VUOTO: VA accused of waste, cover-up

ON BASE WITH GRACE COLUMN:

“A lie cannot live forever,” said neurologist Robert Van Boven, quoting a phrase used by Martin Luther King and others going back to Victorian-era writer Thomas Carlyle.

Dr. Van Boven was removed in February 2008 from his position as director of Veterans Affairs’ Brain Imaging and Recovery Laboratory (BIRL) in Austin, Texas, after months of asking why the facility had spent millions of dollars to study traumatic brain injury without treating a single veteran.

A July 2008 report by the VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) said that the facility had spent $2.1 million without treating anyone, confirming one of Dr. Van Boven’s main allegations.

Dr. Van Boven was terminated from VA employment in January and is currently a neurologist at the Army’s Traumatic Brain Injury program at the Irwin Community Hospital in Fort Riley, Kan.

The VA declines to comment on Dr. Van Boven’s case, citing its policy of not discussing personnel matters.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a long-term problem affecting thousands of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan who have survived head injuries, often from roadside bombs.

“Symptoms of a TBI may not appear until days or weeks following the injury or may even be missed as people may look fine even though they may act or feel differently,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Weeks or months later, it can surface with a “wide range of functional changes affecting thinking, sensation, language and/or emotions. It can also cause epilepsy and increase the risk for conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and other brain disorders that become more prevalent with age,” the CDC says.

The Department of Veterans Affairs allocated $6.3 million in 2003 to conduct research into traumatic brain injuries, and it opened the center in Austin. It was with great enthusiasm that Dr. Van Boven assumed his position as program director in July 2007.

His charges have prompted at least two investigations, one by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, an independent agency that reports to the White House, and another by the House Veterans’ Affairs subcommittee on oversight and investigations. Both investigations are pending.

In May, meanwhile, the VA closed the lab in Austin and announced plans to reopen it at a VA hospital in Waco, Texas. By this time, more than half of the original $6.3 million budgeted had reportedly been spent.

Acting VA Undersecretary for Health Gerald Cross said that the move “will place the laboratory in an ideal location.”

VA spokeswoman Diana Struski said in a June 22 article in The Washington Post that researchers will be able to use better equipment that will be available to them, especially powerful MRI machines, and that by moving the facility they will be avoiding “duplication.”

Dr. Van Boven said his goal is to secure justice for more than 320,000 veterans who suffer from brain injuries. He also wants redress for taxpayers who are funding the research project from which he was dismissed. “If unjust activities are revealed to the public, that light will cure the mildew,” he said.

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