Print
 
JUSTICE REFORM COALITION PRESS RELEASE
Contact: Rev Ashiya Odeye
JUSTICE REFORM COALITION
Phone: 916 893-9793 Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
 
October 6, 2014: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Sacramento Woman of Color activist files civil and criminal claims
 
Mercy San Juan Hospital and Mercy Medical Group Doctors Sued in Civil Court for Medical Battery, Fraud, and Breach of Contract. Criminal Complaints of Fraud and Falsification of Medical Records Filed.
 
Suzanne Brooks, former patient of Mercy Medical Group and Mercy San Juan Hospital has filed civil and criminal complaints against Mercy San Juan Hospital, Dr. Wiley Fowler, Dr. Javid Javidan and 20 et al for failing to adhere to the surgical plan they made with her and 6 doctors during 6 months of consultation, examinations, tests and discussion during which she asked to have a cyst removed.
 
If the cyst was attached to her bladder, Urologist Javidan committed to removing it. If the cyst was attached to her left ovary, Gynecologist Fowler committed to removing the cyst and her left ovary. Her right ovary was not to be removed unless cancer was found during the surgery. Because another Mercy Group Gynecologist to whom Brooks was first referred adamantly wanted to “take everything out while I’m there,” Brooks refused to be his patient and secured a second referral—to Dr. Fowler. Fowler agreed not to remove the right ovary if there was no cancer present. No cancer was present anywhere. The cyst was benign. Yet Fowler removed both ovaries anyway and now claims it disappeared or didn’t exist, despite evidence to the contrary. (The unnecessary removal of the reproductive organs of women of color, especially African Americans, has been a long standing continuing issue with racism in the health professions.)
 
Examination, consultation and studies ordered by her endocrinologist prior to the surgery documents that Brooks had 2 functioning ovaries until the surgery by Fowler. The endocrinologist also advised against removal of the right ovary because removing both can bring serious health risks. Still months before the surgery took place, because of concern that, despite Fowler’s agreement not to remove her right ovary, he might do it anyway, Brooks sought a female gynecologist among Mercy Medical doctors and was referred to one. Because this gynecologist was not a surgeon, she suggested Brooks engage Urologist Javidan to be present at the beginning of the surgery and that he be selected to perform the surgery if the cyst was attached to her bladder. Javidan agreed to this role and confirmed the plan by telephone with Dr. Fowler with Brooks in his office listening to their discussion on the speakerphone. This plan was conveyed to her primary care doctor, Afshine Ghaemi and her endocrinologist, along with many friends and relatives, including the nurse practitioner who took her to the hospital and cared for her after the surgery.
 
On the day of the surgery, a surgical nurse brought Brooks a final consent form which stated that the purpose of the surgery was to remove both ovaries. The cyst was not mentioned. Brooks refused to sign consent for this surgery which was not what she agreed to and refused anesthesia until the form was corrected. Fowler was notified but was not pleased to correct the form. Following discussion, Fowler hand corrected the consent form so that it stated that the cyst and left ovary, but not the right ovary were to be removed—if the cyst was attached to the left ovary and that if the cyst was attached to the bladder, Javidan would remove it. Brooks initialed the changes. Brooks asked to see Javidan before anesthesia to make sure that he was there and would take over the surgery if the cyst was on the bladder. Brooks later learned that Javidan never entered her operating room but instead operated on someone else.
 
After the 2012 surgery, Fowler told Brooks that the right ovary had apparently disappeared, that “someone else must have taken it out another time.” When physically recovered, Brooks requested copies of her medical records and especially the final consent form. When she received them, she discovered that page one of the corrected final consent form had been removed and replaced with a page she had never seen. The new page, in a distinct new handwriting, stated that the purpose of the surgery was to remove the cyst, left ovary and left fallopian tube. Such a purpose was not possible because Brooks’s fallopian tubes had been removed more than 30 years ago. Brooks believes the mention of the fallopian tube was made to cover for the substance of the right ovary which was removed, sent to the lab in an unverified report, relying only on Fowler’s statement re what they were.
 
Falsification of medical records is both a federal and state misdemeanor. Since the District Attorney’s office and the Sacramento Sheriff have both refused to investigate, despite extensive evidence provided to the Sheriff’s office, complaints are being filed with other enforcement agencies and civil rights organizations. “I may be like David up against Goliath,” says Brooks, “but justice in this case is important not only for me, but for all the other women of color who experience the unwarranted removal of their reproductive organs without their consent and, in my case, against my will as was made clear in 6 months of discussion and promises by Fowler and Javidan and assurances by Ghaemi. It has been reported that nearly 150 women in California prisons have been surgically sterilized in similar ways between 2006 and 2010. This is not an uncommon experience for women of color. It is time that it is stopped.”



History and Background (Wikipedia)
 Sterilization Law
As an early leading force in the field of eugenics, California became the third state in the United States to enact a sterilization law. By 1921, California had accounted for 80% of the sterilizations nationwide. This continued until World War II, after which the number of sterilizations began to decrease, largely due to the fallout of Hitler's eugenics movement.[1] There were about 20,000 forced sterilizations in California between 1909 and 1963.[2]
California state agencies and institutions records Records of eugenics practices in California are held at the following agencies and institutions. The records are still protected for confidentiality reasons.
California State Archives, Sacramento Sonoma State Hospital Records
Mendocino State Hospital Records
Modesto State Hospital Records
California Youth Authority/Whittier State Home Records
Department of Mental Hygiene Records (incomplete)
Legislative Histories (microfilm)
Patton State Hospital Patton State Hospital Records
Napa State Hospital Napa (Fairview) State Hospital Records Stockton State Hospital Records
Dewitt State Hospital Record
Modesto State Hospital Records Camarillo State Hospital Records
 
 General forms of eugenics in California
 In California, “[eugenics] was always linked to the use of land: to agriculture and plant hybridization”.[3] Many of the powerful social workers, doctors, psychiatrists, and biologists, sought to hurt many of California’s Mexican, Indian, and Asian populations through the exclusionary laws that those scientists propose. In addition to the conquest to hurt the “undesirables” in the state, the California Eugenics plan also was a way to save the state money so they could eliminate the money the state spends on welfare and other programs that help the less fortunate.[3] Eugenics takes take three forms in California:
1.limiting the number of children for whom a woman on welfare can get state support,
2.coercing drug-addicted women to surrender reproductive capacities and
3.forcing contraception use a term of probation.[3] In previous years, California had focused on applying eugenics indirectly to humans as a form of “societal benefit”. Now, the eugenicists of the state only focus their resources to save the state money.
 
Prominent Californian eugenicists[edit]
David Starr Jordan: Founding president of Stanford University[4] and chairman of the American Eugenics Commission, vice-president of the American Society for Social Hygiene, and vice-president of the Eugenics Education Society of London.[5]
Charles Goethe: First chairman of the board of trustees for California State University, Sacramento and founder of the Eugenics Society of Northern California.[6]
Ulysses Sigel Webb: Attorney General of California for 37 years,[7] and enthusiastic promoter of the Californian forced sterilization laws.[8]
Frederick Winslow Hatch: Secretary of the State Lunacy Commission in California, and later became the General Superintendent of State Hospitals.[9]
Ezra Seymour Gosney: Philanthropist to the first California council of the Boy Scouts of America,and donated $12,500 to Polytechnic School. He also authored, "Sterilization for Human Betterment: A Summary of Results of 6,000 Operations in California, 1909-1929," as well as founded the Human Betterment Foundation.[9]
Louis Terman: Creator of the IQ test, and member of the eugenic group, the Human Betterment Foundation. A middle school in Palo Alto California, Terman Middle School is named after him.
Robert Andrews Millikan: Director of the Norman Bridge Laboratory of Physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, California, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics, and member of the Human Betterment Foundation.[9]
 
Madrigal v. Quilligan
Dolores Madrigal entered the University of Southern California’s medical center on October 12, 1973, in order to give birth to her second child. During her time in labor, she was given a consent form and coerced by doctors into having a tubal ligation, effectively sterilizing her. Madrigal insisted that “No one at the medical center informed me that a tubal ligation operation was going to performed on me. No one at the medical center informed me of what a tubal ligation operation consists nor of its permanent effects” (Enoch, 5). Rebecca M. Kluchin found while researching the case that “Physicians preferred to perform cesarean sections and tubal ligations in tandem to minimize risks associated with infection and anesthesia, as well as to reduce medical costs. It appears that at this hospital physicians who performed emergency cesarean sections sometimes used the opportunity to persuade a woman to accept permanent contraception”.[10]
 
In July 1976 Madrigal sued the University of Southern California medical center, accompanied by Guadalupe Acosta, Estela Benavides, Consuelo Hermosillo, Georgina Hernandez, Maria Hurtado, Maria Figueroa, Rebecca Figueroa, Jovita Rivera, and Helena Orozco. Each of the nine other women who joined the class action lawsuit complained of similar proceedings. Together, these 10 chicanas decided to sue the USC medical center, contending that they had never given their informed consent to have the tubal ligation procedure performed. Karen Benker testified that “poor minority women in L.A. County were having too many babies; that it was a strain on society; and that it was good that they be sterilized".[11]
 
Despite Benker’s testimony and other corroborating evidence, Judge Jesse Curtis ruled in favor of the defendants, stating that there had been nothing more than “a breakdown in communication between the patients and the doctors” (Stern 1135). He went on to say that it was appropriate for an obstetrician to believe that a tubal ligation could help diminish overpopulation as long as they did not attempt to “overpower the will of his patients”.[11]
 
Eugenics in California prisons
In 1909 a eugenics law was passed in California allowing for state institutions to sterilize those deemed “unfit” or “feeble-minded”.[12] As one of the leading states in forced sterilization victims, California’s sterilization procedures primarily took place in state mental hospitals. Dr. Leo Stanley was one of the first people to bring the eugenics movement to California’s prisons.
 
Stanley was San Quentin penitentiary’s chief surgeon and was particularly interested in eliminating those deemed “unfit” for society. His avid eugenic-based surgeries were the first of its kind to been seen in a prison. Taking place between 1930 and 1959, the peak of the eugenics movement, Stanley's surgeries were driven by the idea of purifying criminals. Through testicular surgeries, he believed he could cultivate socially ‘fit’ individuals by replacing a prisoner’s testicles with those of a deceased male previously deemed socially ‘fit’. His practices spawned early ideologies of “white manhood," which stemmed from his belief that he could "help a new, ideal man emerge".[13]
 
Use of human and even animal testicles made Stanley’s procedures highly unsuccessful and all around bizarre. His desire to restore social morality, along with his fascination with the endocrine system, fueled his research. Throughout the time of his procedures, criminals were believed to have something anatomically off that drove them to commit crimes. This belief inspired Stanley to explore the endocrine system’s role in the criminology of a person. By persuading inmates that his testicular surgeries would produce favorable results in their sex lives he sterilized more than 600 prisoners by the end of his career.[13] Stanley’s prison work concluded upon the start of World War II where he served overseas, only to retire as a eugenic pioneer.
 
Human Betterment Foundation
The Human Betterment Foundation (HBF) was established in Pasadena, California in 1928. Led by E.S. Gosney it researched with an aim “to foster and aid constructive and educational forces for the protection and betterment of the human family in body, mind, character, and citizenship”. In 1929 E.S. Gosney set up the Human Betterment Foundation and gathered twenty-five of the leading scientists, philanthropists, and community leaders to carry out research on the effects of sterilization for thirteen years (Valone). Gosney also used the HBF to distribute the product of his research, “Sterilization for Human Betterment” which attracted attention from the nearby university, the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Robert A. Millikan, a leading faculty member and proponent of Caltech, was looking for potential donors to the university and shared many of Gosney’s views in his work decided to join the HBF board.
 
Lois Gosney Castle and the board of trustees eventually liquidated the foundation and turned the proceeds over to Caltech. Thirteen years after publishing the 1929 report entitled "Sterilization for Human Betterment,” the HBF continued to carry out research on the effects of sterilization and undertook widespread distribution of the report to individuals, public libraries, and schools. After the liquidation files were found in 1968, but since they contained personal medical information, they were legally closed to researchers.[14]