House panel slams VA over destroyed specimens
The AP reports the chastisement of VA health officials by lawmakers Tuesday over their order to destroy biomedical specimens of Legionnaires' disease and other diseases that two researchers had collected over 25 years.
Chairman of the House Science subcommittee on investigations and oversight Rep. Brad Miller, D-N.C. said that an investigation has revealed no cogent reason for the destruction of the diseases.
From the article:
A subcommittee report on the Dec. 4, 2006, incident at the VA Pittsburgh Health Service said Congress should consider legislation setting policy on the handling and disposition of biobanks, places where traditional human biospecimens such as blood and tissue are matched to databases with medical records, genomic sequence data and other information.
"It is incomprehensible that there are no policies in place to ban arbitrary and capricious management decisions by administrators without any assessment of the value of the collection and its potential use in other research," the report says.
Michael Moreland who was in charge of the destruction at the VA Pittsburgh Health Service defends the decision by saying the lab had evolved into an unauthorized enterprise which tested water supplies for private companies. He added that specimens that were not labeled or were in open tubes were considered hazardous and were destroyed.
Dr. Victor Yu and Dr. Janet Stout were responable for collecting the samples. The article concludes by explaining how and why the samples came to be destroyed:
According to the report, the order to destroy the material came after a dispute over how Yu was financing his research that led to the shuttering of his laboratory in July, and his firing for refusing to stop processing samples. Yu said he could not in good conscience stop processing samples from hospitals and others concerned that their water supplies were contaminated by legionella bacteria. Stout had been placed on administrative leave and faced removal action.
The report said police unlocked the lab on Dec. 4 and five health service employees spent two hours throwing the specimen collection in biohazard containers and turning them over to a contractor for disposal as biohazards.
The destruction came at the same time efforts were underway to transfer the collection to a laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh for use in further research by Yu and Stout.
-Dippold
2 Comments:
Moreland should have been terminated. He misleads and gave false testimony to congress. Instead of termination, he was promoted to VISN 4 director. The VA is broken, and is managed by liberal idiots like Moreland.
Moreland is still in his Management position as the VISN 4 director, I guess he was rewarded for destroying Dr. Yu's and Dr. Stouds research. His handpicked VISN 4 (gang of) Directors and friends continue to harm the lives of Veterans and VA employees alike. Now we have the overdosing of Veteran patients with radioactive tracer materials. Just more of the ongoing VISN 4 mismagement. Look for Steven Gallerizzo to be named Dirctor of one of the VISN 4 Hospitals. Just another one of Morelands cronies that will compensated for his loyalty. Gallerizzo has ordered a VA employee at the Lebanon VA hospital to lie to VA HQ about an environmental program. For refusing to lie, this employee was set upon, set up and fired. Just more liberal progresives running our country into the ground.
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