Star Wars Toy Designer’s Galactic Battle Over COVID Ventilator Use

Star Wars toy of designer Mark Boudreaux has been on a ventilator since being diagnosed with COVID more than a year ago. Supplied

Toy designer Hall of Famer Mark Boudreaux is an unsung hero to diehard Star Wars fans. He designed the fabled Millenium Falcon, considered the most iconic spaceship designed in movie history.

But unlike the Falcon, Boudreaux does not have a crew of heroes on board fighting what is the 68-year-old’s real-life galactic version of the Death Star.

With his wife Judy as his only advocate, Boudreaux is fighting a battle for his life, caught in an ultimate catch-22 of medical protocols that began with a trip on Feb. 5, 2022, to the ER where he tested positive for COVID.

For more than a year since, the Cincinnati native remains on the same ventilator he was placed on last February.

“I barely have the words to describe this atrocity,” David Peters, a staff attorney with Pacific Justice Institute (PJI) told The Epoch Times. Peters said he reviewed the details of Boudreaux’s case after learning how long Bordeaux has been on a mechanical ventilator.

It is a time lapse that appears to contradict every health care standard when it comes to ventilator use—highlighted by a sea of medical records that, at the very least, raise the question of why there were no attempts to wean Boudreaux off the ventilator.

Mark Boudreaux in healthier times. Supplied

Dr. Charles Thurston, a retired ER doctor who runs a nonprofit advocacy organization for patients, called it “an unexplainable failure.”

Thurston told The Epoch Times that a review of his medical records show a sore lack of treatment for the virus that landed him on a ventilator, having been given only steroids initially and then later a battery of antibiotics to treat bouts of pneumonia that he developed from having a breathing tube down his trachea for so long.

Worse yet, the very ventilator intended to save Boudreaux’s life has caused such destruction to his lungs that doctors, according to Judy, have told her he is now in critical need of a lung transplant.

But Mark isn’t eligible for a lung transplant because the very medical care that destroyed his lungs has also left him unable to meet the standard criteria for being considered eligible.

Under national transplant protocols, patients must be able to walk a certain distance, ranging anywhere from 100 feet to 450 feet or complete what is often called “the 6 minute walk” in order to be considered an eligible candidate for a lung transplant.

According to Judy, Mark can barely sit up let alone walk. She said she is literally praying for a miracle for the “love of her life,” who has mustered up enough strength to write on a sketch pad, “I want to live.”

Mark Boudreaux and his wife Judy. Supplied

She told The Epoch Times that it was only recently that doctors even began giving him physical therapy, something else Thurston called baffling.

Bethesda North Hospital, a division of TriHealth where Boudreaux is hospitalized, never responded to repeated inquiries by The Epoch Times.

The transplant industry is heavily regulated by the federal government under an agency called the Organ Procurement and Transplant Network (OPTN). OPTN contracts The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), which, as its own website says, is “the mission-driven nonprofit” that “leads the network of transplant hospitals and organ procurement organizations.”

Anne Pashcke, a specialist with UNOS, told The Epoch Times that hospitals set their own criteria for transplant eligibility. But that seems to contradict written policies by the OPTN, which includes a Lung Review Board that seems to be charged with making decisions about transplant eligibility.

“The Lung Review Board is a national group of transplant physicians and surgeons who review requests from transplant centers to grant priority in exceptional cases when the transplant team believes that the assigned lung allocation score or pediatric priority status does not represent the severity of the case,” OPTN policy states. “The Lung Review Board looks at the details of each case with the name of the patient and transplant center omitted and decides whether to approve or deny the request.”

Judy told The Epoch Times that she has called endless transplant centers, legislators, lawyers, medical organizations, and “everyone in between.”

“No one will help us,” she said.

Institutions Disengage

The 43-year-long Star Wars toy designer, who also created several other fabled toys including the popular Rebel Trooper and Jedi fighter action figures, could definitely use a Luke Skywalker in his life right now.

The American Association of Respiratory Care (AARC), made up of respiratory care experts, had originally agreed to talk to The Epoch Times on the record about general liberation standards for weaning patients off mechanical ventilators but then reneged after learning it was going to be a part of a story that would be potentially critical of hospital respiratory therapists.

Several major transplant centers contacted by The Epoch Times specifically about Boudreax’s case also declined comment.

Temple Health runs the largest lung transplant center in the United States and is staffed by renowned pulmonologists and surgeons. The Philadelphia facility prides itself on taking on some of the most challenging and imminent lung transplant cases in the world, writing on its website, “Patients turned down for transplant at other hospitals may be eligible at Temple.”

Temple considered an inquiry from The Epoch Times about Boudreaux’s case but ultimately replied indicating that it was declining at this time.

“After speaking with our clinical team, we are going to respectfully decline,” Temple said in an email to The Epoch Times. The transplant center did say that it hopes Mark finds the help he needs.

The U.S. Centers For Disease Control (CDC) also did not respond to inquiries from The Epoch Times.

Peters, in part, blames the CDC for Mark’s condition for its establishment of what he called reckless protocols for hospitals to automatically put COVID patients on mechanical ventilators.

The CDC has since eased its promotion of ventilator use for COVID treatment. But at the height of the pandemic, headlines were filled with hospitals and politicians begging for more ventilator machines to treat patients suffering from what’s medically referred to as acute respiratory distress syndrome or ARDs.

Peters, who has represented several transplant patients over COVID-related issues, told The Epoch Times that a medical malpractice lawsuit is possible. But what frustrates that possibility is the exemption the courts granted hospitals from any liability from harm they may have caused to a patient under the guise of “emergency treatment of COVID.”

Peters said legal efforts would also be likely stymied by another catch-22. Mark needs to be moved out of Bethesda but so far no other hospital or transplant center will take him.

“The medical industry broke him, but now they won’t fix him,” Peters said. “I can’t think of anything more shameful.”

A Need for the Right Incentives

There have been several published media articles about the overuse of ventilators to treat COVID, including one that cited multiple reports supporting the claim. The article was run by STAT, which analyzes big pharma’s relationship with health care.

Last year, The Epoch Times ran an article written by world-renowned natural health doctor Joseph Mercola about mechanical ventilators and the financial incentive to overuse them.

In November of 2021, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) published a report entitled “Biden’s Bounty on Your Life: Hospitals’ Incentive Payments for COVID-19.” In it, they discuss the myriad of lucrative payouts linked to failed treatment and COVID deaths.

The report included a list of the top incentives. Among them: “Another and larger bonus payment to the hospital if a COVID-19 patient is mechanically ventilated.”

Thurston, who has worked in several hospitals across the United States and globally, told The Epoch Times that he has no doubt that Mark’s case is a multimillion-dollar medical malpractice suit. But added, “Judy would give up the millions of dollars from the lawsuit in exchange for Mark’s recovery.”

She told The Epoch Times she believes there is an unexplainable force keeping Mark alive, emphasizing that her and Mark’s strong faith is a part of that.

In December, when Jedi News learned of Mark’s condition, they posted get well messages to the beloved toy designer.

In closing, they couldn’t help but to end their posts with the famous Star Wars phrase: “May the Force be with Him.”

They also posted a picture of Mark wearing a T-shirt with the prophetic slogan, “Never Tell Me The Odds” with a picture of the Millenium Falcon. The T-shirt was produced by his alma mater the University of Cincinnati (UC) as a publicity campaign to promote their alumni’s success.

The Ohio college happens to have one of the top lung transplant centers in the country and is less than 15 miles from Bethesda North where Mark remains hospitalized—in need of a lung transplant.