Dr. Milton Wolf, the white radiologist and distant cousin of President Obama, is running against incumbent U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., as a tea party favorite. He has been assailed by his political rivals and colleagues in the medical profession for reportedly uploading X-rays of dead bodies with gruesome gunshot wounds to the head and other macabre photos to Facebook in 2010 and making fun of them.
Wolf later Moon walked from those photos and tried to say they were for “educational purposes” but he nevertheless received heavy incoming fire for his unprofessional asides.
He referred to one photo of a grisly injury as “one of my all-time favorites,” but then turned around and insisted that rival Roberts is behind the release of the photo.
The Topeka Capital-Journal maintains that the images were accompanied by Facebook comments made by Wolf and others making fun of dead or wounded patients.
Responding to a fellow user who complained when asked to straighten the patient’s head, Wolf allegedly wrote “Sheesh Melissa, it’s not like the patient was going to complain.” And there are other disturbing, disquieting quotes from Wolf:
- “One of my all-time favorites,” he allegedly wrote on the social media site. “From my residency days … there was a pretty active knife and gun club at Truman Medical Center. What kind of gun blows someone’s head completely off? I gotta get me one of those.”
- He later added, “It reminds [me] of the scene from Terminator 2 when they shoot the liquid metal terminator guy in the face at close range and it kind of splits him open temporarily almost like a flower blooming. We all find beauty in different things.”
- TheWolfFiles.com, a political blog authored by Wolf, included a post on an X-ray of a gunshot wound, titled “My Guess: A Jealous Husband or a Jilted Lover.”
- “This is my 2nd favorite gunshot wound of all time,” he wrote. “I wish I could tell you the story behind this awesome X-ray, but this patient came through the ER and they don’t believe in obtaining patient histories (I wish I was kidding). I’m guessing a jealous husband or a jilted lover. I mean…2 gunshot wounds…to the back.”
Now that Wolf is running for a U.S. Senate seat, Wolf, when pressed by the paper, reportedly did not respond to questions asking if he continued to upload these types of photos online. He then published a statement about the photos on his campaign website.
“Several years ago I made some comments about these images that were insensitive to the seriousness of what the images revealed. Soon thereafter, I removed those images and comments, again several years ago,” he said, trying to imply that his rival is liable. “For them to be published in a much more public context now, by a political adversary who would rather declare war on doctors than answer serious questions that Kansans have, is truly sad. However, my mistakes are my own and I take full responsibility for them.”
A spokesman for Roberts, Leroy Towns, expressed his concerns about Wolf’s behavior to The Topeka Capital-Journal: “For any doctor to make patient records public and then use the records for public discussion and entertainment is just unthinkable,” he said. “Allegations of such lack of judgment demand extensive scrutiny and investigation.”
Wolf, who has been married to wife Karrie Wolf for 23 years and has two children, has also mentioned that he is related to the president repeatedly (Obama’s deceased mother is from Kansas) when criticizing his health care plan in his book Do No Harm: The President’s Cousin Explains Why His Hippocratic Oath Requires Him to Oppose ObamaCare. He has also won support from groups associated with the tea party.
In addition to his questionable behavior with his Facebook postings and subsequent comments, Roberts, despite having high marks with conservative watchdog groups like Heritage Action for America and FreedomWorks, has recently come under scrutiny for his actual residency, Politico reports. And a New York Times article revealed Roberts owns a Virginia home and is registered to vote at the address of two donors rather than his own Kansas property.
Biography on Milton Wolf:
GOP candidate challenging U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., in the Aug. 5 primary.
Wolf is a distant cousin to President Barack Obama.
The diagnostic radiology specialist earned a degree in 1999 at The University of Kansas School of Medicine in Kansas City, Kan. He works at the Shawnee Mission division of Alliance Radiology and has been licensed in Kansas since 2004.
Wolf is author of “First, Do No Harm: The President’s Cousin Explains Why His Hippocratic Oath Requires Him to Oppose ObamaCare.”
