A Houston doctor has been indicted on charges of falsifying medical records for five patients, making them ineligible to receive a liver transplant, federal prosecutors announced on Thursday.
Dr. John Stevenson Bynon Jr. was indicted by a grand jury in Houston last month on five counts of false statements relating to health care matters.
Bynon is accused of making false statements in his role as director of abdominal organ transplantation and surgical director for liver transplantation at Memorial Hermann Health System in Houston.
Of the five patients detailed in an indictment made public on Thursday, three died and two others were able to get liver transplants at different hospitals.
Patients, their families, and other members of their medical care team were unaware Bynon allegedly made false statements in their medical records, according to court records.
“Dr. Bynon is alleged to have betrayed the most sacred duty of a medical professional — to heal,” U.S. Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei said in a statement. “He stole years and hope from those who trusted him most by falsifying records and preventing patients from receiving organ transplants.”
Samy Khalil, Bynon's attorney, told reporters outside the federal courthouse after the doctor's initial court appearance Thursday afternoon that Bynon is a talented organ transplant surgeon who has performed over 2,000 transplants over his 40-year career.
"Nothing he did was unlawful. Everything that he did was lawful and in good faith," Khalil said. “We look forward to clearing his name in a court of law and educating, frankly, the government on the medical concepts that undergird this totally, totally misguided prosecution.”
Memorial Hermann Health System and UTHealth Houston, who employs Bynon, did not immediately respond to emails requesting comment.
The indictment and a news release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Houston did not detail a motive for why Bynon allegedly altered patient records. Angela Dodge, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment.
After the accusations against Bynon were first made public in April 2024, Memorial Hermann shut down its liver and kidney transplant program. Memorial Hermann reactivated its transplant program a year later.
The families of several patients who died while waiting for liver transplants have sued Bynon in Houston civil court, wanting to know if their loved ones were denied liver transplants due to Bynon's actions. The lawsuits remain pending.
The indictment alleges Bynon changed the records of five patients from March 2023 to March 2024.
One patient was ineligible to receive a donor organ offer for approximately 149 days and died in February 2024 under Bynon’s care, according to the indictment.
Another patient was ineligible to receive a donor organ offer for approximately 69 days and died in December 2023 during a surgery to receive a new liver.
A third patient who required an “urgent liver transplantation” died in December 2023, two days after Bynon allegedly entered false donor matching criteria for the patient that “severely restricted” or made the patient “functionally ineligible to receive a lifesaving donor organ offer,” according to the indictment.
Two other patients received successful liver transplants after going to other hospitals.
If convicted, Bynon faces up to five years in federal prison for each count.
In February 2025, the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, which manages the country’s organ donation program, declared Memorial Hermann to be a member not in good standing. The designation is the most severe action that the transplantation network can take and tells the public that one of its members has shown a serious lapse in patient safety or quality of care.
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FILE - Buildings associated with Memorial Hermann Hospital and medical complex are visible, April 12, 2024, in the Medical Center district of Houston. (Kirk Sides/Houston Chronicle via AP, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — The Trump administration on Thursday launched TrumpRx, a website it says will help patients buy prescription drugs directly at a discounted rate at a time when health care and the cost of living are growing concerns for Americans.
“You’re going to save a fortune,” President Donald Trump said at the site’s unveiling. “And this is also so good for overall health care.”
The government-hosted website is not a platform for buying medications. Instead, it's set up as a facilitator, pointing Americans to drugmakers’ direct-to-consumer websites, where they can make purchases. It also provides coupons to use at pharmacies. The site launches with over 40 medications, including weight-loss drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy.
The site is part of a larger effort by the Trump administration to show it's tackling the challenges of high costs. Affordability has emerged as a political vulnerability for Trump and his Republican allies going into November's midterm elections, as Americans remain worried about the cost of housing, groceries, utilities and other staples of middle-class identity.
Trump stressed that the lower prices were made possible by his pressuring of pharmaceutical companies on prices, saying he demanded that they charge the same costs in the U.S. as in other nations. He said prescription drug costs will increase in foreign countries as a result.
“We're tired of subsidizing the world,” Trump said at the evening event on the White House campus that lasted roughly 20 minutes.
The administration is touting substantial discounts, though it's unclear just how much impact the changes will have for family budgets. The site includes the disclaimer that prices “may be even lower” for people with insurance, as it lists the “out-of-pocket price.” Also, some consumers might be able to use available generics that cost less than brand-name medications.
Still, Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, hyped the website as being transformative. He said the lower prices for Ozempic and Wegovy would cause the country to collectively lose 100 million pounds this year. He suggested that lower prices for the fertility drug Gonal-F would trigger pregnancies nationwide.
“We’re going to have a lot of Trump babies with these costs,” Oz said.
The president first teased TrumpRx in September while announcing the first of his more than 15 deals with pharmaceutical companies to lower drug prices to match the lowest price offered in other developed nations. He said in December the website would provide “massive discounts to all consumers" — though it's unclear whether the prices available on drugmakers' websites will routinely be any lower than what many consumers could get through their insurance coverage.
The website's Thursday release came after it faced multiple delays, for reasons the administration hasn't publicly shared. Last fall, Oz told Trump the site would share prices for consumers before the end of the year. An expected launch in late January was also pushed back.
The president has spent the past several months seeking to spotlight his efforts to lower drug prices for Americans. He’s done that through deals with major pharmaceutical companies, including some of the biggest drugmakers like Pfizer, Eli Lilly and Merck, which have agreed to lower prices of their Medicaid drugs to so-called “most favored nations” pricing. As part of the deals, many of the companies' new drugs are also to be launched at discounted rates for consumer markets through TrumpRx.
Many of the details of Trump's deals with manufacturers remain unclear, and drug prices for patients in the U.S. can depend on many factors, including the competition a treatment faces and insurance coverage. Most people have coverage through work, the individual insurance market or government programs like Medicaid and Medicare, which shield them from much of the cost.
Trump’s administration also has negotiated lower prices for several prescription drugs for Medicare enrollees, through a direct negotiation program created by a 2022 law.
President Donald Trump greets Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz after en event about TrumpRx in the South Court Auditorium in the Old Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
National Design Studio director Joe Gebbia and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz talk about TrumpRx during an event with President Donald Trump in the South Court Auditorium in the Old Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Donald Trump speaks about TrumpRx in the South Court Auditorium in the Old Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
