DVA Press Release Correction
The DVA recently released an inaccurate press release about TBI and treatment options. Check out this reply from Dr. R.W. Van Boven:
June 4, 2009
Gerald Cross
Acting Under Secretary
Department of Veterans AffairsDear Acting Under Secretary Cross,
I write to inform you of misinformation released by the DVA to the media that warrants attention and accountability on behalf of the Public and Veterans that your organization serves. The DVA gave a misleading and inaccurate news release on June 3, 2009, entitled “VA enhancing Brain Injury and Recovery Lab for veterans suffering from traumatic brain injuries [TBI].”
First, the DVA has repeatedly and erroneously referred to the Laboratory program for TBI which I launched and named “The Brain Imaging and Recovery Laboratory [BIRL].” This failure is thematic with the badly informed and careless mismanagement that has led to more than $2.5 million in expenditures in over 2 1/2 years at the BIRL without a single veteran being studied or helped at the program. The DVA’s VISN 17 Director has also admitted under oath in May 2008 that he did not even know the BIRL existed before my disclosures of waste, fraud, plagiarism, and cronyism were filed with the US Office of Special Counsel (OSC) and VA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG).
Second, the “enhancement” needed at the BIRL is not moving the remaining $3.5 million, but rather holding DVA managers accountable for suppression, inaction, perjury, and retaliation related to the above cited transgressions. The press needs to be alerted that there are two ongoing investigations into misconduct by the same managers who will otherwise oversee the shunting of remaining funds from the BIRL to Waco. The BIRL should not be allowed to be shut down until the investigations by the House Committee on Veterans Affairs Sub Committee on Oversight and Investigation and the OSC are completed.
Third, it is false, if not preposterous, to assert that the DVA has the “world’s most powerful research magnetic imaging (MRI) machine…in Waco.”
Fourth, it is misleading to omit that Waco does not have full-time MRI physicist to maintain the scanner, a full-time brain imaging research expert, a TBI research expert, or a neurologist/neurosurgeon. Having an airplane without an expert pilot and expert mechanic is dangerous. Moreover, the critical mass and proximity of intellectual resources at the University of Texas at Austin Neuroscience Institute is abundantly rich and will be wasted with shutting down the BIRL.
Fifth, veterans with chronic TBI do not require “easier access” to a VA hospital. Veterans should have easy access from their homes to 1) TBI experts, and 2) outpatient care. According, the brain imaging treatment research facility should be closer to where veterans live, not where a hospital is located. More veterans live in the greater metropolitan Austin area versus Waco.
Under the leadership of the new administration committed to reform, transparency, and accountability, I ask that you review these matters accordingly. Specifically, any proposed closure of the BIRL should be held in abeyance of the current Congressional and Special Counsel investigations into wrongdoing by DVA officials.
R.W. Van Boven, M.D., D.D.S.
