August 4, 2025
Michelle Spencer, a nurse at Community Medical Centers’ (CMC) Community Regional Medical Center, said the hospital “deliberately and selectively” concealed from staff, patients and regulators a spike in unborn baby deaths that began in spring 2021, and retaliated against her when she publicized the information.
The lawsuit also says the hospital concealed medical data related to the fetal deaths that showed a link to COVID-19 vaccination of pregnant mothers.
The data include hospital-wide medical records documenting the number of stillbirths and the vaccination histories of those babies’ mothers. One managing nurse at the hospital told a staff member that nearly all of the stillbirths occurred among vaccinated mothers.
According to the complaint, Spencer “witnessed firsthand the exponential increase in unborn baby deaths directly correlating with pregnant women who received a Covid vaccine and then would deliver a dead baby a close number of days or weeks following their injection.”
Spencer’s attorney, Greg Glaser, said:
“The essence of this case is that the truth shall set you free. The hospital possessed vaccinated versus unvaccinated comparison data. The numbers proved the vaccines were causing miscarriages and more in the vaccinated group.
“We know hospital management analyzed the data because they said so, and we see they concealed it from regulators because that file [requested by regulators] is empty.”...
Children’s Health Defense is funding the lawsuit, which accuses the hospital of fraud, retaliation and unethical business practices. ...
Graphic email describes spike in ‘demise patients,’ or stillbirths
Spencer, who has been employed with the hospital since 2017, works in the antepartum, postpartum and labor and delivery units, all located on the hospital’s third floor. Before the COVID-19 vaccination rollouts, the hospital averaged one fetal death per month, she said in the lawsuit.
However, beginning in spring 2021, the number of stillbirths skyrocketed to about 20 per month, and remains at that level today, Spencer said. The number is an estimate because Spencer can’t access the hospital’s full medical records.
In September 2022, Julie Christopherson, a nurse manager specializing in perinatal care and bereavement, sent an email to the nursing and technical staff at the hospital describing the ongoing spike in stillborn babies, which she called “demise patients.”
“Well, it seems as though the increase of demise patients that we are seeing is going to continue,” Christopherson wrote. “There were 22 demises in August, which ties the record number of demises in July 2021, and so far in September there have been 7 and it’s only the 8th day of the month.”
She said the nurses hadn’t seen all of the deaths because the statistics included other units within the hospital, “but there have still been so many in our department.”
Christopherson said:
“It’s a lot of work for you as the bedside RN’s and it’s also a lot of work for me. Demises have taken a lot of my time away from the other groups of patients that I serve, so I hope this trend doesn’t continue indefinitely.
“I know of a few more that are scheduled to deliver in the week ahead, so unfortunately the process is going to be very familiar with all of you.”
According to the email, many parents requested autopsies of their babies. It also provided graphic details of the mishandling of a dead fetus, and reminded the staff of proper procedures for handling the babies’ remains and other associated biological material....