For Dr. Ira Bleiweiss, a renowned breast pathologist who sees upwards of a thousand breast cancer cases in a typical year, the email he received in July 2014 felt hardly out of the ordinary: The founder of the Dubin Breast Center at Manhattan’s Mount Sinai Hospital wanted to connect him with the daughter of a breast cancer patient for an urgent consultation about her mother’s case.
“She is receiving the specimen tomorrow and can bring it up to you. I will let two of you take it from here,” Eva Andersson-Dubinwrote.
More than a decade later, Bleiweiss was shocked to learn that his name was mentioned in the Justice Department’s Epstein files numerous times. Unbeknownst to him, the patient’s daughter, Karyna Shuliak, had been Jeffrey Epstein’s girlfriend at the time. And Andersson-Dubin — a doctor and former Miss Sweden married to American hedge fund manager Glenn Dubin — was Epstein’s ex-girlfriend.
In a recent interview with CNN, Bleiweiss said he vaguely remembered Andersson-Dubin introducing him to the daughter of a patient who was from Eastern Europe. He knew nothing about Mount Sinai’s links to Epstein while he worked there, he said, and was shocked to learn about them years after his affiliation with the hospital ended.
“People were doing literally their jobs and the best they could to take care of people. How would they? They would have no idea,” said Bleiweiss, who now works at the University of Pennsylvania.
Bleiweiss’s brief, unsuspecting run-in with a segment of Epstein’s world in 2014 – years after Epstein wasconvicted of soliciting prostitutionfrom a minor — is one of many examples of how the convicted sex offender used his connections at Mount Sinai for his personal benefit.
The DOJ’s release of millions of Epstein files in recent months has newly exposed the lengths to which a handful of individuals went to give the financier VIP treatment at Mount Sinai – doctors being at Epstein’s beck-and-call, including for house calls, and giving preferential treatment to Epstein’s friends for medical care and job prospects.
The revelations mark a moment of reckoning for Mount Sinai Hospital, a prestigious medical institution in New York City backed by the donations and clout of some of the country’s wealthiest and most influential names. The hospital has reportedlyformed a committeeto look into its ties to Epstein, but has publicly — and internally to the Mount Sinai community — said little to address the controversy. Meanwhile, Mount Sinai’s breast center, founded with the Dubins’ donation, still bears their name, while some of the doctors who gave Epstein medical care still work at the hospital.
Epstein’s treatment by Mount Sinai — even after he was a registered sex offender — offers a window into the world of medicine for the most elite, where wealthy and well-connected patients can pay to get special treatment and access. It also exemplifies how institutions that heavily rely on and solicit donations can be riddled with conflicts of interest, with donors and financial considerations having influence on an institution’s decision-making.
Lucia Lee, vice president of public affairs at Mount Sinai, shared a statement from a spokesperson that said: “Epstein’s actions are horrific, reprehensible, and stand in direct opposition to what Mount Sinai believes in and stands for as an institution and as medical professionals.
“Our patients will always be treated with the highest level of care and respect,” the spokesperson said. “We do not comment on the clinical care provided to individual patients.”
The statement did not address numerous questions from CNN, including about the status of Mount Sinai’s internal investigation into its Epstein ties, the hospital’s accounting of how much money it received from Epstein, Mount Sinai’s VIP treatment of Epstein and Ting and Solomon’s conduct.
Multiple medical professionals affiliated with the hospital told CNN that there has been no communication from the institution’s leadership to the broader community about how it is handling its past ties to Epstein. Many employees fear that speaking out about the matter could hurt their careers, they said.
“These ties should be cut; those doctors that are implicated should be fired; we should rename Dubin Breast Center. I think most people working at Mount Sinai are like on the same page there, and it’s really the upper leadership that’s not,” said one doctor affiliated with the hospital who also attended the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, speaking anonymously because of fear of retribution.
“I think they’re just focused on the money and not upsetting people in power, because even if Epstein’s gone, there’s still so many other people in power that were (associated with) him that can do damage to probably Mount Sinai’s funding stream,” the doctor said.
