There are few parallels between my quiet life and the hustle and bustle of the Kardashian clan’s world, including that of Kim Kardashian. But one thing we do share is a struggle with fertility issues. I can respect the candor that Kim Kardashian has shown in opening up to the world about her fertility challenges. I have been forced to do the same. And that is why I am asking her to disassociate herself and Keeping Up With the Kardashians from the doctor who violated me and committed fertility fraud on my family.
The Keeping Up With the Kardashians episode that first aired on Oct. 1 featured Scott Disick seeking the help of Dr. Phillip Milgram in Carlsbad, California. When I heard about this my blood ran cold. Just two weeks before (on Sept. 16), my attorney Adam Wolf filed a lawsuit on my behalf against Dr. Milgram for fertility fraud. The good news for Kim Kardashian is that Dr. Milgram was not her fertility doctor. The bad news for Ms. Kardashian is that her popular reality-television program put its very public seal of approval on a predator.
Dr. Phillip Milgram on Keeping Up With the Kardashians
E!From one mother to another, I am appealing to Kim Kardashian to publicly disassociate herself and her television program from Dr. Milgram. The E! Entertainment Network should either put a disclaimer on future airings of the episode or edit Dr. Milgram out of the program. This is someone who was stripped of his medical license by New York, Nevada and California (before regaining it in this state). If Dr. Milgram was a product, Kim Kardashian would never (and should never) knowingly endorse him.
It’s hard to explain the shock, pain, and confusion I felt when I found out that the person I have loved so dearly for 32 years—my son, Jimmy—is genetically related to a doctor who inserted his own sperm inside me without my consent and against my wishes.
Dr. Milgram assured us that he could help when my ex-husband and I sought out his assistance many years ago. At 20, it was a struggle, but we paid the costs and went through the emotional and physical difficulty of fertility treatment. Over and over again, we were assured that everything was good and that we would be OK. Dr. Milgram told me that he would use the sperm of an anonymous donor—someone I did not know—whose sperm had been used numerous times to create babies. He told me that the donor was in good physical and mental health.
We were overjoyed when we found out that I was pregnant. It was the best day of my life when we were blessed with the birth of my son, Jimmy.
Only many years later did I discover that Dr. Milgram had lied to me: Instead of using the sperm of an anonymous donor, as he had promised, he used his own sperm. Instead of using the sperm of a physically and mentally healthy individual, as he had promised, he used the sperm of a drug user who appeared to have serious mental-health issues.
Today, my son is traumatized. He is experiencing significant emotional distress and confusion about his identity. He now is forever linked to a biological sperm donor who violated his own mother. This was “medical rape”; Dr. Milgram is a medical predator.
Beverly and Jimmy Willhelm
HandoutIf that is not bad enough, Dr. Milgram’s checkered medical history gets even worse. My lawsuit against Milgram also contains a host of other troubling details not disclosed to viewers of Keeping Up With the Kardashians:
<p>“Based on allegations regarding his mistreatment of numerous patients in 1992-93, (Milgram) surrendered his California medical license in 1999. The Board of Medicine charged him with gross negligence, repeated negligent acts, incompetence, failure to maintain adequate medical records, excessive treatment, prescribing Xanax and Prozac to his nurse-girlfriend (a drug addict who died by suicide shortly thereafter) without a good-faith examination or medical indication to support the prescription, practicing medicine while intoxicated, and using drugs or alcohol in a manner injurious to himself. Defendant was charged with performing an abortion on a patient who was not pregnant, performing other unnecessary surgical procedures, and failing to obtain informed consent to surgical procedures. New York suspended his license around that same time…“In 1999, Defendant was living and practicing in Nevada, but did not initially inform the state licensing authority of the charges and surrender of his license in California or that his license had been suspended in New York. Nevada revoked Defendant’s medical license effective September 13, 2000, due to his failure to provide such notification…“As part of the proceedings preceding his (2004) reinstatement to medical practice, Defendant acknowledged he likely treated patients while under the influence of drugs.”</p>
In a letter to Keeping Up With the Kardashians’ producers, my attorney, Adam Wolf, states: “Obviously, I know that neither Kim Kardashian nor anyone associated with Keeping Up With the Kardashians would knowingly promote the services of someone with the background of Dr. Milgram. I am well aware you would not intentionally tout as a medical expert and implicitly endorse someone like Dr. Milgram. More specifically, I do not think that someone of Ms. Kardashian’s demonstrated leadership on fertility issues would cast a positive spotlight on a medical professional currently being sued for fertility fraud.”
I agree wholeheartedly with these sentiments and harbor no ill will toward the Kardashians. I can identify with the fertility struggles that Kim Kardashian has been through in the public eye. And I hope she will listen to this plea from another mother who now finds her story being known so publicly. I am asking that Kim do the right thing and step back from any kind of perceived endorsement of Dr. Phillip Milgram.
According to an E! representative, “Dr. Milgram’s appearance has been removed from all future airings of this ‘Keeping Up with the Kardashians’ episode.”
