And once again, I received a
perfunctory reply from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) basically telling the entire ME/CFS community to buzz off. Am I surprised? Absolutely not. We’ve been mistreated and disrespected by HHS for so long. Why would they change it up now?! Am I outraged? You bet. As an American citizen and a taxpayer, I have a right to request that the OIG investigate an obvious organizational conflict of interest of the Institute of Medicine. And yet, the OIG is telling me that they can’t be bothered. The arrogance and display of indifference and/or incompetence (who knows) of the reply is astounding, although not unexpected. The message is that HHS is above the law and that we just have to suck it up. They are basically saying, “Watch us break the law! What are you going to do about it?!”
The OIG had no problem finding a conflict of interest with respect to an
IOM committee member participating in a study of the adverse effects of the pertussis vaccine merely due do his comments on the topic given in a deposition(letter of Inspector General to Assistant Secretary of Health dated January 3, 1992). Is it not patently obvious that—if the prior position of an IOM committee member on a topic under study by the IOM is a conflict of interest—the prior highly publicized position of the entire IOM as an institution (on several occasions) on a key issue to be addressed under a new contract would, of necessity, present an organizational conflict of interest? Of course it is to any competent lawyer! Draw your own conclusions about whether the office of the OIG is covering up for HHS or if the lawyers working for the OIG are doing so because they are woefully incompetent.
