Medical Licensing Board Had "No Position" on Legislation Revoking FGM Doctors' Licenses
Agency did not officially support amending Public Health Code to revoke a health professional’s license upon conviction for FGM.
Michigan’s Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) took “no position” on a bill to permanently revoke the medical licenses of doctors convicted of female genital mutilation, while its own medical board was investigating two physicians charged with that conduct.
LARA’s enrolled bill analysis of Senate Bill 410, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, records the agency’s official stance: “ADMINISTRATION POSITION: No position.” The bill amended the Public Health Code to require permanent revocation of a health professional’s license upon conviction for FGM. It passed the Michigan House 105-2 and the Senate 38-0. Governor Snyder signed it into law.
Two months before the analysis was completed, LARA’s Board of Medicine authorized investigations into both physicians. On April 18, 2017, board reviewers approved an investigation into Dr. Jumana Nagarwala, one of the physicians federally indicted for performing FGM on minor girls. On April 21, Kim Gaedeke, then the Director of LARA’s Bureau of Professional Licensing, directed staff to open a file on Dr. Fakhruddin Attar, who owned the clinic where prosecutors alleged the procedures took place, and associate it with the already-opened Nagarwala matter. In Attar’s file, board reviewer Dr. Peter Graham recommended summary suspension.
LARA’s own analysis identified the case by name. Its PROBLEM/BACKGROUND section states: “Two Detroit-area doctors, and a third person, have recently been charged under the Federal FGM statute, related to the performing of FGM on two girls from Minnesota at a medical clinic in Livonia.”
The agency was not weighing an abstract policy question. It was taking no position on a bill about conduct it was actively investigating in two named physicians whose case it cited by name in the same document.
The “no position” was not a default. Internal LARA emails show it was a deliberate decision communicated to other state agencies. On June 13, 2017, nine days before the analysis was finalized, Marnie Wills, LARA’s Deputy Director for Policy and Legislative Affairs, emailed colleagues: “I let her know we will have no position but appreciate the head’s up that they will support I have no concerns with them supporting.”
Wills had communicated this to Debi Cain of the Michigan Domestic and Sexual Violence Prevention and Treatment Board. That board supported SB 410. So did the Michigan Catholic Conference. The bill analysis lists no arguments against it. The “Con” section is blank.
A separate Bureau Bill Response in the same FOIA production, an earlier, undated document prepared while SB 410 was still being drafted, explains the posture. BPL wrote: “Historically, it is not within the Bureau’s place to agree or disagree with any suggested sanctions, just so long as they are written properly and clearly in the statute for BPL to enforce.”
Wills had also written to Senator Colbeck’s legislative director during the drafting process: “Generally, the concept isn’t anything we would have a problem with, but we don’t take positions until we see final versions of the bill.”
In that same Bureau Bill Response, BPL noted that existing law already provided a path to revocation. A felony conviction, BPL wrote, “would be a violation of MCL 333.16221(b)(v),” and “permanent revocation would already be an option for a Board’s Disciplinary Subcommittee under MCL 333.16226(1).” BPL was telling the legislature it already had the authority to permanently revoke a doctor’s license for an FGM felony while both FGM investigations were still open on its own docket.
As previously reported, both investigations were later closed with no disciplinary action, the Nagarwala investigation on September 25, 2018 and the Attar closure recommended four months before federal charges were even dismissed. BPL used neither the authority it told the legislature it already had, nor the new authority SB 410 provided.
Neither physician was convicted — the federal case was dismissed on constitutional grounds — so neither conviction-triggered revocation route was triggered. But LARA also did not discipline either physician through any other means. Dr. Nagarwala and Dr. Attar both hold active, unrestricted Michigan medical licenses.
LARA did not respond to a request for comment.
This is an ongoing investigation. If you’d like to support this work, you can contribute here: Expose Medical Board for Licensing an FGM Doctor