Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / YOUNG MOM DEAD from DIET SURGERY

Transcript

YOUNG MOM DEAD from DIET SURGERY · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime stories with Nancy Greece.
0:13
Speaker 2: Dying to be skinny. Look around, everybody you know is
0:20
Speaker 2: working out exhaustively.
0:21
Speaker 3: I'm fine with that.
0:23
Speaker 2: They're drastically limiting the intake of calories.
0:28
Speaker 3: Well, at least they say they are.
0:31
Speaker 2: And they're getting plastic surgery.
0:34
Speaker 3: I'm not judging.
0:35
Speaker 2: I don't care.
0:36
Speaker 3: I could probably use all of that.
0:39
Speaker 2: But tourism to other countries plastic surgery tourism is taking
0:50
Speaker 2: over our country. Going to other countries or provinces to
0:56
Speaker 2: have cheaper plastic surgery is alarming, ending in death. These
1:04
Speaker 2: are very often beautiful young women, moms that decide they
1:11
Speaker 2: want to change it up and they can go overseas
1:15
Speaker 2: for affordable surgery. They never see their families again. Listen again,
1:25
Speaker 2: I'm not judging. My mother, who's about to turn ninety two.
1:28
Speaker 2: One of dental implants. She told me recently she was
1:31
Speaker 2: going to Mexico to get implants. Everybody she knows and
1:36
Speaker 2: her little circle what's supporting her. I was the only
1:40
Speaker 2: one that said, no, you will die in Iijuana or
1:45
Speaker 2: wherever you're going.
1:46
Speaker 4: No.
1:48
Speaker 2: She ended up going into a savings account to get
1:52
Speaker 2: the dental implants here in the US. But guess what
1:55
Speaker 2: she's alive. I mean, see Grace, this is crime Stories.
2:00
Speaker 2: Thank you for being with us here at faccination in
2:02
Speaker 2: Serie six, sem one eleven. Believe it or not, these
2:05
Speaker 2: moms aren't getting carjack nobody's breaking into their homes to
2:09
Speaker 2: steal their VCR and their TV. They are willingly going
2:13
Speaker 2: abroad for plastic surgery, tourism and coming home in a box.
2:21
Speaker 2: This was brought to the forefront just recently with the
2:26
Speaker 2: death of the beautiful, the talented Lisa Marie Lisa Marie Presley,
2:32
Speaker 2: the daughter the only child of Elvis Presley. There was
2:36
Speaker 2: a lot of speculation. Why did she die? Was just
2:39
Speaker 2: an overdose?
2:40
Speaker 3: Was she drunk?
2:41
Speaker 2: All sorts of cruel comments were made. But she actually
2:47
Speaker 2: passed away, we learned recently due to a complication of
2:51
Speaker 2: buriatric weight loss surgery. What is that?
2:57
Speaker 3: And if Lisa.
2:58
Speaker 2: Marie can't be protected, what about us regular people? Take
3:02
Speaker 2: a listen to our friends at NBC.
3:04
Speaker 5: Six months after the sudden passing of Lisa Marie Presley,
3:07
Speaker 5: the only child of music icon Elvis Presley, bla County
3:10
Speaker 5: medical examiner saying she suffered from a small bowel obstruction
3:14
Speaker 5: that likely developed after she underwent bariatric surgery years ago.
3:18
Speaker 5: Presley had been complaining of abdominal pain on the morning
3:21
Speaker 5: of her death, according to the autopsy, and was later
3:24
Speaker 5: found unresponsive at home. Small bowel obstruction is a known
3:28
Speaker 5: long term complication of bariatric weight loss surgery, and.
3:31
Speaker 2: It was very unexpected because just literally about seventy two
3:36
Speaker 2: hours before she passed away, she was making a public
3:40
Speaker 2: appearance and talking about her dad, Elvis Presley. Take a
3:43
Speaker 2: listen to our friends at NBC and our cut three.
3:46
Speaker 5: Just days before she died, Presley was at Graceland taking
3:49
Speaker 5: part in a big celebration for what would have been
3:51
Speaker 5: her famous father's eightieth birthday.
3:54
Speaker 3: I think that Hugh be proud. I think the movie
3:57
Speaker 3: was incredible.
3:58
Speaker 5: Just two days later, she attended the Golden Globes celebrating
4:01
Speaker 5: the movie Elvis. Following her sudden passing, Lisa Marie was
4:05
Speaker 5: buried at her childhood home, Graceland, alongside her son Benjamin
4:09
Speaker 5: and her legendary father, who died in nineteen seventy.
4:12
Speaker 2: Seven buriatric weight loss surgery. It seems like Lisa Marie
4:19
Speaker 2: did not see it coming.
4:20
Speaker 5: Take a listener cut to bariatric surgery refers to gastric
4:24
Speaker 5: bypass and other weight loss surgeries, the medical examiner noting
4:28
Speaker 5: that Presley did not seek medical attention despite experiencing abdominal
4:31
Speaker 5: pain for several months. The autopsy also revealing that Presley,
4:35
Speaker 5: who had long been open about her struggles with addiction
4:38
Speaker 5: and mental health, had therapeutic levels of the pain reliever
4:42
Speaker 5: oxycodone in her blood, but the report says that that
4:45
Speaker 5: did not contribute to her death.
4:47
Speaker 2: When you are hurting so badly, you have take oxy
4:49
Speaker 2: cotone as a result of bariatric surgery. With me an
4:55
Speaker 2: All Star panel to make sense of what we know
4:57
Speaker 2: right now again, I'm Nancy Grace, and this is Crimes Stories.
5:00
Speaker 2: I want to thank you for being with us. Another
5:03
Speaker 2: woman dead after a botched surgery, and I'm referring specifically
5:08
Speaker 2: to a young mom Keiki McIntyre and another young mom,
5:14
Speaker 2: Justine Rodriguez. One is thirty three, one is thirty four
5:18
Speaker 2: at the time of their death. Again with me an
5:20
Speaker 2: All Star panel. But first I want to go to
5:23
Speaker 2: doctor Stephanie Porous plastic Surgeon out of Orlando at Porous
5:29
Speaker 2: plastic Surgery dot Com. I'd like to also point out
5:33
Speaker 2: she would never tell you this herself. She has the
5:36
Speaker 2: only female owned and operated plastic surgery practice in Orlando.
5:41
Speaker 2: Doctor Poris, thank you for being with us. Could you
5:43
Speaker 2: explain and regular people talk, not medical doctor talk. What
5:49
Speaker 2: is bariatric surgery?
5:51
Speaker 3: What is that?
5:52
Speaker 6: So beriatric surgery? It's become a lot more popularized within
5:56
Speaker 6: the last ten to twenty years as the techniques of
5:59
Speaker 6: doing it changed and become safer. Basically, it's a procedure
6:04
Speaker 6: to reduce the size of the stomach or bypass it
6:07
Speaker 6: all together in order to obtain weight loss. So there's
6:11
Speaker 6: different modalities that we use in surgery to do this,
6:14
Speaker 6: and depending on the modality you have will depend on
6:17
Speaker 6: the surgery that is done.
6:18
Speaker 3: Right, what is modality?
6:20
Speaker 6: So depending on the type of surgery, So if it's
6:23
Speaker 6: a stomach shrinking procedure or stomach bypassing procedure, each of
6:27
Speaker 6: these procedures that you can have done can lead to
6:31
Speaker 6: different outcomes and different amounts of weight loss and different
6:35
Speaker 6: forms of complications. And so we're seeing all kinds of
6:38
Speaker 6: different complications, but a lot of these procedures are done
6:41
Speaker 6: very safely. Within the last ten years, we've really improved
6:45
Speaker 6: the way we do bariatric surgery.
6:47
Speaker 3: Okay, could do again dumbing down?
6:49
Speaker 2: What exactly do you do when you perform buryatric weight
6:55
Speaker 2: loss surgery?
6:56
Speaker 6: So, if you're doing a stomach shrinking operation, you're actually
6:59
Speaker 6: cutting part of the stomach to reduce the size of
7:03
Speaker 6: the stomach altogether, so to decrease the amount of food
7:07
Speaker 6: that can fit into the stomach, thereby decreasing the amount
7:10
Speaker 6: of CLOrk intake that you can consume, which will end
7:14
Speaker 6: up causing weight loss. So that's one type of procedure
7:17
Speaker 6: that can be done. Another type of receipt procedure is
7:20
Speaker 6: bypassing the stomach altogether, and so this actually creates an
7:24
Speaker 6: even smaller potential for cloric intake and decrease hunger, thereby
7:30
Speaker 6: also reducing the amount of calorie that you can take
7:32
Speaker 6: in and giving you more weight loss.
7:35
Speaker 2: When you say you bypass the stomach altogether, what does
7:39
Speaker 2: that mean? How do you do that?
7:41
Speaker 6: So you can actually essentially feed right from the esophagus
7:47
Speaker 6: into the small intestine.
7:49
Speaker 2: But how do you do that? You ate, It goes
7:51
Speaker 2: in your mouth, it goes down your throat and into
7:55
Speaker 2: your esophagus and then and to your stomach. But instead
7:59
Speaker 2: of going to your stomach, you reroute it like the
8:03
Speaker 2: perimeter around a big city, correct, but you rerout it
8:07
Speaker 2: with what what do you put in the stump? What
8:09
Speaker 2: do you put inside the woman the person's body to
8:12
Speaker 2: take the food from the esophagus straight to the intestine,
8:15
Speaker 2: never goes in the stomach. I mean, how do you live,
8:17
Speaker 2: how do you have nutrition?
8:19
Speaker 6: Well, listen, I you know, I definitely, I mean you're
8:22
Speaker 6: highlighting one of the serious of the serious complexities of
8:26
Speaker 6: this surgery.
8:27
Speaker 7: It's this is not a small surgery.
8:28
Speaker 6: I mean these are very big, complex operations and when
8:32
Speaker 6: done by expert bariatric surgeons, can be performed very well.
8:37
Speaker 6: And that's why it's so important to go to somebody
8:39
Speaker 6: who is extremely skilled and.
8:41
Speaker 7: Does multiple of these a year, and.
8:44
Speaker 6: Not go to somebody who claims they're a bariatric surgeon
8:48
Speaker 6: and really is not. You really need to seek out
8:50
Speaker 6: expert medical uh, expert surgeon.
8:53
Speaker 2: Doctor force. How do you get the food from the
8:57
Speaker 2: esophagus to the intestines to bay basically goes straight to
9:01
Speaker 2: the poop process.
9:02
Speaker 6: Through a series of intra abdominal staples. So we actually
9:07
Speaker 6: use staples inside the abdomen. You can actually block off
9:11
Speaker 6: and reconnect different parts of the aerodigestive tract. And so
9:17
Speaker 6: when we do that, we can actually reroute, like you said,
9:21
Speaker 6: exactly where the food's going.
9:23
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm thinking this through and I'm wondering why in
9:28
Speaker 2: the world for such an extensive surgery. This sounds very extensive.
9:46
Speaker 1: Prime Stories with Nancy Grace.
9:50
Speaker 2: So there's two, from my understanding, two types of very
9:53
Speaker 2: actic weight loss surgery. One is where part of the
9:56
Speaker 2: stomach is cut away and the stomach is actually smaller,
10:01
Speaker 2: so therefore you eat a little bit and you're totally full,
10:04
Speaker 2: you don't want to eat anymore. And the other that
10:07
Speaker 2: doctor Ports described is a rerouting from the esophagus bypassing
10:13
Speaker 2: the stomach of food and it goes straight down to
10:17
Speaker 2: the intestines basically, so you poop it out before it
10:21
Speaker 2: ever gets to your stomach. Wow. Okay, that's a really
10:25
Speaker 2: good explanation, but it's a very complicated surgery, both of them.
10:31
Speaker 2: Why somebody would want to go to another country for that,
10:35
Speaker 2: I'm not sure, but I want to go first to
10:38
Speaker 2: our cut fifteen. This young mom Kiki MacIntyre take a
10:44
Speaker 2: listen to our friends at crime Online.
10:46
Speaker 8: Thirty four year old Marquita McIntyre. Her friends call her Kiki.
10:49
Speaker 8: She's always had an issue with her weight, and after
10:52
Speaker 8: three children, it's even tougher. Having heard about weight loss surgery,
10:55
Speaker 8: Geeky found out the sleeve surgery is the most common
10:58
Speaker 8: bariatric surgery, getting around eighteen thousand dollars in the US. However,
11:03
Speaker 8: taking a trip to Tijuana, Mexico and a doctor will
11:06
Speaker 8: do the same bariatric surgery for about four thousand dollars.
11:09
Speaker 8: She had a friend that was going to do the
11:11
Speaker 8: trip with her, but the friend backed out. Kiki went
11:13
Speaker 8: without her her friends in Biloxi. Still don't really know
11:17
Speaker 8: what happened, but mother of three Marquita Kek McIntyre had
11:21
Speaker 8: a complication while undergoing gastric sleeve surgery in Mexico and
11:26
Speaker 8: she died.
11:26
Speaker 2: You know, I'm looking at her right now. She is beautiful.
11:31
Speaker 2: She has got the biggest smile. This Mississippi native and
11:37
Speaker 2: mother of three, Marquita Keke McIntyre goes to tia Wana
11:42
Speaker 2: to have gastick sleeve never made it home. And in
11:45
Speaker 2: the picture I'm looking at this has got to be
11:48
Speaker 2: your daughter, because they look so much alike. Is just
11:52
Speaker 2: hugging her. Their faces close together. She was a pretty
11:59
Speaker 2: popular cup artist and did a lot of research before
12:03
Speaker 2: she decided to go out of the country from sleeve surgery. Now,
12:09
Speaker 2: let me go back to our expert, doctor Stephanie Porus.
12:13
Speaker 2: Gas stick sleeve can actually be can't that be?
12:17
Speaker 3: Indoscopic?
12:18
Speaker 7: Yeah?
12:19
Speaker 6: Actually, most of these gas bypass procedures are done laparoscopically
12:24
Speaker 6: using a small instrument and a camera. We're able to
12:28
Speaker 6: keep the incisions very small, but that does not change
12:31
Speaker 6: the complexity of the operation. It changes the entrance and
12:35
Speaker 6: exit versus meaning you don't have a giant incision on
12:39
Speaker 6: your abdomen, but the complexity of the surgery is still
12:42
Speaker 6: very much the same.
12:43
Speaker 2: Yes, we're talking about not one, but two women. One
12:48
Speaker 2: is Keiki McIntyre Marquita and the other is Justine Rodriguez.
12:55
Speaker 2: Take a listen to our Cut four our friends at
12:57
Speaker 2: ABC four.
12:58
Speaker 9: Justine Rodriguez to Mexico to get a gastric sleeve where
13:02
Speaker 9: doctors cut eighty percent of her stomach. What she thought
13:05
Speaker 9: was a life saving measure for a diabetes, high blood pressure,
13:09
Speaker 9: and obesity, weighing at three hundred and eighty seven pounds,
13:12
Speaker 9: turned into a lifelong nightmare. Her family had to find
13:16
Speaker 9: out from her doctor she might not make it.
13:18
Speaker 4: I remember her telling my dad, mister Rodriguez, did you
13:21
Speaker 4: hear that? And my mom and dad just caught really silent,
13:24
Speaker 4: and he said, you know, his voice crack and he said, yes, ma'am,
13:28
Speaker 4: I hear you.
13:29
Speaker 2: One woman dad on a Tijuana operating table, another steal
13:34
Speaker 2: dealing with epilepsy as a result. Take a listener cut
13:40
Speaker 2: six of friends at ABC four.
13:42
Speaker 9: Insurance companies view bariatric surgery as cosmetic instead of what
13:46
Speaker 9: doctors believe as a medical. One doctor Ibel says patients
13:50
Speaker 9: get desperate, but a botch surgery can end up costing
13:54
Speaker 9: hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills to fix
13:57
Speaker 9: the problem. Justine says she's wrecked up nearly a million
14:01
Speaker 9: dollars in medical bills.
14:02
Speaker 2: Guys, that's not all. This is what actually happened to
14:06
Speaker 2: Justine Rodriguez. Take a listen to Surrey Chin and our
14:11
Speaker 2: cut five.
14:12
Speaker 10: Long after the patient has gone home from Tijuana, they
14:15
Speaker 10: might wind up sticking an emergency room with flu leg symptoms,
14:18
Speaker 10: get diagnosed with a flu or aumonia, and really they
14:20
Speaker 10: have a huge abscess in their abdomen from food spilling
14:23
Speaker 10: through their stomach.
14:24
Speaker 9: That's exactly what happened to Justine. Doctor Anna Ibel is
14:28
Speaker 9: a bariatric surgeon at the University of Utah. She says
14:31
Speaker 9: weight loss surgery can cost ten to twenty thousand dollars
14:34
Speaker 9: in the US, it's a third of that in Mexico.
14:37
Speaker 4: Five thousand dollars and that included my airfare.
14:40
Speaker 2: Straight out to Alexis Tereschak crimeonline dot Com investigative reporter.
14:46
Speaker 2: In the last seventy two hours, I've learned of another
14:50
Speaker 2: young mom in her thirties, Leanne Leary, who suffered two
14:54
Speaker 2: heart attacks and died after Gashchik sleeve surgery and is
15:00
Speaker 2: Don bull and Turkey. That has just happened. What if anything,
15:06
Speaker 2: do you know about Leanne so.
15:09
Speaker 7: Leanne is a mom. She was thirty eight years old
15:12
Speaker 7: and she went to She lived in England and traveled
15:16
Speaker 7: all the way to Issemble, Turkey to have gastric bypass
15:19
Speaker 7: surgery because she had heard about this from other people
15:22
Speaker 7: and her friends even said she was so excited about
15:24
Speaker 7: the surgery. She sent her friends a picture from the hospital.
15:29
Speaker 7: She's in a hospital gown and then nobody heard from her,
15:33
Speaker 7: so they started calling the hospital, they said, where is she?
15:35
Speaker 7: Where is she? They said, oh, she had a heart attack,
15:37
Speaker 7: but she's stable. Don't worry about it. But she they're
15:40
Speaker 7: saying them. The doctor's there said, well, she didn't provide
15:43
Speaker 7: a next next of kins, so we didn't have anybody
15:45
Speaker 7: to reach out. So her parents flew to Turkey. When
15:48
Speaker 7: they got there, they were told, oh, she did have
15:50
Speaker 7: a heart attack, but she actually died on the one
15:53
Speaker 7: after a heart attack.
15:54
Speaker 2: I'm just thinking through everything that has happened to these
15:59
Speaker 2: and many more women. I'm going to go straight out
16:02
Speaker 2: to not only a high profile lawyer, but long term
16:07
Speaker 2: friend and colleague, high profile lawyer Michael Griffith, international criminal
16:14
Speaker 2: defense attorney from New York. You can find him at
16:17
Speaker 2: Michael griffithlawyer dot com. Former Senior Officer of the Criminal
16:22
Speaker 2: Law Committee for the International Bar, Michael, thank you for
16:29
Speaker 2: being with us. You know, Michael, for so well. You
16:32
Speaker 2: devoted much of your practice to international law. At the beginning,
16:39
Speaker 2: I guess there was a lot of drug tourism and
16:42
Speaker 2: you were flying all around the world getting people out
16:45
Speaker 2: of jail, defending cases, and I guess on every continent
16:50
Speaker 2: that was often linked to drugs. But now plastic surgery,
16:58
Speaker 2: international tourism.
17:00
Speaker 11: You know, Nancy, what's happening with these people going overseas
17:04
Speaker 11: is reminiscent of the story. Remember Jack Benny, the famous
17:08
Speaker 11: comedian who was known as a chief skate and a miser.
17:12
Speaker 11: He was accosted by a robber one day and the
17:15
Speaker 11: robber said your money or your life, and it was
17:17
Speaker 11: a long pause. The robber says, maybe you didn't hear
17:20
Speaker 11: me your money or your life, and Jack Benny said,
17:23
Speaker 11: don't rush me. I'm thinking, well, with respect to these
17:27
Speaker 11: people who go overseas to an extent that they may
17:31
Speaker 11: be exchanging their money for their life to get a
17:37
Speaker 11: lower discount to do something like a bariatric surgery, I
17:41
Speaker 11: think is silly and it's stupid. You know, if you
17:44
Speaker 11: go to Mexico.
17:45
Speaker 2: Oh wait a minute, hold on, brainiac. Not everybody has
17:50
Speaker 2: graduated college and gone on to law school and traveled
17:53
Speaker 2: all around the world and speaks all your languages, you do,
17:58
Speaker 2: a lot of people don't understand how dangerous this can be.
18:03
Speaker 2: I mean in the US and when I was with
18:06
Speaker 2: the Federal Trade Commission in their Anti trust Department and
18:09
Speaker 2: Consumer protection, I remember we had an anti trust action
18:13
Speaker 2: against a really big hospital. It was about obgyns trying
18:19
Speaker 2: to cut off the market for certified nurse midwives and
18:24
Speaker 2: not allowing them to practice in their hospital. Certified nurse
18:28
Speaker 2: midwives are nurses with not only a four year degree,
18:32
Speaker 2: but then a kind of a master's degree, only functioning
18:35
Speaker 2: here with vaginal normal deliveries with an OBGYN in the
18:43
Speaker 2: room with them, all right, an obgyn that have privileges
18:48
Speaker 2: at the hospital that would be there for the delivery
18:52
Speaker 2: in case there was some unanticipated complication. Anyway, they tried
18:56
Speaker 2: to keep the nurse midwives out. Long story short, Michael Griffith,
19:00
Speaker 2: I learned a lot about standard of care in hospitals.
19:05
Speaker 2: We have a by law standard of care in the
19:10
Speaker 2: US in medical facilities. Whether they screw it up or not,
19:13
Speaker 2: that's a whole nother thing. But in these other countries,
19:16
Speaker 2: Michael Griffith, there is no standard of care. Some of
19:21
Speaker 2: these patients lay on a table for eight hours while
19:25
Speaker 2: they die.
19:26
Speaker 11: Nancy, not only do I agree with that, but in
19:29
Speaker 11: these countries they don't choose what considered in the States
19:33
Speaker 11: to be medically accepted procedures. You know, many of the
19:37
Speaker 11: doctors go to these Mexican in what they call it
19:43
Speaker 11: medical schools, which are right up to the standards. As
19:46
Speaker 11: you know, we have American students who can't get into
19:49
Speaker 11: US medical schools and they go to the Caribbean and Mexico.
19:55
Speaker 11: It's a real craft shoot to take a to do
19:59
Speaker 11: one out there, and particularly you know, Medicaid doesn't cover this,
20:03
Speaker 11: Medicare doesn't cover it, your insurance companies may not cover it.
20:07
Speaker 11: As a matter of fact, Nancy, you'll remember this. Some
20:11
Speaker 11: of our friends died from this. Our mutual friend Dominic Dunn.
20:16
Speaker 11: Dominic went to Germany to get together a procedure to
20:20
Speaker 11: the same medical facility that the Thorough Force went and
20:23
Speaker 11: they both died. Steve McQueen died because of the care
20:28
Speaker 11: he got in Mexico. Recently I went to a funeral
20:31
Speaker 11: of a woman that I knew fifty nine years old
20:34
Speaker 11: who went to get one of these homopathic medical procedures
20:41
Speaker 11: in Mexico and died. So it's a real craft shoot,
20:44
Speaker 11: and people must be very very careful then not to
20:47
Speaker 11: go to these countries if they can possibly avoid it.
20:51
Speaker 2: You know, I learned all about quality of care doctor
20:55
Speaker 2: Stephanie Pors and doctor Bethane and R. Brandt please jump
20:59
Speaker 2: in course, the basic minimum standard of care would certainly
21:06
Speaker 2: not be to allow your patient to be unattended for
21:09
Speaker 2: eight hours. And that reminds of how Michael Jackson died.
21:14
Speaker 2: You know, he had Conrad Murray administering basically a tranquilizer
21:21
Speaker 2: propofaal that is used in surgery, and just left him
21:24
Speaker 2: in there while he went and called his girlfriend and
21:26
Speaker 2: Jackson died. Yeah, I think it was a child, well Ester,
21:30
Speaker 2: who's also one of the greatest talents that ever lived,
21:33
Speaker 2: left alone for hours while Conrad's in and out, in
21:38
Speaker 2: and out, and he dies. That's an example that's not
21:42
Speaker 2: supposed to happen in the US. There's not even such
21:45
Speaker 2: a standard like that to try and attain in these
21:49
Speaker 2: other countries.
21:50
Speaker 6: Doctor, Yeah, you're absolutely right. And that's what's so absolutely
21:54
Speaker 6: scary about medical tourism, as you just don't know what
21:58
Speaker 6: your standards are in the other countries. At least in America,
22:00
Speaker 6: we can say to be board certified, to be bared eligible,
22:04
Speaker 6: you have to go through I'm teen years of training.
22:07
Speaker 6: I mean I've done fifteen years of training, you know,
22:10
Speaker 6: and so it takes a long time, and we do
22:13
Speaker 6: we have ethical standards within our societies. We have absolute
22:18
Speaker 6: standards of care within the hospital systems that we must
22:20
Speaker 6: adhere to, and we're under review every single year. Every
22:25
Speaker 6: single year we review, we recertify, and so to go
22:30
Speaker 6: to other countries where even a fraction of that probably
22:34
Speaker 6: doesn't exist is very scary as a patient. And I'll
22:37
Speaker 6: tell you, as a mom, oh my God, just for
22:40
Speaker 6: me to undergo a simple, you know, wisdom tooth extraction
22:44
Speaker 6: under sedation in America, I'm scared. So I can't even
22:47
Speaker 6: imagine as a mom going to another country to have
22:50
Speaker 6: these large procedures and then at the end of the
22:54
Speaker 6: day to not come back. I mean, it's devastating. It's devastating.
22:57
Speaker 7: Ancy to Nancy, if I jump in.
22:59
Speaker 2: About this coming to you with me doctor Bethany Marshall,
23:03
Speaker 2: renowned psychoanalysts joining us out of Beverly Hills. You can
23:06
Speaker 2: find it at doctor Bethany Marshall dot com. No offense
23:09
Speaker 2: to all the beautiful people in Beverly Hills, but one
23:12
Speaker 2: of the reasons they're all beautiful is because they have
23:14
Speaker 2: tons and tons of plastic surgery. When I was out
23:16
Speaker 2: there for Dancing with the Stars, I think it was
23:19
Speaker 2: the shortest and roundest person there, and roundness, of course,
23:23
Speaker 2: is a euphemism. I walked down, like, who are all
23:27
Speaker 2: these people? Then I started noticing a lot of them
23:29
Speaker 2: looked to like they must have had the same surgeon.
23:32
Speaker 2: But I bet you have a lot of issues. I
23:34
Speaker 2: know you're not going to comment with your clients. Okay,
23:37
Speaker 2: plastic surgery, fine, have it. I just be mad if
23:40
Speaker 2: you didn't. But this is extreme, doctor Bethany, to go
23:46
Speaker 2: to another country, why are they so desperate to go?
23:50
Speaker 2: And it seems to be sugarcoated. You know, this plastic
23:54
Speaker 2: surgery tourism business.
23:55
Speaker 12: Well, I think that there's almost like a gambling mentality.
24:00
Speaker 12: You know, I'm going to get something for nothing or
24:03
Speaker 12: for very little, and because of that, I'm not going
24:05
Speaker 12: to pay attention to the facts, whether or not this
24:08
Speaker 12: person's boards certified, whether or not they are medical standards.
24:12
Speaker 12: There's almost this magical belief that everything will turn out okay.
24:17
Speaker 12: And they invest authority in doctors as if because you're
24:22
Speaker 12: wearing it's like the white coat phenomena. Just because you
24:25
Speaker 12: have a white coat, you must know what you're doing.
24:28
Speaker 12: And I tell my patients, you know, there's no such
24:31
Speaker 12: thing as a free lunch. There really isn't. You're going
24:33
Speaker 12: to pay one way or another. So if it's a
24:37
Speaker 12: fifteen thousand dollars surgery here and you're going to pay
24:39
Speaker 12: five thousand dollars there, you're going to pay. I don't
24:42
Speaker 12: know how you're going to pay, but you're going to pay.
24:44
Speaker 12: You may pay with your life, you may pay with
24:46
Speaker 12: the fact that you have a botch surgery. You may
24:49
Speaker 12: pay in another way, and that is that there's no
24:52
Speaker 12: medical malpractice in most of these countries, like Mexico. Here
24:57
Speaker 12: in the States, there's recourse. You have a surgery, you
25:00
Speaker 12: find out that your doctor did not adhere to stand
25:05
Speaker 12: as the practice for the field. They have boards that
25:09
Speaker 12: certify them, and you can get an attorney and you
25:12
Speaker 12: can sue them for medical malpractice. You can get at
25:15
Speaker 12: least some damages.
25:16
Speaker 2: But I mean, think about it, doctor Bethany, sure your
25:19
Speaker 2: family can sue after your dad, right, I'd rather save
25:24
Speaker 2: the people from doing this. You know what I did
25:26
Speaker 2: with my mother. Don't tell her I hid her passport.
25:30
Speaker 2: I actually physically hid her passport. I told no one,
25:35
Speaker 2: not my husband, not my children, nobody. I hid it
25:39
Speaker 2: and it came back to bite me. In the neck
25:41
Speaker 2: because this was during COVID and it was at the
25:45
Speaker 2: tail end of COVID, I think. And I needed the
25:49
Speaker 2: passport to take her with us on a Disney cruise,
25:53
Speaker 2: which I love, by the way, and we didn't have
25:57
Speaker 2: the passport because I'd hidden it, all right, So we
26:01
Speaker 2: had to go through this extensive Oh oh, when you
26:05
Speaker 2: tell what a lie I told, And it's so true
26:08
Speaker 2: about lies, they get bigger and bigger and you have
26:10
Speaker 2: to do.
26:11
Speaker 3: More and more to cover it up.
26:12
Speaker 2: I had to go through so much to get her
26:14
Speaker 2: on that Disney cruise. I had to get an original
26:16
Speaker 2: certified birth certificate from bib County where she was born.
26:20
Speaker 2: She was born not in a hospital, I might add,
26:22
Speaker 2: which complicated everything. And I just had to go through
26:25
Speaker 2: so much because of my lie. All right, Oh, would
26:29
Speaker 2: have tangled web we we boy. I thought about that
26:31
Speaker 2: when I was standing in line down in bib County
26:33
Speaker 2: trying to get a birth certificate because I didn't want
26:36
Speaker 2: her to go to Mexico to get the dental implants.
26:40
Speaker 2: By the way, we did get on the Disney cruise.
26:42
Speaker 2: I had to go through so many hoops and so
26:44
Speaker 2: much proof that this little lady in the wheelchair was
26:47
Speaker 2: you know, actually Elizabeth Grace, but she didn't go to
26:52
Speaker 2: Mexico and she got the implants and yuess what, she
26:57
Speaker 2: has the most beautiful set of teeth, but it did
27:00
Speaker 2: cost her an arm and a leg. Hey guys, I'm
27:03
Speaker 2: just being joined by IRV Brandt, Senior Inspector, US Marshall Service,
27:09
Speaker 2: International Investigations Branch, Chief Inspector, DOJ Office of International Affairs,
27:16
Speaker 2: author a solo shot Curse.
27:18
Speaker 3: Of the Bluestone. Oh that's a good one on.
27:21
Speaker 2: Amazon and flying solo top of the world having gotten
27:25
Speaker 2: to it. But I'm getting their IRV Brant. IRV. People
27:30
Speaker 2: may wonder why I want a worldwide bounty hunter essentially
27:35
Speaker 2: with me right now, because you've been in every one
27:38
Speaker 2: of these cities. Can you explain what Michael Griffith and
27:42
Speaker 2: I are talking.
27:43
Speaker 13: About if I can, man En, I'm glad you're doing this,
27:47
Speaker 13: bringing light to this because people don't understand how dangerous
27:52
Speaker 13: going south of the border can be. They think like
27:57
Speaker 13: they would here in the US traveling between cities. And
28:00
Speaker 13: I'm going to go and I'm going to do this,
28:03
Speaker 13: and I'm going to have this procedure done and I'm
28:04
Speaker 13: going to take money with me when you go south
28:08
Speaker 13: of the border, whether it's Mexico or Central America. And
28:13
Speaker 13: this is very common, the medical procedures for dental or
28:18
Speaker 13: plastic surgery, things like that. My brother with the State
28:23
Speaker 13: Department was in Costa Rica, and I would go to
28:26
Speaker 13: Costa Rica all the time to go to his house
28:28
Speaker 13: and we would talk about it. Our flights back and
28:31
Speaker 13: forth to the US, about half the flights were the
28:34
Speaker 13: passengers were people coming to Costa Rica for medical procedures.
28:40
Speaker 13: And these people are bringing a lot of money with them,
28:43
Speaker 13: you know, to pay for these procedures, and they're being
28:46
Speaker 13: targeted for violent crimes. And it's a lack of awareness.
28:54
Speaker 13: I'll give you then example, a country like Honduras. I
28:59
Speaker 13: recently read a report is the most dangerous place on
29:03
Speaker 13: Earth for a woman. A woman that's killed in a
29:05
Speaker 13: Hondurs every thirty six hours, is targeted and murdered every
29:10
Speaker 13: thirty six hours. But people are unaware of this. You know,
29:16
Speaker 13: they treat international travel like they would treat interstate travel
29:22
Speaker 13: in this country. And I'm with you, I'm going to
29:27
Speaker 13: hide their passports if I have the chance.
29:29
Speaker 2: And listen, don't get me wrong, it's just what doctor
29:32
Speaker 2: Bethany Marshall was earlier saying that people think they're getting,
29:36
Speaker 2: Oh what a good deal. I can't pass it up.
29:38
Speaker 2: I said, mother, please stay in the US. I will
29:42
Speaker 2: pay for it. I will put it on my American
29:44
Speaker 2: Express card, bay it off every month. Oh no, that
29:48
Speaker 2: wouldn't do. She had to try and save the money.
29:53
Speaker 2: I mean, doctor Bethany Marshall, when we were growing up,
29:57
Speaker 2: no no cookies in the house, no snaw no uh
30:01
Speaker 2: uh nothing. I mean we could have any money. But
30:06
Speaker 2: my point is she's a saver. That's the way she is.
30:09
Speaker 2: And she thought she was going to save money by
30:11
Speaker 2: going to Mexico. I seriously did backflips trying to keep
30:15
Speaker 2: her from going. Offered to pay whatever it was here
30:20
Speaker 2: so she wouldn't go, And ultimately I had to tell
30:23
Speaker 2: a lie, which I always get caught doctor Bethany always.
30:27
Speaker 2: And you know then, as I said, the whole Disney thing,
30:30
Speaker 2: and oh but it's that whole saving money thing getting
30:34
Speaker 2: a deal.
30:35
Speaker 12: There's another aspect of this. It's also controlling the procedure.
30:40
Speaker 12: And what I mean by that. I have a good
30:42
Speaker 12: friend who's a clothing designer. He wanted me to go
30:45
Speaker 12: to Tiajuana with him where he was going to get
30:47
Speaker 12: some inexpensive gentle work. He wanted veneers, so you put
30:51
Speaker 12: those over your teeth so that they look you know, whiter,
30:55
Speaker 12: more uniform. But he's a very controlling guy. He thinks
30:59
Speaker 12: he always knows the best about aesthetics.
31:01
Speaker 7: So he goes.
31:02
Speaker 12: I accompanied him. He goes to this clinic. Tourists were
31:07
Speaker 12: coming straight from the boss, straight from the airplane. There
31:10
Speaker 12: were all these people in the waiting room with suitcases
31:14
Speaker 12: and they would say, oh, I'm from Illinois and from
31:16
Speaker 12: Missouria from here. So these tourists were going straight to
31:20
Speaker 12: this clinic. So my friend gets the handle work done
31:24
Speaker 12: and he comes out and his teeth looks like chick lips.
31:27
Speaker 12: And I asked him, like, what the heck happened? And
31:30
Speaker 12: he controlled the procedure. He said, well, I wanted this,
31:34
Speaker 12: you know, the front to look like this and the
31:35
Speaker 12: sides to look like this, and so he dictated how
31:39
Speaker 12: the teeth were going to look, and they looked, you know,
31:41
Speaker 12: deformed afterwards. So I think it's saving money. It's controlling
31:45
Speaker 12: the procedure, thinking you know more than the doctor. You know,
31:48
Speaker 12: there's all kinds of strange motivations. I think that go
31:51
Speaker 12: into going.
31:52
Speaker 7: South of the Border.
32:05
Speaker 1: Prime stories with Nancy Grace.
32:08
Speaker 2: I think I heard Michael Griffith jumping in jump in front.
32:12
Speaker 11: On that point, Americans have to realize that if there's
32:16
Speaker 11: any medical malpractice or negligence in a foreign country, the
32:22
Speaker 11: lawyers there do not work on contingencies like they do
32:25
Speaker 11: in the United States. You have to pay the lawyers
32:28
Speaker 11: there hour for hour, and if you get a judgment,
32:33
Speaker 11: If you get a judgment in that foreign country, you
32:38
Speaker 11: have to go under either the Hague Convention or the
32:41
Speaker 11: bilateral a judgment process where where you have to try
32:47
Speaker 11: to attach property or assets in that foreign country, which
32:52
Speaker 11: is very, very difficult.
32:53
Speaker 2: Dare Lord in Heaven Michael Griffith is now quoting the
32:58
Speaker 2: Hague Convention as a basis to get paid back from
33:02
Speaker 2: botch surgery. You know you're in trouble when the opposing
33:06
Speaker 2: side starts quoting the Hague Convention.
33:10
Speaker 11: Oh.
33:11
Speaker 2: I don't even want to get into what the Hague
33:13
Speaker 2: Convention is. I've had to deal with it a couple
33:14
Speaker 2: of times. I never want to touch it with a
33:16
Speaker 2: ten foot pole.
33:17
Speaker 6: I wanted to echo a statement here so you know
33:20
Speaker 6: you talked about shopping around.
33:21
Speaker 2: In the doctor porus. Go ahead, doctor.
33:23
Speaker 6: You know, we were talking about the patient that thinks
33:25
Speaker 6: they know best in shopping around, and you know, we
33:28
Speaker 6: see that a lot, a lot, you know, especially in
33:31
Speaker 6: cosmetic surgery. Patients shop around all the time looking for
33:33
Speaker 6: the best price. I mean, so we see that in
33:36
Speaker 6: the United States. But the other issue that I think
33:40
Speaker 6: a lot of the medical people that are doing this
33:42
Speaker 6: medical tourism is they've probably been told no by a
33:46
Speaker 6: lot of plastic surgeons, whether it be for not being
33:49
Speaker 6: a good candidate for surgery, meaning they have significant comorbidity,
33:53
Speaker 6: maybe they're smokers, or they have diabetes and they're not
33:57
Speaker 6: fit for a cosmetic operation.
33:59
Speaker 7: You know.
33:59
Speaker 6: It's one thing when you got to get your appendix out,
34:01
Speaker 6: it's an emergency. It's another when you want a facelift.
34:05
Speaker 6: You know, we want all of the teas to be crossy.
34:08
Speaker 6: I used to be done in and I think a
34:09
Speaker 6: lot of these people may have heard no and said, well, listen,
34:13
Speaker 6: I bet I can go to Mexico and get this
34:16
Speaker 6: done again. Substandard care, the standards of care are just different.
34:23
Speaker 6: And so I think that a lot of these patients
34:26
Speaker 6: that may even be dying overseas may have not been
34:29
Speaker 6: good surgical candidates to begin with.
34:31
Speaker 2: That's a really good point, doctor Porus and says, if
34:34
Speaker 2: you read my mind, because my mom was told no
34:37
Speaker 2: by many oral surgeons and Dennis because of her age.
34:42
Speaker 3: She's a pretty good help.
34:43
Speaker 2: But she let's say she's ninety one, about to turn
34:46
Speaker 2: ninety two right now, so she would have been ninety
34:49
Speaker 2: or eighty nine at the time this whole implant thing
34:52
Speaker 2: came up, and doctors are like no, no, no, no no,
34:55
Speaker 2: And she goes, hey, I'm going to Mexico. Oh no,
34:59
Speaker 2: I'll never say you're again. Guys, this is by far,
35:02
Speaker 2: these two ladies, Kiki McIntyre to Stane Rodriguez, by far
35:07
Speaker 2: not the first ladies to die in plastic surgery. International
35:13
Speaker 2: Tourism take a listen to our cut sixteen NBC.
35:17
Speaker 14: Despite the LII's beauty, the forty six year old realtor
35:19
Speaker 14: wanted to change, so she traveled April twenty to Columbia
35:22
Speaker 14: to undergo gastric bypass surgery at the hands of doctor
35:25
Speaker 14: god losals Puccini, who had performed the same surgery on
35:28
Speaker 14: her in twenty fifteen. Delia's mother and aunt went with her.
35:31
Speaker 14: She left the consultation reassured by the doctor that she
35:33
Speaker 14: would be fine in three days.
35:35
Speaker 11: Her aunt says.
35:36
Speaker 1: Medical record show Deli.
35:37
Speaker 14: Was admitted to Drina Katarina Klinic and Bran Guillan April
35:40
Speaker 14: twenty first. She went into the o R at three
35:43
Speaker 14: pm in good condition, got a gastric sleeve, and was
35:46
Speaker 14: released the same day.
35:47
Speaker 2: She was released the same day it started experiencing pain.
35:52
Speaker 2: The daughters there said, hey, go get an X ray. Well,
35:55
Speaker 2: let me tell you how that turned out. Take a
35:57
Speaker 2: listen to our cut eighteen NBC.
35:59
Speaker 14: They say three hours later, doctor Sali's puccine got to
36:01
Speaker 14: the apartment and saw her in such bad condition. He
36:04
Speaker 14: said he was heading to the clinic to prepare the.
36:07
Speaker 2: R He didn't call an ambulist. He left meet me
36:10
Speaker 2: at the hospital.
36:13
Speaker 14: A family friend says he began driving her to the
36:15
Speaker 14: clinic the doctor ordered, but Delia was fading quickly, so
36:18
Speaker 14: he took her to a nearby hospital, where she was pronounced.
36:21
Speaker 2: And there is Laura Avila take alost An hour cut
36:25
Speaker 2: eight ABC eight.
36:26
Speaker 15: Laura Avila is a dancer, a singer, a real estate
36:29
Speaker 15: agent in Dallas.
36:30
Speaker 3: She's the life. She's the light, you know.
36:32
Speaker 15: But this is not how Laura is today. On October thirtieth,
36:35
Speaker 15: Laura went to what is Mexico with her fiance for
36:37
Speaker 15: plastic surgery on her nose. They traveled to Mexico because
36:40
Speaker 15: the procedure was cheaper.
36:41
Speaker 14: The price, of course, you know, comparing those prices to
36:44
Speaker 14: the ones in the US.
36:45
Speaker 3: I mean it was less than one third of it.
36:47
Speaker 15: They went to a plastic surgery center around noon that day.
36:50
Speaker 15: Her fiance, Enrique Cruz, says, an employee administered anesthesia, but
36:54
Speaker 15: something went terribly wrong.
36:56
Speaker 2: Guys, US women, mostly women, are dying because of international
37:04
Speaker 2: plastic surgery tourism. IRV Brandt, what is your message?
37:08
Speaker 13: Stay in the United States when you travel out of
37:12
Speaker 13: the country. If you are going to travel out of
37:15
Speaker 13: the country and go against my advice, do your research
37:21
Speaker 13: check on this clinic, you know, check these doctors, check
37:26
Speaker 13: their experience. This is literally plain Russian roulette with a handgun.
37:33
Speaker 2: And even researching, IRV. I don't think you can research
37:36
Speaker 2: every conceivable circumstance, every conceivable outcome. But you're saying research.
37:45
Speaker 2: I say, don't go. Michael Griffith, what's your message?
37:49
Speaker 11: My message is is if you go overseas and have
37:53
Speaker 11: a problem, call Michael Griffith. He'll do the best you
37:56
Speaker 11: can to help you.
37:57
Speaker 2: And the American Express thirty two dollars a month. And OK,
38:00
Speaker 2: why did I let him back in? I said, God
38:02
Speaker 2: is my then I brought him back in. Michael Griffith
38:05
Speaker 2: is actually a renowned international criminal defense attorney that I'm torturing.
38:09
Speaker 2: Dr Bethany, what is your message?
38:12
Speaker 12: My message is you're going to pay one way or
38:14
Speaker 12: the other.
38:15
Speaker 7: You're going to pay.
38:16
Speaker 12: It's not really cheaper. It's not just that if people
38:19
Speaker 12: go down not just for a cheap for surgery, but
38:22
Speaker 12: for a vacation, they're going to combine it with something else.
38:24
Speaker 12: So like, oh, I can stay at a resort instead
38:27
Speaker 12: of like a thousand dollars a night like it is
38:30
Speaker 12: in the Four Seasons here, I'll get a great resort
38:32
Speaker 12: there for three hundred dollars a night or two hundred
38:35
Speaker 12: dollars a night. But in the end, if the procedure
38:38
Speaker 12: doesn't look how you want it to, if you have
38:40
Speaker 12: healthy complications, if you come back to the States and
38:44
Speaker 12: then the surgeon is not there to follow you, or
38:47
Speaker 12: you have to seek additional treatments here to correct what
38:52
Speaker 12: was done there. You didn't really save money and you
38:56
Speaker 12: didn't have that great vacation afterwards after all, so it's
38:59
Speaker 12: not really worth it.
39:00
Speaker 2: Doctor Stephanie Poras joining US plastic surgeon in Orlando at
39:05
Speaker 2: Porusplasticsurgery dot com.
39:07
Speaker 6: What is your message, Yeah, I would tread very lightly
39:11
Speaker 6: when considering any overseas surgery, and not just plastic surgery,
39:15
Speaker 6: but any surgical intervention that you are looking for, do
39:18
Speaker 6: some research. Look on the National Institute of Health in
39:22
Speaker 6: that country, find out how the certification process works for
39:26
Speaker 6: that specific surgeon and ask for their certifications, have them
39:30
Speaker 6: email them to you. Do your research, do your homework,
39:33
Speaker 6: and if you're going to go, just be prepared because
39:37
Speaker 6: if a complication does occur, it is going to be
39:39
Speaker 6: costly in the United States to fix it and a
39:43
Speaker 6: lot of surgeons will not fix it if you've gone
39:46
Speaker 6: out of the country, So just be aware and know
39:49
Speaker 6: what's going to potentially happen.
39:51
Speaker 2: Alexisteraeschik join me Colmonline dot com. Investigated reporter my friend
40:00
Speaker 2: Joan Rivers, who was just the greatest comedian ever and
40:06
Speaker 2: off camera whenever I would see her, she would always
40:10
Speaker 2: ask me about the twins. She always knew their names,
40:14
Speaker 2: their ages as each year passed, knew what they were
40:19
Speaker 2: up to.
40:20
Speaker 3: And now she's gone.
40:21
Speaker 7: I remember watching her tell you one time, Nancy, you
40:24
Speaker 7: asked her how she kept her family together, and she said,
40:28
Speaker 7: eat dinner together every night. I remember watching that you
40:30
Speaker 7: had aired that one time.
40:32
Speaker 2: When I think that she went in for a very
40:35
Speaker 2: simple arn joscopy and died. I mean, if an icon
40:42
Speaker 2: like Joe Rivers can pass away in a simple procedure,
40:48
Speaker 2: what's going to happen in another country where these regular
40:51
Speaker 2: moms like you and me go to get a cosmetic procedure.
40:57
Speaker 2: I just I hate to hear about it because it's
41:01
Speaker 2: so easily avoidable.
41:02
Speaker 7: There's nothing that can happen, you know, with Joan Rivers,
41:05
Speaker 7: her daughter Melissa filed a lawsuit and they got a settlement.
41:10
Speaker 11: Against the.
41:13
Speaker 7: Doctor's office. But if you're the places out of the country,
41:17
Speaker 7: there's really no recourse. There's nothing you can do to
41:21
Speaker 7: sue them to make sure that they stop, that they
41:22
Speaker 7: don't do this to anyone else. It's nearly impossible for
41:26
Speaker 7: that to happen out of the country.
41:28
Speaker 2: And you're right, Melissa did get a settlement, but nothing
41:31
Speaker 2: could replies your mom.
41:33
Speaker 3: Nothing.
41:35
Speaker 2: I fear that we will be covering this again. If
41:39
Speaker 2: you have information on an ongoing international plastic surgery tourism crime,
41:47
Speaker 2: please call eight hundred two two five five three two
41:51
Speaker 2: four Goodbysman