Cardiologists sue CBS for defamation, negligence
A court case from half a decade ago reemerged this month after Kentucky-based cardiologists Satyabrata Chatterjee and Ashwini Anand filed a lawsuit against CBS, which featured their case in an August 2018 episode of “Whistleblower.”
According to the local Sentinel-Echo, CBS’ broadcast involved host Alex Ferrer talking with former patients of the cardiologists, who’d been accused of unnecessarily implanting stents and pacemakers in heart patients for financial gain. Chatterjee and Anand’s suit states CBS made “false and defamatory statements” about them, exposing them to “public hatred” and injuring their reputations.
In addition to reported ridicule, contempt, scorn, shame and emotional distress, the cardiologists said CBS’ special induced an “evil opinion of them in the minds of reasonable people, deterrence of third persons from association or dealing with them and deprived them of friendship, intercourse and society.”
Back in October 2014, Chatterjee and Anand agreed to pay $380,000 to settle a case related to their alleged misconduct; the hospital they were affiliated with at the time, London Saint Joseph Hospital, paid $16.5 million. A third cardiologist implicated in the scheme pled guilty and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison.
Read the full story from the Sentinel-Echo:
After graduating from Indiana University-Bloomington with a bachelor’s in journalism, Anicka joined TriMed’s Chicago team in 2017 covering cardiology. Close to her heart is long-form journalism, Pilot G-2 pens, dark chocolate and her dog Harper Lee.