A New York doctor whose controversial cancer treatments have brought him notoriety and wealth is again in the spotlight. This time Dr. Gilbert Lederman has been accused of medical malpractice in the death of an Italian woman.
In a lawsuit Lederman is charged with giving Giuseppa Bono powerful doses of radiation without confirming that she actually had pancreatic cancer. No biopsy was ever performed to verify an Italian surgeon's suspicion that the woman had inoperable cancer.
No Stranger to Controversy
Lederman is no stranger to controversy: in 2002, he was sued by the widow of former Beatle George Harrison to stop the doctor from using the musician's name in advertisements after his death from lung cancer. She also sued to force Lederman to return a guitar he allegedly badgered the dying Harrison into autographing.
This time, Lederman is accused of treating Bono for a disease she might not have had. She was sent to Lederman at his Staten Island University Hospital clinic in 2002 by a salesman working on commission for the clinic. The suit alleges salesman Salvatore Conte posed as a doctor in infomercials touting the Staten Island clinic on Italian TV and continued the ruse off-camera in order to funnel patients to Lederman.
Paid in Cash
Patients at Lederman's clinic paid $17,500 in cash for the controversial fractionated stereotactic radiosurgery. According to a 2005 New York Magazine profile of the doctor, people who sought his treatments were often desperate, having exhausted the use of traditional radiation and chemotherapy treatments.
Radiation oncologist Dr. Philip Silverman, also a defendant in the Bono lawsuit, acknowledged on the witness stand that he thought Conte was a physician. The New York Daily News quoted Silverman's testimony: "I don't recall what kind of doctor I thought he was."
As it turned out, Conte isn't any kind of doctor at all.
The question before the court now is what kind of doctor Lederman was in the case of Giuseppa Bono.
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