work in the healthcare field, if I am a parent and I Google this guy and I find this guy, I'm doing my due diligence as a parent regardless.

Speaker 1 But if you are a parent who is medically knowledgeable and you say, like, oh, he's a neurosurgeon.

Speaker 1 Oh, he has this one malpractice claim, but, you know, most neurosurgeons get a malpractice claim, isn't necessarily anything. If you see 40, I'm not taking my child anywhere near this person.

Speaker 1 It doesn't

Speaker 1 across the country. Flying across the country when you have, you know, it's not like they live in some rural

Speaker 1 place, right? These are wealthy people who live in a very well-resourced part of California where they have excellent children's hospitals.

Speaker 2 And work for a very well-renowned, you know, facilitate Kaiser Permanency that does very complex things. It's, it does.
It begs the question.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 And if you're going to go somewhere, you know, as a, as a, especially as a knowledgeable parent with resources, right, who has money, if you're going to go someplace to see a specialist, you're going to Mayo, you're going to Cleveland Clinic, you know, you're going to like a well-respected institution.

Speaker 1 You are not going to see a doctor that has this kind of claims against him. So it really begs the question, what were they actually going to see this doctor for?

Speaker 1 Their claim, you know, again, in this lawsuit, is that they were only doing everything in the best interest of their daughter.

Speaker 1 And this is, again, another piece of this very complicated lawsuit that is hard to square with parents who are doing something in the best interest of their daughter.

Speaker 1 And so next.

Speaker 1 So that's not all, folks. These malpractice lawsuits are very disturbing.
They are, again, very similar.

Speaker 1 They paint a picture of someone who is doing surgeries that are unnecessary, that is giving patients diagnoses that they don't have in order to justify doing the surgeries, is making a lot of money doing it

Speaker 1 and is harming a lot of people. That's the picture that these lawsuits paint.

Speaker 1 But there is also a whistleblower complaint. So this is from a person called Gene Mengini.
Apologies if that's not the correct

Speaker 1 pronunciation versus neurological surgery PC Dr. Michael Brisman, Dr.
Raman Rake, Dr. Paolo Balagnesi, and Dr.
William Sondstein. So importantly, this is not regarding TCI because this is from 2015.

Speaker 1 So this is after he had already left TCI. So as a result of all of this litigation and controversy at TCI, one of the doctors resigned and Dr.
Bolignes was suspended temporarily.

Speaker 1 He was eventually reinstated. This is when this whistleblower complaint comes into play.
So this complaint. is a lot.

Speaker 1 So part of this has to do with the doctors at this at this place and their unsafe surgical practices.

Speaker 1 So, there's a lot of kind of disturbing stuff in there that really mirrors those malpractice lawsuits from the other one.

Speaker 1 And there are also a lot of sexual harassment claims in this. So, this is attributed to various doctors at the practice.
So, it really sounds like it was quite a culture over there.

Speaker 1 So, I'm just going to offer a couple of the quotes that were included in this lawsuit. So, Jean Mengini is a physician assistant.
So, she was working with these doctors.

Speaker 1 The first doctor she was working with, Dr. Rack,

Speaker 1 said a couple of his,

Speaker 1 I mean, this is just the story. The story is hard not to, the story is so wild.
So

Speaker 1 some of the comments attributed to him was he would say, so she was alleging sexual harassment and also just, you know, virulent misogyny.

Speaker 1 So he would say things like, all you women, all you do is complain. He would ask her about her sexual appetites.
He would ask her, when was the last time that she had sex.

Speaker 1 He also had this very bizarre situation where she was socializing with his wife at

Speaker 1 an event, and then he accused her of trying to be after his wife and said, why are you at war with me? I mean, just the most bizarre sort of description.

Speaker 1 So after she complained about that, then she was moved to work with these other doctors. So one of the other doctors, Dr.

Speaker 1 William Sondstein, a couple of his quotes, this is just the creepiest stuff that I can imagine. imagine

Speaker 1 that he would talk about his own daughter's breasts and said, I don't know why my daughter, I'm paraphrasing a little bit here, but I don't know why my daughter wears baggy clothes.

Speaker 1 Uh, and this is a quote that she has got uh young, perky sea cup breasts. And uh, then said to Gene, uh, if your bread, if your brains were as big as your breasts, you'd be a genius.

Speaker 1 And then commented, made another comment about how it was distracting when all of his daughter's friends were running around at his house. So just unbelievably creepy.

Speaker 1 I mean, the whole thing is just so disturbing. But let's get to Baling Nase himself, because there were some specific things that were attributed to him in particular.

Speaker 1 Number one, and pardon my language, I rarely swear on this podcast, but this is a direct quote from the lawsuit. Apparently his go-to

Speaker 1 exaltation when he was frustrated was fuck me in the ass, which he would say sometimes dozens of times, reportedly in surgeries.

Speaker 1 He had a couple other extremely colorful quotes, such as saying, if you move that instrument, I'm going to have you killed.

Speaker 1 And now, you know, surgeons can be salty and their work is serious, but again, this just in the whole picture of everything.

Speaker 1 Enda also really liked to talk to this physician assistant about her sex life and would say things like, a woman who looks like you, why don't you have a man? What's wrong? Have you been damaged?

Speaker 1 You know, just not a great thing to hear as a woman when you're trying to do your job. So these are two other very misogynist quotes from Dr.
Bolognese, who said at one point, my wife is my servant.

Speaker 1 And quote, most women who rise to power have done so with their legs open. What a delight this man sounds like.

Speaker 1 So it sounds like then part of this lawsuit was that after she reported this conduct and blew the whistle on it, that there was retaliation against her.

Speaker 1 Again, there's a strange series of anecdotes about Dr.

Speaker 1 Rack, who's accusing her of trying to seduce his wife and then he pokes her with a needle mid-procedure and she has to scrub out of a brain surgery i mean just cartoonishly bizarre um so there's a lot about there just professional conduct misogyny culture of sexual harassment general creepiness um and then also there are um there are allegations which this came up in other suits as well but comes up in this whistbler complaint and this is a quote from the lawsuit dr balanacy took what ms Mangini believed were excessive and unnecessarily long breaks, such as the instance referenced above on numerous occasions.

Speaker 1 Ms. Mangini never observed Dr.

Speaker 1 Bolognese inform patients that they would remain under anesthesia while he took a long lunch or other break and never informed patients after any surgery that they had remained under anesthesia for longer than she believed was required.

Speaker 1 So there are various stories of him taking

Speaker 1 taking breaks while patients are under anesthesia.

Speaker 1 And then there's this incident that actually is not part of this whistleblower complaint, but was part of the previous allegations from when he was in TCI, where he actually had a patient scheduled for surgery.

Speaker 1 The patient came in, was under anesthesia, and Paolo Bolognese was on vacation

Speaker 1 with his family. And then the partner decided that he didn't want to do the surgery.

Speaker 1 So this patient came in for a scheduled surgery, sat under anesthesia, anesthesia has risks all by itself, and just didn't get their surgery because the guy was on vacation.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's really quite a picture. I just have to say, like, obviously we're in the opinion section now.
And these are all. This guy's like a cartoon.

Speaker 1 These are allegedly, okay, disturbing if true, sure. But like, I mean, this, this is a lot of different people reporting on this behavior.

Speaker 1 Unclear why this person is still practicing, although I, you know, the further I get into this, the more I realize that it's actually like can be very, very hard to hold doctors accountable.

Speaker 1 So the last thing that I wanted to talk about

Speaker 1 as part of Dr. Bulling

Speaker 1 other than these, you know, the whistleblower complaints, the sexual harassment, the leaving during surgeries,

Speaker 1 and the 45-plus lawsuits, malpractice lawsuits against him, he does come up in another story about a munch house and by proxy case.

Speaker 1 So, this is, I will say, you know, just a caveat, this is, this is from the LA Times, is my source on this. I have not done any kind of deep dive on this case, but here is what, here's what we know.

Speaker 1 And there's certainly a bunch of stuff that stood out to me as looking red flagging for this being an abuse case. This person ultimately had their children returned to them.

Speaker 1 I will get to that in a minute. But so this is a mom who, according to her, found the Chiari Institute online

Speaker 1 and said her child needed this surgery. But according to the LA Times, Dr.
Roddy, who is a pediatric neurologist from Loma Linda, which is a California hospital that is very renowned.

Speaker 1 I went to college right by there. I know they have an excellent reputation.

Speaker 1 But this pediatric neurologist from Loma Linda said that TCI was questionable and that they would quote, will do surgery on anyone.

Speaker 1 So a quote from this really stuck out to me because I think this speaks to kind of our continuing reporting on how doctors like Bolignes potentially fit into this entire picture.

Speaker 1 So the LA Times said that this mother, through people she met on the internet, Leslie learned of a national EDS expert whose resume ran 33 pages.

Speaker 1 So through people she met on the internet, I think what we've seen a lot in these cases certainly comes up in my season six case,

Speaker 1 certainly came up in the Kowalski case where you see Beata Kowalski finding that diagnosis from a message board with a bunch of other parents.

Speaker 1 So kind of finding these doctors online, getting referred to them by other parents.

Speaker 1 I think that, you know, that really stuck out to me. And then this is really interesting.
It says, Balagnese testified on behalf of this parent.

Speaker 1 So much as he is in the rate E suit, he was positioned by these parents as this is a knowledgeable person. They know EDS.

Speaker 1 And again, this was another one where they claimed that like multiple of her children had EDS.

Speaker 1 This is something that came up in a bunch of the malpractice lawsuits where, you know, one of the parents was diagnosed with, you know, need as needing this surgery.

Speaker 1 And then, you know, and then one of the children, and then one or more of the children. So there are a couple of malpractice lawsuits that involve several members of a family.

Speaker 1 So, it sounds like it's like you get a surgery, you get a surgery, you get a surgery kind of thing, which also appears to have happened in this case. So, interestingly, this judge, David Cohen,

Speaker 1 who actually ruled in the parents' favor. So, this judge ultimately decided that he did not find the evidence of Munchausen by proxy compelling enough.

Speaker 1 We don't get really much more detail on that decision, as we know. You know, I don't read a lot into a family court judge decision on a Munchausen by proxy case

Speaker 1 without other information.

Speaker 1 But this is very interesting because he ruled on behalf of this family however there is a quote uh there's a quote in the la times from him that he found the testimony of dr paolo bolognesey and the chiari institute frightening here is a direct quote from him or a couple of direct quotes so it says we're here today because everybody who has looked at this case is scared to death about what's going to happen to esther at the chiari institute in new york cohen said screws inserted into the child's skull the child basically suspended with a series of weights it sounds like something devised by Thomas Torque Madia of the Spanish Inquisition.

Speaker 1 And again, this is a judge that ultimately ruled in favor of the parents. So that I found to be a pretty telling quote.

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Speaker 1 this hit a lot of pieces for me of,

Speaker 1 you know, just a lot of the reporting we've been doing on Kowalski, on this case, just these patterns that I'm really seeing with cases.

Speaker 1 And also, you know, we've gotten a lot of interesting feedback from listeners who have EDS, who've noticed this connection, you know, who've given us the perspective that EDS is not something that's well understood by the medical establishment.

Speaker 1 I think that's come through loud and clear.

Speaker 1 You know, and we're going to seek out a credible expert to talk about it because obviously, Bex, you can always give us a grounding in medical stuff, but I think it is, it's very tricky.

Speaker 1 A lot of my work revolves around conditions that are not well understood. So it is always, that is always part of my journey is trying to find and they're evolving.
That's

Speaker 1 that really fast, right? So yes, we do our very best, but we definitely understand that this is not well understood and we've presented it to the best of our ability.

Speaker 1 But with that said, we will really attempt to get specialized and specific and find a credible expert.

Speaker 1 That is the other problem is that it's not like you can just Google for experts because you might end up with someone like Balagnacy, who has 45 malpractice lawsuits against him.

Speaker 1 And that's not a person that I would like to have on the show explaining to me what this condition is. But I get really get the picture that like, you know, this is being driven by a couple of things.

Speaker 1 When you have a condition like this that's poorly understood, that's potentially, you know, way underdiagnosed, and there's such a lack of information and people are really suffering.

Speaker 1 You know, they're suffering very real pain, debilitating symptoms, and you have this lack of knowledge in the medical field and potentially doctors being extremely dismissive.

Speaker 1 And unfortunately, I think this is all compounding on itself because it sounds like this connection between, you know, possible Munchausen and possible Munchausen by proxy and EDS cases is quite well known.

Speaker 1 So that already in the medical community, this is getting a reputation as a suspicious diagnosis because people are abusing it.

Speaker 1 But then you also have people who are really suffering from it and then they're not getting taken seriously by doctors.

Speaker 2 And as a physician, I want to be honest, like it is hard to not become somewhat jaded or a little bit biased with certain things.

Speaker 2 And I don't think it's because every doctor is a terrible doctor, but I also think that it's easy for certain doctors to be put on a pedestal.

Speaker 2 And like I've always told medical students and residents, like a doctor who has thousands of five-star reviews.

Speaker 2 actually worries me because that tells me that they are never questioning or doing the additional piece or saying no if something is not appropriate. It just, those things don't jive.

Speaker 2 Also, all one-star reviews, probably not good. I'm just saying like, right, but there is a balance.

Speaker 2 And I think it's just, we have to remember that the problem is not always the diagnosis and the problem is definitely not the patient always.

Speaker 2 It's, it's this, these patterns of behavior that we see happening time and time again.

Speaker 2 that mean it's going to be harder and it's going to be harder to treat the ones who really have it and need it because of this whole other side of it.

Speaker 2 It's going to be like an uphill battle to advocate for the ones who truly need these things.

Speaker 2 And I'll be honest, I've learned a lot about EDS during this whole thing and I've been doing a lot more research and some of the stuff makes sense.

Speaker 2 Like some of the thoughts that maybe a KRE would make happen more is not. completely crazy.
The thing is, someone is taking that and now doing experimental brain surgeries.

Speaker 2 Again, it's like going step by step. These things are making sense, but then it becomes so niche and it becomes so extreme.
And as a physician, that is scary too.

Speaker 2 Like, am I going to somehow contribute to these extremes happening if I don't do my due diligence, you know, and question and ask all the things and do all the things?

Speaker 2 And it may feel like pushback, but it's not. It's more, I need to ease my, or I need to feel okay with it too, because I have been duped before, because things have gone the wrong way before.

Speaker 2 And, you know, there is some self-protection in that.

Speaker 2 But I don't think, again, there's bad doctors of all types and all ways, but I think the system is against us in these because of what is used by physicians and what is used by some patients and parents in these areas.

Speaker 1 I think it's really interesting your comment about you want to be wary of doctors that have like all five-star reviews. And I think

Speaker 1 because, you know, again, you like you take an oath, like being a doctor is serious business. You know, you take an oath, do no harm.
And it's not a service industry, right?

Speaker 1 Like, I mean, you know, you don't like your job as a doctor is not to make your patients happy it's to

Speaker 1 because you know more than them that's the whole reason you go to medical school right so i think that it really gets down to like and i think this comes up so much in these cases and again there's a lot of complex things going on here and they're feeding into each other but like in a month housing by proxy context the doctor who becomes the sainted doctor is the doctor who will not say no the doctor who will say yes to the more invasive procedure when other doctors are saying no the doctor who will not question the parent.

Speaker 1 And you see that it gets very, you know, they tend to split. practices, right?

Speaker 1 They will have doctors that are like on their side and they use this language of this doctor has my back, you know, and so often in these lawsuits, you will see one or two doctors are really pointed out.

Speaker 1 And those doctors can be a range of things happening. They can be doctors that just, again, didn't see any concerning behavior and are really attached to the family.
Like doctors are human beings.

Speaker 1 They can be doctors that specialize in a rare diagnosis. You know, when I think about like Dr.

Speaker 1 Mohamed Makati in the Sophie Hartman case, he doesn't strike me as someone who like put up a shingle to like give people this diagnosis and do procedures.

Speaker 1 But I wonder, especially because he is still treating that child, I wonder if he falls into this category, which I've also seen, you know, in the Mary Welch case with the doctor in Minnesota, where like sometimes if a doctor is very focused on something that is rare, they can be very susceptible to like becoming overly focused on it and becoming overly credulous of a patient and not wanting to question their patients if there's such a limited number of them.

Speaker 1 And that's a phenomenon that we talked about with some doctors. And so I think there's that kind of doctor, right?

Speaker 1 Where you have someone who is basically like a very good, very smart doctor, who's not like a profit-motivated doctor that is, you know, charging $55,000 for experimental procedures in between, you know, in between like sexually harassing his students, right?

Speaker 1 Or there are doctors that just are, again, being doctors are being human. There are doctors that are very susceptible to someone who is treating them like the hero.

Speaker 1 You're the one doctor who could save my child. You're the one doctor who understood us.
And sometimes there is one doctor, right? Like sometimes that happens.

Speaker 1 I think a lot of us have had a good experience with a physician where we're like, wow, I like had such a good experience with that person. That person really got what was going on with me.

Speaker 1 And that was just like such a good feeling.

Speaker 2 And then, but all 1,000 that have ever seen you are written a review, that just still doesn't.

Speaker 1 Right, right, right.

Speaker 1 And I think, and especially if those are sort of glowing, but I do think it's like, what's interesting about this doctor in particular is that here you have like the law, the lawsuits are clearly to me, the way I contextualize these lawsuits.

Speaker 1 And again, I don't, you know, there's so many of them and we will definitely go into detail about a few more of

Speaker 1 a few of them that really caught my eye. But, you know, on the whole, the stories that emerge from these, you know, dozens of malpractice lawsuits are really people that were credulous of him and

Speaker 1 probably were at the end of their rope with trying to figure out what was wrong with them or in a couple of these cases, wrong with their kid, right? And they're having these debilitating symptoms.

Speaker 1 And then to be told by someone that they have the answer and then go on this horrific odyssey of all these surgeries that were unnecessary and had complications, I mean, that's awful.

Speaker 1 So that's kind of shows that like people who are suffering from this constellation of symptoms are not being cared for properly by the medical establishment, which is why they got pushed to the margins of seeing someone like this.

Speaker 1 So on the one hand, you have all these people sort of saying, you know, this doctor is so unethical and he's doing all these these things.

Speaker 1 You have this entire chorus of people who are previous patients saying this. And then on the other hand, you have two suspected Munchausen by proxy perpetrators saying he's the expert.

Speaker 1 He's this credible neurosurgeon. The dissonance there makes you wonder, well, like, okay, do you consider him credible because he went along with what you were saying? And I just can't.

Speaker 1 I can't fathom in any world being a parent and sending my child to a person that had this reputation.

Speaker 1 I mean, I just, I don't see where you're a good parent if you do that and why that, how that's in the best interest of the child. You know, and that's like, that can be irrespective of muntas, right?

Speaker 1 There's other reasons that parents can do extreme things to their children medically.

Speaker 1 They could be over anxious. They could be convinced, genuinely convinced, there's something wrong with their child.

Speaker 1 They could have strange belief systems like people that question vaccine efficacy and decide. Unfortunately, that's a large number of people in this climate.

Speaker 1 So it's like, there are other reasons that people make bad medical decisions on behalf behalf of their children, but it's just very disturbing.

Speaker 1 And I'm very concerned about perpetrators recommending doctors like this.

Speaker 2 And these websites recommending too, I find that interesting because to me, if I'm running a nonprofit website about a specific condition, let's say KiRE, let's say EDS, let's say any of these things we've talked about, I would do my research on what physicians I am putting there as being, quote, on the medical board of advisors or being people that we recommend, right?

Speaker 2 Like at our hospital, we have a list of pediatricians in the community that we've heard good, you know, feedback, that get good, you know, all the things that we look into before we put them on this list to say, if you live in this area, this might be a good fit for you.

Speaker 2 But like, we're doing some work on that. The fact that they're either looking at it and turning a blind eye or they're not looking, whatever it is, that you're promoting it.

Speaker 2 To me, that's a frightening concept as well. That a place where people may go for assistance for a rare condition or a not so rare condition, as it probably turns out,

Speaker 2 that they would be directed. And like I said, that means there are going to be innocent people who truly are just looking for an answer and a reason that are going to get sucked in.

Speaker 2 And not to say the other people deserve it if they do it. It's just more like.

Speaker 2 This can go in both ways where there are people being harmed.

Speaker 2 It's just frightening.

Speaker 1 Well, and I think that it's worth sort of thinking about this in a broader context of, you know, I think all the time about the information ecosystem that we live in and how corrupted it is.

Speaker 1 It is very hard to get good information. It is very hard to know what information to trust.

Speaker 1 People do not have time to do public records requests and do that, like do hours and hours of research, right? And like, it's so concerning on both sides.

Speaker 1 It's concerning of people who genuinely have conditions that they are not seeking adequate, you know, getting adequate health care for.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's just like the whole context of this is so disturbing. Nothing about our healthcare system looks like it's going to get better anytime soon.

Speaker 1 You know, if this current legislation passes the Senate, a ton of people are about to get kicked off their health insurance altogether.

Speaker 1 So I understand where people are feeling really desperate for a lot of reasons with regards to their medical care. And also just, you know, the way that like social media plays into this.

Speaker 1 I mean, I bex, I i sent you a screenshot but for some reason and i will say i am very vigilant about keeping anything munchausen by proxy or medical related off of my tick tock my tick tock is i am just a lurker on tiktok

Speaker 1 just watch one though oh my god and like so i don't know how this infiltrated my tick tock but for the last week i keep seeing ads pop up for an ehlers danlos test that you can mail order and i just again i have not done any deep dive on what is being advertised to me because i don't don't think I want to know at this time.

Speaker 1 But I mean, it's so frightening to just think how much opportunity for exploitation there is of patients and then also of, you know, of children of perpetrators, because I think that this is sort of a, you know, it's a, it's a real mixed bag and it harms the children that do not need these procedures and it also harms the community of people who do need treatment by delegitimizing it.

Speaker 1 And I always just want to say as many times as possible to those folks that do have, you know, POTS and do have EDS and do have other, you know, mysterious pain conditions, which certainly exist and certainly are, you know, some of these are much more common in women.

Speaker 1 And we know that misogyny, medical misogyny exists, and people get questioned for all kinds of things and that, um, and people can get dismissed by the medical system.

Speaker 1 Like, we absolutely recognize this, and we also recognize the additional damage that these doctors and abusers are doing to these communities, and that is what we are out to explore.

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Bex, any final thoughts on this radio case? Again, we will be back on this case.

Speaker 1 I mean, I am feeling, I think as we've, you know, made our way through this lawsuit and these allegations, I will say, I do not understand why this is still in the courts.

Speaker 1 This is such a wild conspiracy theory set of allegations. This seems so bananas on its face

Speaker 1 that I'm feeling frustrated that we're even talking about it, to be frank. We will, obviously.
But yeah, how are you?

Speaker 1 How are you feeling now that we've kind of waded through this lawsuit and some of the elements that it's brought up?

Speaker 2 I think there are days I say I'm not shocked by anything anymore. And then I still am reviewing these things.
And somewhere along the way, I'm like, what the, like, what?

Speaker 2 Like, how there are all these interconnections.

Speaker 2 And I think that's where I'm starting to really, if you want to know, like, my rabbit hole of du jour of the day is definitely this idea that if you had one of those boards where you're connecting the red strings to things, like.

Speaker 2 they exist. The red strings exist.
Why do they exist? Like, I think, and that's at the heart of it. It can't all be innocent.
It can't all be because everyone just wants what's best for these kids.

Speaker 2 It's just, there's too many strings and too many question marks and too many so far out of the

Speaker 2 standard of care for physicians, so far out of a normal parent and what they would do for their child. It's just,

Speaker 2 and then the connections between them, how they all know each other, how there's some doctor they all saw, how you can really find these links.

Speaker 2 And the unfortunate piece of that is exactly what you said.

Speaker 2 The people that really have those diagnoses, the people that really are looking for treatment, the doctors that are really trying to work with patients with EDS and do it right and go through the right steps end up being the bad guys because they aren't doing those things or because they are saying no.

Speaker 2 Like sometimes having a backbone as a physician is also putting yourself in the crosshairs. I find it interesting.

Speaker 2 The lawsuit, the Rady's lawsuit, there are mentions of Madison having been used as a guinea pig and an experiment of Dr.

Speaker 2 Shaylin Ninow and the team there, you know, because of all the things you talked about at the beginning of this episode. And yet, you look, this guy has 40 lawsuits actually saying,

Speaker 2 saying that is a concern. So, again, to me, it's just, it's mind-blowing that the people that are so upset about this one thing are the ones taking their kids to these other people.

Speaker 2 And I think that's how this system, it's just breaking down on all levels for these kids, where, you know, in the true Munchausen by proxy cases, it's the child who's left.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, everything.
I agree with you. And I think like so much of the language in these lawsuits, this is a singularly wild one for me.

Speaker 1 I think because of the allegations of, you know, that we covered with Dr. Mary Sanders, this allegations of them implanting false memories of her being sexually abused.

Speaker 1 And then like to the point that she believed them so much that she attempted suicide and then left this note.

Speaker 1 And like, it's just, and then, you know, and it's like, it has so many hallmarks of a conspiracy theory where it's like, oh, every then piece, every development is then used as further evidence of a conspiracy rather than looking at like, oh, wow, like if all of these people are saying this, again, kind of back to my way of, you know, when I talk, when you talk about like metabolizing allegations against someone, right?

Speaker 1 So it's like, if one person accuses, you know, a famous man of sexual assault, like, okay, then you look at that on its merits.

Speaker 1 But if 40 other women come up, okay, then that just paints a very different picture. And what this lawsuit is doing is the opposite, right?

Speaker 1 You're saying like, okay, one doctor, because sure, I will buy that one doctor can be wrong about abuse. Of course.
And that's why you do an investigation, right?

Speaker 1 Like that's, they're not all like, you know, a large percentage of referrals that go to abuse networks are not founded. Now, that doesn't mean that child is never being abused.

Speaker 1 You know, it doesn't, we can't glean a lot from that, but it's like, yes, of course, are there things that look suspicious and then there don't turn out to be abuse? Sure.

Speaker 1 And if you're telling me one doctor, I would even believe that one doctor really gets it in their head that it's abuse.

Speaker 1 And, but when you're telling me it's a group of doctors and a group of social workers, you know, and it's like across different facilities.

Speaker 2 And why didn't you include the one that doesn't?

Speaker 1 Right. And it's like, it's like, okay, so if you're using that as like, oh, every other person that comes forward is just evidence of a bigger and bigger conspiracy, then you have a conspiracy theory.

Speaker 1 It's an implausibly large, nothing leaked. And again, importantly, in this lawsuit, they are not presenting anything that I would consider

Speaker 1 evidence. that this was a false allegation, right? They're positing a theory that these were falsely implanted memories, which again is not a theory that holds water in this case.

Speaker 1 They're presenting this idea that they left out exculpatory evidence and their exculpatory evidence is Balignacy and these other doctors thinking it was not abuse or not finding, you know,

Speaker 1 not finding evidence of abuse. They're not saying something like, oh, Dr.
Ninao used

Speaker 1 radiologist images from another child and presented them as Madison. They're not saying, saying, oh, she tampered with the video evidence.
They're not saying she falsified test results.

Speaker 1 They're not actually giving you any evidence that this happened. It's all just sort of an argument about why they're doing what they're doing.

Speaker 1 And again, I think there's a lot of this projecting of motives, right? Like the reason. So it's like, okay, you ask, like, why is this person doing this, right?

Speaker 1 Like, why would any of these doctors do this? And they're like, to protect their reputations, to, you know, self-aggrandize. And it's kind of Munchausen motives.

Speaker 1 You know, in the Sophie Hartman lawsuit, it's specifically called out like they're doing a Munchhausen by proxy by proxy. You know, like they just needed so much to find patients to make this.

Speaker 1 And it's like, everyone needs to like take a deep breath and take a step back and just say, like, why would dozens of medical professionals and child protection professionals and people who work in a treatment center all conspire to get this one teenager away from her parents?

Speaker 1 Like, there is no reason. There's no motive, financial, reputational, there's no motive at all.
So other than protecting the child.

Speaker 1 And so I cannot conceive of a scenario where this situation is true, because it would literally be precedent setting, like in the history of the world for a conspiracy like this to have happened.

Speaker 1 And I think people need to evaluate on this context. It's like, boy, if they're going to prove this in court, that would take some absolutely wild evidence.

Speaker 1 And I think the other thing people need to understand about like, because I question you, that's like, why did the, why did this judge not just not throw this out?

Speaker 1 Well, I think the thing that I have really has been dawning on me since the the Kwalski case is that I went into that case thinking, don't these people understand

Speaker 1 that this could completely demolish protections for mandated reporters? And then I realized, oh, yes. And that's the point.

Speaker 1 These ideas that child abuse should be outlawed, they are so new.

Speaker 1 This like in our society, I mean, our colleagues on the AppStack Committee Bex, a lot of them were practicing before mandated reporting laws were in place.

Speaker 1 And they know what the world looked like before then in terms terms of reporting. And as Mary Sanders was talking about, this huge flood of cases came out once those protections were in place.

Speaker 1 There are people that want to go back to that because they have different beliefs about when intervention should happen within families. And we need to look at that.

Speaker 1 It's, it's much like to me, this march, you know, this chipping away that happened at Roe v. Wade until it was overturned.
I think that's what we're in the middle of.

Speaker 1 And the media is not treating this responsibly.

Speaker 1 And I think we need to sound the alarm that what is happening with this series of lawsuits, there's also the one, you know, the lawsuit in Lehigh, Pennsylvania that we're going to cover.

Speaker 1 This series of lawsuits is meant to overturn protections for mandated reporters. That's what it's trying to do.

Speaker 1 There is this movement that parents should have rights over their children's medical decisions. You know, a lot of it is focused on sort of trans youth care and vaccine stuff,

Speaker 1 but like, this is part of that. There are people that just do not think that these interventions should be happening.
And this is meant to get rid of the protections for people that exist now.

Speaker 2 And there are a lot of Palo Bell Polynesians out there who don't have 40 medical malpractice lawsuits against them, but who to me are my bigger concern. And that's me as a pediatrician.

Speaker 2 That's me as a mom. That's me as an American.
I don't know that I have bigger concerns about these physicians and what they're doing than I do about child protection, child abuse pediatricians.

Speaker 2 And some of that comes from what I know and what I do. And some of that comes from what you just said, which is there is nothing in it for them.

Speaker 2 Like you want to make a bunch of residents laugh, say, who's going to be a child abuse fellow? Like, who's going to do a fellowship in this? Because

Speaker 1 would you like, would you like a grueling, not well-paid position where you have to do some of the hardest work imaginable and you will be prime target for a lawsuit? Come right up.

Speaker 2 And a lawsuit that's going to make the news and a lawsuit that's going to be humongous and a lawsuit that's going to not just question you, but question your whole

Speaker 2 field of study.

Speaker 1 Again, you too could be the villain of a Netflix film because you have bitch face support sometimes. Guess what? Come on down.

Speaker 2 A lot of people are still becoming neurosurgeons.

Speaker 2 And I think it really just goes to say that the balance for who is benefiting from what they're doing and who is not benefiting from what they're doing is astronomical in terms of these niche practices, doing these niche things, doing their own research, selling their own vitamins that were, you know, all these things versus these child abuse pediatricians.

Speaker 2 And these are the ones that we're going to lose. Like we are not going to have this specialty anymore, probably because no one is going to want to do it.

Speaker 2 And these are the ones that worry me so much more as a physician.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you can't really market

Speaker 1 as a child abuse pediatrician.

Speaker 1 Nobody wants to go see the child abuse pedicule. Yeah.
Right. Oh, yeah.
And I'm just, yeah, it's like, you can't just be like, hey, I'm going to charge you like $5,000 out of pocket.

Speaker 1 $5,000 for an evaluation. Come see me.

Speaker 1 You know, like, that's so absurd because it's like, that is with, you know, with Sally Smith, they were trying to say that there was like some profit motive there. And it's just preposterous.

Speaker 1 But anyway, we could probably go on about this for another hour, but we'll end it here.

Speaker 1 Thank you so much, Bex, for being with us, for covering this case. And we will be back next week with.
episode one of season six. I have my absolute nose to the grindstone.

Speaker 1 So does the rest of my team. And I will just say buckle in is not strong enough.
I'm so proud of the work we've done on this season. And

Speaker 1 I hope so many people listen to it. It's a really sad, horrifying, explosive case.
And you can listen to all eight episodes if you're a subscriber.

Speaker 1 That sounds like a big plug, but oh well, there's, I just got chilled.

Speaker 1 And I will just say, I will say, if you are with us every week, you will get a new episode every week, but we are putting them all in the can. So we are very busy

Speaker 1 because we got so much feedback from all of you that you really liked having all eight episodes to listen to as subscribers from the get-go.

Speaker 1 So if you are a subscriber on Apple or Patreon, you will get all eight episodes of the series in your feed on that day.

Speaker 1 And thank you for listening. Thank you for supporting this show.
You are enabling me to keep doing this work and I appreciate you so much.

Speaker 2 Same for me. Thanks, everybody.

Speaker 1 This episode of Nobody Should Believe Me Case Files was hosted and executive produced by me, Andrea Dunlop. Dr.
Becks is my co-host. Mariah Gossett is our supervising producer.

Speaker 1 Greta Stromquist is our producer and editor. Aaron Ajayi is our fact-checker.
And thanks also to Nola Karmouche for administrative support.

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