NIH Agency Suppresses Whistleblowers By Forcing Them To Record All Contact With Congress
NIH Agency Suppresses Whistleblowers By Forcing Them To Record All Contact With Congress
For the past several months, House and Senate committees have been investigating David Schwartz, the director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), which is a branch of NIH. They are examining whether Schwartz “disregarded conflict-of-interest guidelines,” broke government spending rules, and violated ethics rules. Since Schwartz’s arrival in 2005, three top institute officials have left. One NIEHS official stated, “Morale is just horrible” at the agency.
Under Schwartz, the agency is now requiring all of its employees to fill out a form to document all their contacts with Congress. The form, obtained by ThinkProgress, appears to be an attempt to discourage employees from cooperating with congressional investigators.
Yesterday, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) wrote to NIH head Dr. Elias Zerhouni and asked him to explain who approved the form’s distribution, which employees received it, and the rationale behind “having this type of form at all.” He also expressed concern at the chilling effect the interference may have on whistleblowers:
[T]his form looks more like something people in NIH congressional affairs would use to log requests for information from Congress. It doesn’t appear to be something that would be handed out to regular NIEHS employees or employees at any of the other NIH institutes. In fact, handing this form out to rank and file NIEHS employees during the course of a congressional investigation could cause these employees to feel that management is attempting to flush out whistleblowers or any other individual assisting me with my inquiry.
On July 11, Grassley also wrote a letter to Zerhouni stating that NIEHS employees had “discussions with management that left them with the impression that there would be retaliation if it was discovered that they had provided information to…congressional investigators.”
Such interference with congressional investigations is illegal, as is denying or interfering with “employees’ rights to furnish information to Congress.” Yet it is not the first example of whistleblower suppression by the Bush administration. President Bush’s former surgeon general Richard Carmona recently told Congress that during his term, political appointees were assigned to “vet his speeches.” He was also barred from speaking freely to reporters, as was James Hansen, NASA’s top climate scientist.
Digg It!
Sort Comments By: Top Rated | Date
31 Responses to “NIH Agency Suppresses Whistleblowers By Forcing Them To Record All Contact With Congress”
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog Roll
Latest Gallup poll on congress
http://www.galluppoll.com/content/?ci=28456
An Hillary admitted the surge is working!
ROTFL, good day in the news . . . For us good guys
ROTFL
August 21st, 2007 at 12:48 pmLook at the form. I could have made something more professional in about 30 seconds. If you’re going to CYA by scaring the crap out of your employees, you should try harder.
August 21st, 2007 at 12:56 pmJust another nail in the coffins of the Repugs for trying to distort reality and run the government like Nazi Germany.
The huge flushing sound you will hear in 08 will be the last of the BushCo t@rds circling the drain.
August 21st, 2007 at 12:58 pmI keep using the term Bushevikii as a joke, but this is Soviet-style corrupt buraucracy at its worst.
August 21st, 2007 at 12:59 pm#1
August 21st, 2007 at 1:04 pmthanks for the poll information.
it is quite apparent people are unhappy with the republicans in congress.
These guys have no shame.
August 21st, 2007 at 1:05 pmCan’t quite see the relationship between the topic of the thread and No. 1’s comment, but he seems to be having a good time…
August 21st, 2007 at 1:08 pmSomeone please explain to me how, since we are fighting an enemy that hates us for our freedoms and rights, that by giving up those same freedoms and rights to try and defeat the enemy, we are winning?
August 21st, 2007 at 1:09 pmSomeone please explain to me how, since we are fighting an enemy that hates us for our freedoms and rights, that by giving up those same freedoms and rights to try and defeat the enemy, we are winning?
Comment by raynman — August 21, 2007 @ 1:09 pm
That’s easy. Once we give up the freedoms and rights they hate us for, they will no longer hate us, and when they no longer hate us, they will no longer be our enemy, and when they are no longer our enemy, we win.
Though I’m not quite sure why we’re bothering to fight hem.
August 21st, 2007 at 1:11 pmRepublican logic baffles me too. But what I can tell you is this is clearly why the congressional approval ratings are so low. I’d give my representative high marks (he has stood on the liberal side of every issue, despite representing NC), but congress as a whole I think deserves the low ratings for caving into Bush. If they ever got the proverbial “balls” to stand up and bring the troops home, watch the approval rating shoot up to 70%
August 21st, 2007 at 1:13 pmHello all:
I found a great new website that shows how to respond to those rightwingers who seem to know it all check out.
August 21st, 2007 at 1:15 pmhttp://www.howtotalkback.com
This is off-topic, but you haven’t read this, you need to. Extremely disturbing material, to say the least.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/ 2007/ 08/ hail-caesar-by-digby-ive-been-getting.html
August 21st, 2007 at 1:16 pmIf this were a dictatorship, it’d be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I’m the dictator.”
— Washington, D.C., Dec. 19, 2000
“I’m the commander — see, I don’t need to explain — I do not need to explain why I say things. That’s the interesting thing about being president.”
— as quoted in Bob Woodward’s Bush at War
http://www.dubyasays.com/
He has created the culture in the executive branch… that assumes it is above the law and not accountable to anybody.
August 21st, 2007 at 1:20 pmThis policy stinks of Karl Rove all the way through. Typical pattern of politicizing every department in the federal govt.
August 21st, 2007 at 1:22 pmThough I’m not quite sure why we’re bothering to fight them.
Comment by Egreggious — August 21, 2007 @ 1:11 pm
Its a turf war. The Christian fundamentalists don’t want the Islamic fundamentalists encroaching on their turf, though consdering that we’re over there taking their oil, I guess the Christian fundamentalists are really the ones doing the encroaching.
If you think about it, right wing Christians and right wing Islamics have a great deal in common. When is the last time you heard an Islamic Jihadist call for the rights of gays to marry? or for universal health care coverage? or environmental protection? just doesn’t happen.
August 21st, 2007 at 1:22 pmI feel like I am living in old Communist Russia..
August 21st, 2007 at 1:27 pmComment by The Republic of Stupidity — August 21, 2007 @ 1:16 pm
Thanks for the link, TRoS! Now I know Mr. Pee’s real name.
August 21st, 2007 at 1:27 pmAmen. If they didn’t hate each other’s skin color and choice of gods so much, they would probably rally together against social issues like you mentioned, or go even further together and try to roll back civil rights around the world.
The only difference is that the jihadists already ADMIT they don’t want women to have any rights.
August 21st, 2007 at 1:29 pmThe Bush gang just won’t stop with their thuggish suppression of the truth. They hide behind secrecy like cowards
August 21st, 2007 at 1:29 pmCan’t quite see the relationship between the topic of the thread and No. 1’s comment, but he seems to be having a good time…
Comment by The Republic of Stupidity — August 21, 2007 @ 1:08 pm
It’s the koolaid he has been drinking.
August 21st, 2007 at 1:30 pmThe wingers are trying to comfort themselves, but approval ratings for Democrats in Congress remain six percent higher than those for Republicans. The Republican Party is dead.
August 21st, 2007 at 1:43 pmAnd that’s why they’re called “Rethuglicans”.
August 21st, 2007 at 1:48 pm“Do you have more confidence in President Bush or in the Democrats in Congress to deal with the major issues facing the country today?” CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll. Aug. 6-8, 2007. N=1,029 adults nationwide, half sample, MoE ± 4.5
Bush = 35%
August 21st, 2007 at 1:52 pmDems in Congress = 48%
Yeah, a letter. LMAO. That’ll scare the BeJebus out of those nasty Repubs. Hell, they won’t even show up when Congress subpoenas them. You think a LETTER will change their ways? Welcome to the new world order Dems. The one where Repubs say Boo! and Dems run away like the cowards they are. Wake up folks, it only gets worse from here on.
August 21st, 2007 at 2:00 pmAs anyone who has gotten caught up in legal action can attest nothing is really against the law unless someone wants to spend the time and money to enforce the law.
So far I have seen nothing truly substantive to really make me think any accountability will ever be forthcoming.
August 21st, 2007 at 2:03 pmI agree with #4 pbg that this Bush/Rove approach to governing draws from Soviet-style control of government. Political appointees are in most cases “party handlers”. Someone from “the party” is always looking over your shoulder. I remember pre-election 2004 stories of handlers staying within ear shot even at fund raising events to make sure everyone always stays on message, and everyone’s loyalty can be constantly measured.
Yep, these are the guys “workin hard” to bring freedom and democracy to the rest of the world.
August 21st, 2007 at 2:04 pmthese people are disgusting scum bags. Health is not a republican issue… I understand INSURANCE is though. More money for the CEO’s less for the people who elected the stupid reps in DC
August 21st, 2007 at 2:58 pmThis admin. has turned our govt. apparatus into a criminal operation through and through.
It is mind boggling that the WH ignores SUBPOENAS! If you or I did that, we’d be in jail where ALL OF THIS ADMIN. belong. Their supporters are nothing but Nazi sympathizers. They are a pitiful lot. Lamely following their psychotic leader while he destroys our country and our economy single handedly. My son couldn’t access his account at Wells Fargo for MORE THAN A DAY. The Feds are pumping money into the market to prop it up and protect corporate profits. We the People will pay for this in spades.
These criminals either remain in their jobs or are allowed to “quit” when they SHOULD be arrested and thrown in JAIL.
August 21st, 2007 at 3:06 pmIf Leahy writes one more letter Im going to lose it!
CONGRESS DO SOMETHING! TAKE ACTION! STOP THEM FROM ANY MORE DAMAGE! HURRY BEFORE THEY ATTACK SOME OTHER INNOCENT COUNTRY!
Yes and what about the head of Mine Safety, Robert Stickler, who has turned that agency into a screw the miners and help Robert Murray the criminal owner of Crandall Canyon Mine, in Utah, that collapsed killing 9 miners because he was doing “retreat mining” in which coal support pillars are removed for more profits.
August 21st, 2007 at 4:48 pmCan anyone please tell me why anyone can in good conscience vote for Hillary Clinton.
I have been trying to understand, as I read the comments on the various progressive blogs, that defend Hillary Clinton and her support of the invasion and the war of George Bush. Please tell me how on the one hand, you opposed the war, yea, even some protested and wrote letters and were rending their garments opposing this war, and then on the other hand, can support Hillary Clinton. I am obviously missing something in the world of politics, when I cringe as I read Democrats saying they will vote for ANY candidate that wins the election.
Truly, I do not understand this. Iread day after day of the horrors in Iraq. At human beings losing their lives,many of them children, at the attempts by Clinton to gloss over her hapless and uninformed vote, which she claims she was given the wrong intelligence, conviently forgetting that some twenty three other Senators, dide not buy the shit that she did.
Exucuse me. We are headed down some dangerous path, when progressives can choose to ignore the vote of Hillary Clinton, when they buy it all–ie. she was “duped”, when they can put aside the horrors, the deaths , the maiming of human beings, and defend and vote for this woman for president of the US.
How can that happen? I really do not understand, Can someone please explain how they can overlook that vote and ignore it all, to hold their nose and vote for Clinton?
Really, I want to know.
August 21st, 2007 at 4:59 pmno name > DLC and Democrat bigwigs are manipulating the nomination of Hillary Clinton. Base/core Democrats are NOT backing her run for president.
August 21st, 2007 at 5:17 pm