Woman diagnosed with cancer had her womb and ovaries removed... then came an even more devastating discovery
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J.B. felt like she 'died' on the spot when doctors told her she had cancer.
At the request of her husband, the then 50-year-old had gone to doctors in her home state of Idaho with heavy menstrual bleeding - assuming it was caused by stress from the death of her brother.
But after a biopsy, her doctor diagnosed her with a rare and aggressive form of endometrial cancer that up to half of patients do not survive.
They wasted no time - she was booked for surgery a month later and had her womb, ovaries and fallopian tubes removed in a grueling procedure that left her bed-bound for weeks. Even now, it gives her regular pain, according to a lawsuit filed against her doctor.
There was just one problem: J.B. never had the cancer in the first place.
Doctors examined the organs they removed during the July 26, 2021, surgery at St Luke's hospital, but found no sign of tumors.
Then, they contacted her doctor, Ryan Cole, and asked to see the tissue he examined but, again, saw no sign of cancer in that.
Before the surgery, there had been no time to double check - the diagnosis was written in such a way that there was little doubt, according to court filings - and the woman had been suffering from symptoms that hinted at possible cancer.
On Aug. 30, 2021, the patient was told she never had cancer - it was just a month after the surgery.
Of the moment she was diagnosed, the woman told the Idaho Capitol Sun, 'I felt like I died already.'
'It was scary,' she added before starting to cry, 'I don't want to even, like, remember it'.
'Coming from a Third World country, you know, I didn’t expect to have a big mistake like this in US,' said J.B., who came to the States from the Philippines.
'We look up to the system and technology here. [To] have that kind of mistake, it’s so unbelievable… It’s beyond my imagination. I thought everything here is precise, consistent and handled with care.'
Her case was revealed in medical malpractice court filings submitted in April 2021 to Idaho's 4th District Judicial Court in Ada County, which covers the state capital, Boise.
She is named in court filings, but has asked the Daily Mail only to refer to herself as J.B. to protect her identity.
In public comments, Cole has never admitted wrongdoing.
He has also maintained that his cancer diagnosis for J.B. was correct, despite the lawsuit and six other doctors - including two not involved in the patient's care - reviewing the slides and concluding she did not have the disease.
Neither Cole nor his attorney, Nancy Garrett, replied to the Daily Mail's request for comment.
The case was submitted in April 2023 for a trial by jury, but was settled out of court just before it was due to begin.
The agreement has not been revealed, but in the initial filings, J.B. sought more than $20,000 in damages.
This week, however, the case landed back in the spotlight after Idaho's Board of Medicine told Cole - who is also an Idaho public health official, on the board of the Central District Health - that he must abide by an order from Washington.
This bars him from practicing primary care or prescribing medications to patients in the state for five years.
It also fined him $5,000 and required him to complete training classes focused on Covid, medical record-keeping and telehealth for six months.
The order came after he was found to have improperly treated four patients in the state via telemedicine, including one to whom he prescribed ivermectin for a Covid infection.
This treatment has been shown not to work against the disease. The patient in this case was not harmed by the treatment.
J.B. is one of at least two women Cole has wrongly diagnosed with cancer.
In another case from December 2021, a 64-year-old woman was also erroneously told she had a serious carcinoma, which can be a fast-moving and deadly cancer.
She had surgery to remove her allegedly affected body parts: her reproductive organs, lymph nodes and tissue from her abdomen. But upon further examination, she was found not to have any cancer.
After reviewing Cole's treatment of J.B., Dr. Paul Cohen - who serves as chair of pathology at Yale University’s hospital in Connecticut - wrote in court filings that 'Dr. Cole’s level of incompetence in this case rises to the level of being reckless'.
Cole is a darling of the anti-vaccine movement, having repeatedly claimed online that Covid vaccines cause cancer and that ivermectin can treat the disease.
He has been on the national and international speaking circuit for Covid skeptics and deniers, giving talks and presentations in at least four foreign countries (England, France, Brazil and Ireland) and 15 states.
He also boasts more than 223,000 followers on X, where he regularly shares unfounded claims about Covid vaccines.
On May 27, and upon the news that Covid vaccines would no longer be routinely offered to healthy children and healthy pregnant women, Cole said, 'These DNA contaminated, gene adulterated, modified RNA products [Covid vaccines] remain on the market for many.
'These need to be halted for EVERYONE! To boot, the shots only cover extinct variants, even if they worked, but they don't. All risk. Zero benefit.'
He has also previously claimed that the Covid vaccines cause endometrial cancer, saying in August 2021 he had seen 'a 20 times increase of endometrial cancers over what I see on an annual basis - a 20 times increase, no exaggerating at all'.
There is no evidence to substantiate any of his claims.
J.B.'s attorneys say copies of his records, which they obtained during legal proceedings, show he was actually seeing a 'less than one percent increase' in diagnoses in 2021.
In J.B.'s case, court filings show that she went to her primary care provider, Center for Lifetime Health, on July 1, 2021, after suffering from heavy vaginal bleeding.
An ultrasound was carried out, which revealed an 'abnormal' finding. J.B. returned five days later for a biopsy and the sample was sent to Cole Diagnostics - Cole's lab for analyzing cancer samples.
He returned a diagnosis of endometrial carcinoma (cancer in the lining of the uterus) that was a serous papillary type (an aggressive form of the disease).
J.B. was offered a choice between chemotherapy, radiation and surgery to treat her cancer - she opted for surgery as it was the fastest way to get it out of her body.
She said previously that she had good health insurance and that the treatment was covered. But, she said the ordeal led to high out-of-pocket costs and more cancer screenings as she is now considered to be a higher risk patient.
It took at least six weeks for her to heal from surgery, during which time she essentially lived on the second floor of her house where the bedroom is because it was too painful to walk up and down the stairs.
