Mayo Blasted Over Doc’s Suspension; Hospital’s Preventable Deaths; Peds Group’s Rise

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

Academics Blast Mayo Over Doctor’s Suspension

Dozens of academics from leading universities, including Harvard and Columbia, wrote a letter to Mayo Clinic to protest its decision to suspend a physician who publicly criticized a federal agency, according to CNN.

The professors who wrote the letter said Mayo’s decision to suspend Michael Joyner, MD, puts “academic freedom in jeopardy” and this decision will “tarnish Mayo’s reputation among the many who have always thought of Mayo as a beacon of scientific integrity.”

Joyner, who was a principal investigator on a government-funded study, was suspended in March after saying he was “frustrated” with the NIH’s “bureaucratic rope-a-dope.” He also called the agency’s COVID-19 treatment guidelines a “wet blanket” and said its policies discourage physicians from offering promising treatment options to their patients.

Joyner was suspended for a week without pay. He was also told to speak with the press only about approved topics and to stay on message. Mayo also threatened to terminate his employment if he failed to comply in the future.

The letter in support of Joyner said Mayo was “persecuting one of its most senior and valuable professors” and claimed that the organization is “sending a terrible message not only to its other faculty, but also to other institutions in academic medicine.”

Other organizations, including the Academic Freedom Alliance, have written letters calling the suspension and threats of termination a direct attack on academic freedoms.

A spokesperson for Mayo told CNN that the organization “disciplined Dr. Joyner for treating coworkers disrespectfully and for making unprofessional comments” related to the NIH.

Transplant Center’s Preventable Deaths

A prominent liver transplant surgeon who famously operated on Apple co-founder Steve Jobs came under intense scrutiny after an internal investigation found that numerous errors contributed to patients deaths, according to ProPublica.

James Eason, MD, led the Methodist University Hospital transplant program in Memphis to an outward appearance of success, according to ProPublica. Long after his liver transplant, Jobs’ widow reportedly donated about $40 million to the transplant center, and in 2019, Methodist named its new liver transplant center the James D. Eason Transplant Institute.

However, in 2018, the hospital had hired a consulting firm to conduct an internal audit into alarming declines in patient outcomes, including 48 patient deaths from 2014 to 2018. The audit determined that more than half — 25 deaths — were preventable.

According to internal documents, those deaths led to several health insurers choosing to remove the liver program from their preferred networks.

The report also revealed that the culture of the transplant center contributed to those deaths, including protocol issues or green-lighting transplants for patients who “should not have been listed” due to pre-existing conditions. The internal audit also found that when patients died, Methodist staffers did not tell their families the extent of the issues that contributed to their deaths.

Methodist and Eason declined to address specific cases or issues regarding the liver program, even when families of the deceased patients waived their privacy rights. Still, the audit and other investigations increased pressure on the hospital to act, according to ProPublica.

In August 2022, Eason was removed as the head of the transplant institute, which also no longer has Eason’s name on the front of the building.

The Rise of a Controversial Pediatrician Group

The American College of Pediatricians (ACP), which is run by a small group of politically conservative physicians, has gained outsized influence through lobbying and spreading medical misinformation using conservative media, according to The Washington Post.

Records show that the ACP struggled for years to recruit new members, but its influence has since grown around the country, according to a large leak of ACP’s internal documents.

In fact, the organization successfully lobbied for laws to ban gender-affirming care for transgender children in several states. It accomplished this by having its members testify before state legislatures against recommendations made by other mainstream medical organizations about the treatment, according to the article.

In another example, ACP was involved in the federal lawsuit to limit access to mifepristone, the abortion drug that became a political touchstone in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade last June.

But those efforts to gain power and influence have also cemented the organization’s reputation among the medical establishment, which view the ACP with skepticism, the Post noted.

The ACP has a history of presenting medical misinformation in the form of practiced talking points and seemingly credible statistics on a range of topics, such as conversion therapy, to local lawmakers, public school officials, and the public, the Post reported. This approach gives the appearance that their positions are based on settled science.

Jill Simons, executive director of the ACP, refuted that the organization pushes unscientific policies and claimed it bases all of its policy position on medical research and “what is best for children.”