PO Box #175
Delmar, New York 12054
The Honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton February
18, 2006
United States Senate
476 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-3203
DC Phone: 202-224-4451
DC Fax: 202-228-0282
Dear Ms. Clinton,
This letter is a final attempt to garner meaningful support from you to
correct misdeeds that have occurred at the Stratton VA Hospital for over a
decade. Over the years we have
disclosed several serious matters to your offices in Albany N.Y., New York City
N.Y., and Washington D.C. Mr. Albert of
your D.C. office assured us in April 2005 that you had personal knowledge of
our concerns.
All previous documentation is available to you upon request, as is
documentation of wrongdoing at Stratton.
We have a number of concerns. As
you know, Mr. Paul Kornak was recently sentenced to 6 years in prison as a
result of a 48- count manslaughter charge for violations conducting research on
veterans at the Stratton center. We
made it clear to your offices that although we believe Mr. Kornak should have
received maximum punishment for killing patients, falsifying documents and
practicing medicine without a license, he was simply being used as a scapegoat
for a much larger problem. Among our
concerns are previous research violations, which surely predated Dr. James
Holland and Mr. Kornak. Until an
investigation is performed we have no way of knowing the extent of criminal
activity in unauthorized experimentation on veterans, illegal diversion of
money, and administrative abuse of personnel.
Additionally, administrators and licensed professionals that spent a
decade retaliating against employees attempting to bring the abuses of Kornak
and others to light, should be held to account for their actions. These people are far more dangerous than a
dozen Kornaks, since they have taken up various posts across the country and
threaten to undermine accountability at a number of VA institutions. To put it
bluntly, the actions of these people caused the deaths of veterans, and there
seems to be few people interested in discovering the truth and preventing a
repeat of the Stratton catastrophe. We
will be happy to provide you with the names of all suspected persons involved
in wrongdoing, their current locations, and their professional licenses and
current positions within the Department of Veterans Affairs.
We provided your office with various documents, many of which included
correspondence to Leonard Sistek (Democratic Staff Director, Subcommittee on
Oversight and Investigations for the Department of Veterans Affairs), Arthur Wu
(Republican Staff Director, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations for
the Department of Veterans Affairs), and Congressman Michael McNulty. We also provided Ms. Tracey Brooks of your
Albany office with a printed slide summary of research violations and a
chronological list of retaliatory activities against several VA employees who
had enough respect for veterans and the ethical standards of their professions
to speak out on patient
abuse issues unrelated to cancer research. We have supportive documentation in the form of patient records,
many of which have been filed with several VA-OIG offices, the Albany FBI field
office, US Attorney, OSC, and MSPB. The
nature of these matters are such that they require intervention by Congress to
further efforts at a comprehensive, and much needed, investigation of systemic
misbehavior in the VA.
The following is a summary list of immediate concerns. Each day that tics by without action is
another day that puts veterans needlessly in danger.
• The lapses and malfeasance of the Stratton facility at Albany are surely only the tip of the iceberg. While Stratton was especially egregious in violating veterans’ rights and compromising the safety of patients, these practices exist throughout the VA system. The extent of this abuse calls for immediate investigation and remediation.
• Investigations of unauthorized experimentation, malfeasance in health care provision, and medical corruption are difficult and expensive to investigate. The FBI and other agencies tasked with investigative responsibilities seem unprepared for investigations in the settings presented by VA and are reluctant to start investigations; perhaps out of fear of what may be found, perhaps because of reticence to attack another government agency, or perhaps because the victims of these crimes are poor and sick and have few resources at their disposal. The FBI needs to be prompted to develop an investigative protocol for the VA and to remember that the people being harmed are those who risked their lives to keep this country free.
• The Stratton VA should be investigated throughly for past and current abuses. There are two reasons to do this. First, obviously, to find out the truth and determine the extent of criminal activity. Second, the events at Stratton constitute a sort of “national laboratory” for VA misbehavior and provide a model that investigative techniques and protocols may be built around.
• Public congressional hearings should be convened to determine the prevalence nationwide of activities similar to those discovered at Stratton.
• Congressional referral to the Federal Court of Claims to determine the facts of the retaliation against Anthony Mariano and Jeff Fudin and what rememdies, if any, should be available for their disclosure of wrongdoing.
Because of the breadth of this problem, we have engaged
other Veterans Affairs whistleblowers by forming a national Veterans Affairs
Whistleblower Coalition. The coalition
consists of Veterans Affairs employees (past or present) who agree to actively
lobby Congress to end government retaliation against those who expose veteran
patient harm and abuse and major ethical breaches. We have partnered with our colleagues of the National Security
Whistleblowers Coalition, all of whom share our position and concerns for veterans
and the system which was put in place to care for them.
It is time for a meaningful and effective response to
come from your office.
Respectfully submitted,
Jeffrey Fudin, R.Ph., B.S., Pharm.D., DAAPM
Director, VA
Whistleblowers Coalition (www.VAWBC.com)
Clinical Pharmacy Specialist, Pain Management /
Stratton VAMC-Albany, NY
Adjunct Associate Professor, Albany College of
Pharmacy / Union University
CEO, American Pharmaceutical Care Pain Consultants
Mobile:
518-588-5651
Digital Pager: 518-342-3084 (VA Related ONLY)
VAMC fax: 518-626-6328 (VA Related ONLY)
VAMC Office: 518-626-5706 (VA Related ONLY)
E-Mail fudinj@aol.com
(preferred)
E-Mail fudinj@acp.edu
(University Related)
E-Mail jeffrey.fudin2@med.va.gov
(VA related issues ONLY)
Co-signers:
_____________________________ _____________________________
Anthony R. Mariano, B.S.,
R.Ph. Roberta Miller, M.D.
Copied via
e-mail to:
Sibel Edmonds,
Director / National Security Whistleblowers Coalition
sedmonds@nswbc.org
Tracey Brooks, Regional Director
/ Senator Clinton’s Upstate NY Regional Office
Tracey_brooks@clinton.senate.gov
Josh Albert,
Legislative Aide/ Economic and Foreign / Senator Clinton’s D.C. Office