2007: Licensed to Kill part 1

PRETEND

Javier Leiva

True Crime, Society & Culture, Technology

4.7 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 25 February 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What if your doctor wasn’t trying to save you, but trying to cash in on you? In this episode of Pretend, we uncover the shocking case of Dr. Thomas Weiner, an oncologist accused of prescribing years of brutal chemotherapy treatments to patients who may not have even had cancer. We follow the story of Scott Warwick, a man who was told he had stage 4 lung cancer and endured 11 years of toxic treatments—only to later learn there was no biopsy confirming his diagnosis. When Dr. Randy Sasich, a pulmonary critical care specialist, began questioning Weiner’s practices, he faced pushback, intimidation, and threats. But Weiner’s case isn’t unique. Across the country, doctors like Farid Fata, Jorge Zamora-Quezada, and Michael Swango have been caught exploiting patients for profit, exposing just how broken the U.S. healthcare system truly is. In this episode, we dive into: ✔️ How financial incentives reward doctors for prescribing unnecessary treatments ✔️ The loopholes in insurance billing that allow fraud to go undetected for years ✔️ The whistleblower who risked everything to expose the truth ✔️ The cult-like following that still defends Dr. Weiner 🔍 Sources & Additional Reading: ProPublica’s Investigative Report: "Eat What You Kill" : https://www.propublica.org/article/thomas-weiner-montana-st-peters-hospital-oncology 🎧 Next Time on Pretend: Meet a patient who underwent three years of cancer treatments—for cancer she never had. 🔔 Subscribe on Patreon or Pretend Plus for early access to Part 2: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/pretendradio PRETEND+ on Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/channel/pretend/id6443456985 📢 Follow us: @PretendPod on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook 💬 Have thoughts on this episode? Leave a review or send us a message—we’d love to hear from you! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Creative Babble.
0:05.9	Here's the truth about AI.
0:08.3	AI is only as powerful as the platform it's built into.
0:12.0	ServiceNow puts AI to work for people across your business,
0:15.8	removing friction and frustration for your employees,
0:18.9	supercharging productivity for your developers, providing
0:22.2	intelligent tools for your service agents to make customers happier, all built into a single
0:27.2	platform you can use right now. That's why the world works with ServiceNow. Visit
0:32.9	servicenow.com slash UK slash AI for people.
0:42.6	Imagine getting the news that you have cancer.
0:45.4	And I'm not talking about just any cancer.
0:48.6	I'm talking about stage four lung cancer.
0:54.0	Stage four lung cancer is one of the most aggressive and deadly cancer diagnosis. It means that the cancer has
0:56.5	spread to other organs, such as a brain, bones, or liver. One of the first questions on your mind is,
1:04.5	how long have I got? Scott Warwick of Helena Montana must have asked himself this question every single day.
1:14.1	A study found that patients with stage 4 lung cancer who chose not to undergo any treatment
1:20.0	had a much shorter life expectancy, just about over 16 months on average.
1:26.6	But for those who opted for radiation, chemotherapy, or targeted therapies, that number jumped to two years.
1:34.9	But Scott Warwick refused to follow the script.
1:38.3	Two years into his treatment, he was still going strong, reportedly running five miles per day. Then four years passed and he was still going strong, reportedly running five miles per day.
1:45.7	Then four years passed, and he was still here.
1:48.7	Against all odds, he hit his 10-year mark battling stage 4 lung cancer
	...

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