retiredat44

10-06-19

VA and my doctor when I lived in the VA:
note: I suffered greatly and I had unexplained internal bleeding and six months of fighting fo rmy life. the doctors cut into a part of my body, that connects the liver and pancreas, 
when I signed a paper giving permission to drain a large cyst onthe head of my pancreas. The internal bleeding lasted along time and went sepsis. I now see this doctor did un approved studies and I was one off the victims 
at the VA. I had many, many conversations and exams done with Dr.Ho. I wrote along letter this past Summer, to the VA and Dr. Ho. about my disease and care, and the VA may have known about this criminal  case, but kept it from me.
The VA in San Diego knew me, and sided with me and wrote me aletter I submitted to the BVA Judge shwoing that the health problems I suffer from the surgeries and care 'More than Likely' were from the the procedures from that VA Hospital.
The BVA, who is suppose to make decsions on my disability claim ahs been draggin their feet and at decade hass passed while they drag their feet. The BVA also has other letter, (Independant Medical Opinions) that are used by legal arguements 
showing professional opinions on whter some it either less like and more than likd=ely caused by this or that. The VA has al the time and deep pockets to get al the professional opinions paid for by the government and a Veteran much seek and 
search out, pay for these out of their own pocket, and can cost into the tens of thousands of dollars, so the deck is stacked against cveterans who file disability claims. The VA , BVA Board of Veterans Appeals (sort of like a high court)
for Veterans, which has almost the final word, with another court which can be apepaled at great expense if you can provide more evidence. Evidence is used like evidence to prove soemthing, sort of liie cycincally guilty uhntil proven innocent.
So, I now find this exculpatory evidence that a big doctor who worked on me (for a long time) is in trouble for unauthorized medical work and studies on sick veterans. Me being one of those very sick veterans that has liver and pancreas disease and has procedures done by this
very same doctor for along period of time as botu an inpatient and outpaitent.

The short of it, if the VA/BVA knew and didn't tel me while I fight for my case, it is evil and wrong, if they didn't know they should have known. As I suiffered greatly over al these years and the same symptoms as described in the investigation.
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https://inewsource.org/2019/10/01/veterans-affairs-investigation-san-diego/?fbclid=IwAR3dIVQi4xECowjvEJpaaJYKBdq7M-hK9_mCCgw-6wWLrs7xkzTAl8-KjKg
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said.
Seven years of whistleblowing
After learning the latest on the congressional hearing, Buck told her story for what seemed like the hundredth time.
She was a liver researcher at the San Diego VA in 2013 — and a member of the VA’s research safety review board — when Dr. Samuel Ho proposed a study on veterans with alcoholic liver disease that would examine leftover biopsy tissue from the ill patients.
As Buck read the research proposal, she grew concerned that Ho planned to perform medically unnecessary liver biopsies for the sake of research, putting the patients at risk of internal bleeding and other complications.
Buck contacted her supervisors, warning them not to approve the study. It was approved anyway.
“I was hopeful for like, I guess 15 minutes,” Buck said. “But when I started talking to the people that could have stopped this, they just kept patting me on the head pretty much and telling me, ‘It’s okay. You convinced us. We’re not going to do it that way now. But now we’re going to do it this way.’”
Over the next five years, she and Chojkier reported their allegations to at least three federal agencies, were interviewed twice by the Office of the Medical Inspector and sent complaints to other research institutions involved in the study.

Months after the medical inspector’s office issued a report on her allegations in early 2018, Ho retired from the VA and took a job at a university in Dubai. He and the VA researcher who took over the project, Dr. Bernd Schnabl, would not comment for this story, nor would a San Diego VA spokeswoman.
The OMI’s investigation concluded that “no substantial danger to public health” occurred at the San Diego VA. But when the special counsel’s office reviewed that investigation, it said the OMI hadn’t fully addressed the whistleblowers’ allegations.
The OMI had already issued two reports, but the special counsel’s office told the OMI reinvestigate and produce a third report, which is not publicly available yet.
“These reports focus in so narrowly on small questions and miss the big questions, and it’s seriously concerning,” said C.K. Gunsalus, director of the National Center for Professional & Research Ethics, after reviewing the OMI’s investigation into the liver study. “They all have most of the hallmarks of really bad investigative reports that miss the mark.”
An internal report from the San Diego VA obtained by inewsource in February verified Buck and Chojkier’s main complaint: medically unnecessary liver samples were taken from sick veterans without their permission. The report said “serious noncompliance occurred” during the research, which put patients at risk — contrary to what the medical inspector’s report had said.
“It wasn’t professional,” Buck said about the OMI’s investigation. “It wasn’t what the veterans deserve. It wasn’t what the whistleblowers deserve. It wasn’t what the country deserves. I can’t imagine what they were thinking.”