Post by ProgressIf they OD and kill themselves, there won't be a drug problem.
Free drugs? Sounds like the Trump White House!
White House clinic handed out medications with little oversight during
past administrations, new investigation shows
By Brenda Goodman, CNN
Updated 4:58 PM EST, Wed January 24, 2024
During previous presidential administrations, the White House Medical
Unit
operated a pharmacy where staff members freely distributed prescription
and non-prescription drugs including controlled substances without
adequate record-keeping and sometimes to people who werent legally
eligible to get them, according to a report released this month.
The report from the independent Office of the Inspector General of the
US Department of Defense, which oversees the Military Health System and
thus the White House Medical Unit says the clinic also misused taxpayer
funds by dispensing brand-name drugs instead of less expensive generics
and providing free medical care to staff who werent allowed to get it.
The Office of the Inspector General said in a news release that the
problems it uncovered in the White House clinic were severe and
systemic.
The report is based on reviews of records from the White House Medical
Unit, including prescriptions, from between 2017 and 2019. In addition,
investigators interviewed more than 120 officials, including hospital
administrators, military medical providers and pharmacists. The office
also reviewed the transcripts of 70 previous interviews with former
members of the White House Military Office who served there between 2009
and 2018.
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The interviews indicated that medication was often dispensed without any
written records. Before we would get ready for a big overseas trip,
staffers were directed to make prepacks that consisted of plastic
sandwich bags containing the sleeping drug Ambien as well as the
stimulant
Provigil, which is meant to help people stay awake. Both are categorized
as controlled substances, meaning they require special handling and
record-keeping by pharmacies because they carry a risk for dependence and
abuse.
These prepacks would often be handed out to senior staff or their
assistants without any record of who was ultimately getting them, the
testimony said.
The directive to give medication, including all controlled substances,
to patients representatives without the need to present the patients
ID
card was also found by investigators on a handwritten note dated March
21, 2014.
In one case, according to the excerpted testimony, a doctor in the
medical
unit asked a staffer if they could hook up someone with some Provigil
as a parting gift for leaving the White House. Sloppy records and no
oversight, among other problems
The report, published January 8, found that the White House Medical
Units controlled substance records did not accurately reflect the units
procurement, inventory, or disposal of controlled substances.
The report says the practices it documents did not comply with guidance
from the government or the Department of Defense. Rather, it says, the
problems occurred because officials in the medical unit did not consider
their operations to be a pharmacy, despite the fact that the medications
were kept and dispensed behind a door marked pharmacy and that
medications were handed out in pill bottles that bore the logo of the
White House Medical Unit.
However, there was no pharmacist on staff at the medical unit, although
officials said controlled substance audits are performed quarterly,
according to the report. Staff members testified that they submitted a
request to get a pharmacy technician assigned to the White House, but it
still had not been filled during the period of the investigation.
The units lax prescribing practices were allowed to go unchecked because
the office lacked oversight, according to the report. None of the senior
Military Health System leaders interviewed for the report could identify
which division was responsible for the medical office. Complaints lead to
a second inquiry
The investigation was launched after the Defense Department received
complaints that a senior military medical officer assigned to the unit
had
engaged in improper medical practice, the report says.
In May 2018, the Office of the Inspector General began a separate inquiry
into complaints about Dr. Ronny Jackson, who had previously served as
physician to the president and head of the White House Medical Unit.
TOPSHOT - US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin looks on during a joint
press conference with Israel's defence minister, in Tel Aviv on December
18, 2023. (Photo by Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP) (Photo by ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP
via Getty Images)
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Several of the complaints alleged improper medical and pharmaceutical
practices as well as problems with Jacksons behavior. They also called
into question the eligibility of some patients to be seen at the
executive
medical facilities in the National Capital Region.
Jackson, who is not named in the new report, was director of the White
House Medical Unit from 2010 through 2014 and served as physician to the
president for both Barack Obama and Donald Trump.
He stepped back from his role as physician to the president in March
2018,
after Trump nominated him to helm the Department of Veterans Affairs. But
he withdrew from consideration for that role after the Senate Committee
on
Veterans Affairs interviewed 23 current and former colleges of Jacksons
who alleged that he led a hostile work environment and allowed
overprescribing of medications.
He was named chief medical adviser to the president in February 2019.
Asked whether he participated in the activities described in the report
or
was aware of them, a spokesperson for Jackson who is now serving in
Congress as a representative from Texas noted in a statement that Dr.
Jackson was not the Director of the White House Medical Unit during the
timeframe mentioned in the report (2017-2019). He was Physician to the
President and later Chief Medical Advisor. The Chief Medical Advisor is a
policy role, not clinical. This healthcare policy role had no association
or involvement with the White House Medical Units clinical delivery of
care.
According to a review of the clinics medical records detailed in the
report, staffers dispensed brand-name medications instead of
less-expensive generics in violation of Defense Department policy. Over
the three years from 2017 through 2019, the brand-name drugs Ambien and
Provigil cost taxpayers $144,520, but generic versions of those drugs
would have cost $2,064, the report found.
The White House Medical Unit cost taxpayers in another way too, the
report
says: by routinely treating people who werent legally eligible for care
through the Department of Defense. This was done at the direction of
senior leaders of the medical unit, the report says.
According to the Code of Federal Regulations, people who can access care
through the Military Health System include the president, the vice
president, their spouses and their minor children; members of the
Cabinet;
officials of the Department of Defense who were appointed by the
president
and confirmed by the Senate; assistants to the president; the director of
the White House Military Office; and former presidents and their spouses,
widows and minor children. Anyone needing emergency care can get it
through Military Health Services, but they have to pay for their care.
According to the report, the White House Medical Unit has about 60
patients enrolled in its clinic but provided health care by proxy to
6,000 White House and other government and employees and contractors,
many
of whom were ineligible to receive it. These employees were given urgent
care including the provision of cold medications, antibiotics or sleep
aids, the report says, but this care was not tracked and couldnt be
billed. Records show that the Department of Defense waived nearly
$500,000
in care for senior US officials over three years, according to the
report.
The report says that the Department of Defenses assistant secretary for
health affairs agreed with all the recommendations and that they would be
implemented, although it noted those tasks havent yet been completed.
The White House did not immediately offer comment to CNN on the reports
findings or any changes made in the medical unit made since the
investigation was completed.
