On December 26, 2012, the Women’s Medical Services clinic, operated by abortionist Dr. Robert Alexander in Muskegon, Michigan, was shut down.
But it was not the Board of Medicine that ordered the Women’s Medical Services clinic to be closed. The clinic was shut down by the city of Muskegon’s Fire Prevention Bureau after a break-in had been reported and investigated by the Muskegon Police Department. According to the Muskegon Chronicle, Fire Marshal Major Metcalf referred to the clinic as a “filthy mess” due to poor housekeeping.
This photograph is just one of many that spread through several Michigan news sources. Yes, indeed, conditions inside the facility were filthy. On Monday, January 7, 2013, Mlive.com reported that the results of their FOIA of the police report from the night of the reported break-in noted the following:
- “biohazard material and unsecured sharps throughout the building”
- “multiple unsanitary medical instruments”
- “blood on the floor and walls in multiple locations”
- “uncovered buckets containing unknown fluids located in the operating room area”
- “blood dripping from a sink p-trap in a room used by patients”
- “multiple biohazard bags located on the floor and in closets”
- “multiple unsecured containers containing used hypodermic needles”
- “unsecured medications located throughout”
- “All patient information was unsecured and scattered throughout the office portion of the business.”
- “The ceiling tiles were rotten and water soaked due to a roof leak. There were buckets of water in multiple locations to catch the protruding water.”
Over five months have come and gone and yet Dr. Alexander still has a full license to practice medicine in the state of Michigan. Why? Is it because the state of Michigan is not quick to act upon very serious issues of public safety and the welfare? Is the Board of Medicine just not really concerned about the public? As of June 7, 2013, a quick search on the state’s website indicates that Dr. Alexander’s license is still active. Where is he now? I learned where he reportedly began working in February 2013. More on that later.
Dr. Alexander has quite an interesting history as a physician from everything I have read on mlive.com and LifesiteNews.com, seen on WOOD-TV 8, and discovered in documents provided to me by the state of Michigan through a FOIA request. The afformentioned news sources have all done an incredibly good job in covering this story.
A simple Google search using the term “Robert Alexander abortion” yielded more information about Dr. Alexander, and that too has taken over a week to process with the information I gathered myself. This story even made Breitbart.com at the beginning of May, where it was disclosed that a baby’s severed head was found inside the womb of one of his patients. When I read that story, I decided it was time to do some digging myself.
My FOIA request resulted in 230 pages of documentation regarding Dr. Alexander, containing 20 documents dating back to 1988. However, the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (“LARA”) has an open allegation on file which was opened in September of 2012, four months before Dr. Alexander’s clinic was closed.
It is currently being reviewed by LARA within the Department of Michigan’s Attorney General and unavailable for public access at the present time. I spoke with Mary Hess, Michigan’s FOIA Coordinator by phone before she processed my request, and she told me that she would duplicate the documents she had provided to WOOD TV-8.
Documents obtained by Watchdog Wire (Source: FOIA request and Michigan LARA website)
In 1986, Dr. Alexander was named a co-defendant in a 51 count indictment in the United States District Court, Eastern District of Michigan, Southern Division (Criminal No. 86-80328). Dr. Alexander, a doctor licensed to practice in the state of Michigan and registered to dispense controlled substances, was part of an unlawful conspiracy to knowingly, intentionally and unlawfully distribute controlled substances outside the scope of legitimate medical practice or for no legitimate purpose at all from on or about November 1980 until March 1985. During this period of time he was employed (documents reveal he was “moonlighting”) at a weight-loss clinic in Detroit.
The controlled substances he unlawfully prescribed were: Desoxyn (8,490 units), Preludin (1,260 units), Percodan/Percocet (2,260 units), Methaqualone/Mequin/Parest (90 units), Valium (4,470 units), Talwin (3,200 units), Tussionex/Hycodan (446 units), Tuinal (160 units), and Tylenol #4 with Codeine (58 units).
All of these prescriptions were sold to “patients” for $15 for each prescription, and “patients” were instructed to complete registration forms for obesity in false names. Unfortunately for Dr. Alexander, some of those prescriptions were sold to undercover FBI agents.
The indictment prompted the filing of an administrative complaint against Dr. Alexander by Michigan’s Board of Medicine, and on December 15, 1988 Dr. Alexander was found guilty of 10 counts in the United States District Court indictment, and he was sent to federal prison.
This is when everything began to hit the fan, and various other proceedings commenced against Dr. Alexander by the Board of Medicine, as well as in the Ingham County Circuit Court, all regarding the status of Dr. Alexander’s medical license. Over the time period from July 1989 until the present time, Dr. Alexander has had his medical license revoked twice, served a prison term for his part in the illegal drug conspiracy, and was fined.
Final order from the Michigan Board of Medicine revoking Dr. Alexander’s medical license and fining him $50,000 (later reduced to $25,000). August 6, 1990
Dr. Alexander’s history has been quite the challenge to follow. Pleadings bounced around between the Michigan Board of Medicine, LARA and the Ingham County Circuit Court. Mix that in with a bit of what many perceive as evidence of a possible conflict of interest and maybe even corruption involving the then-head of the Board of Medicine, Dr. George Shade.
Dr. George Shade is the former Chairman of Michigan’s Board of Medicine. He took an interest in Dr. Alexander’s case. When Dr. Alexander was released from prison, Dr. Shade wrote letters to the Board of Medicine in support of Dr. Alexander to get his medical license back, even going so far as to act in a supervisory capacity in a training program at a hospital in Detroit.
The relationship between the two doctors has raised many eyebrows, and Dr. Shade later refused to even investigate numerous and serious allegations against Alexander in 2009 regarding botched abortions. Dr. Shade left the state of Michigan in October 2012, and is now the Chief Medical Officer at St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis.
There are two botched abortion complaints against Dr. Alexander in the state of Michigan, but Dr. Shade successfully quashed the investigation of the first two. The first complaint occurred in 2009 and was filed by a doctor, whose name has been redacted from the FOIA information I received, as well as the patient’s name. The patient went to Dr. Alexander for an abortion in April of 2009 and underwent an abortion procedure.
According to original allegation dated June 4, 2009, a month later the woman felt movement in her abdomen and pain. Shockingly, the woman was still pregnant ( compelling TV news story on her case can be viewed here). The doctor who filed the complaint stated: “It is my opinion that Dr. Alexander was grossly negligent in this case. At the time of the elective termination the patient would have been approximately 26 weeks pregnant.”
The doctor continued:
No matter how obese the patient was, he should have visualized a viable intrauterine pregnancy. If he would have ruptured the membranes he could have killed the fetus or been responsible for delivering a premature neonate. If he had placed the suction curette through the placenta the patient would have bled to death in his office.
I have taken care of another Dr. Alexander patient in the past where he perforated her uterus during an 8-week termination. The perforation went through the broad ligament. She had a massive retroperitoneal hematoma that rendered the patient unable to walk for a month due to the pain.
And Dr. Shade signed off on this complaint with a big “X” next to the “No Investigation Needed” portion of the form (image at left).
Then, the shocker of them all came when Dr. Susan Berry reported from Breitbart.com that “in an email read by Michigan State Sen. Tonya Schuitmaker (R-Lawton”), a Muskegon OB/GUN has urged the state to revoke the medical license of abortionist Dr. Robert Alexander. The physician observed that he has treated several of Alexander’s patients in the emergency room, including one on woman in her second trimester whose uterus Alexander allegedly perforated during an abortion.”
“Dr. Alexander perforated the woman’s uterus so badly that it was hanging on by two blood vessels,” the physician wrote. “The decapitated head of a fetus was in the woman’s abdomen and the large intestine had been grasped and pulled away from its blood supply and into the vagina. The woman required a hysterectomy, colonoscopy, and several units of blood to save her life.”
On April 30 the first legislative hearing occurred over the Board of Medicine’s handling of the case of Dr. Alexander and the status of his medical license. Reporter Ken Kolker of WOOD TV-8 was at the state capital for the hearing and reported the following:
The Michigan Senate Judiciary Committee, ended with Sen. Rick Jones (R-Grand Ledge) saying, “that inaction, that shocking lack of caring, is going to lead to legislation.”
As to the whereabouts of Dr. Alexander, according to Reporter Kirsten Andersen of LifeNews.com, he first went to work at another abortion agency in Detroit, but the media coverage caught up to him there and he left his position. But it doesn’t end there. He was hired in February 2013 by the City of Detroit to work at the Herman Kiefer Health Clinic at 1151 Taylor Street in Detroit. This would explain why Dr. Alexander has applied for a controlled substance license, which at that time was waiting for approval.
No matter what side of the fence a person is on the issue of abortion, when the safety of the general public is threatened, Michigan legislators are under obligation to act upon an allegation of misconduct at any and all levels. It is absolutely essential that the general public is able to rely upon doctors for good medical care at all times.
Meticulous steps should be taken so that there are no conflicts of interest or circumstances which could lead to an outcry of corruption at all within our state government, but especially with health care. And when an allegation is made against a licensed health care professional, it must be investigated swiftly by the state.
The State Senate Judiciary Committee has taken a clear position that legislation is forthcoming. Now is the time to hold evil accountable.
A good first step would be to terminate Dr. Robert Alexander’s medical license immediately, and deny him from ever possessing a controlled substance license again.
UPDATE: For more on this story, check out these follow-up stories: