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whistle-blowers

ranch hand

Well-known member
Two whistle-blowers say they were threatened

A supervisor said he was ready 'to pull the plug' on the unit employing the workers who had concerns about procedures.



PERRY BEEMAN

DES MOINES REGISTER STAFF WRITER

June 18, 2006

Iowa, US



Ames, Ia. — Two animal caretakers at the National Animal Disease Center in Ames said they were threatened with layoff when they reported problems at the lab to the city and their bosses.



Richard Auwerda and Timothy Gogerty said they are shocked that they were threatened during a meeting meant to answer questions about how diseased tissue and fluids were treated before being sent on to the city's sewage plant. Gogerty and Auwerda care for the livestock at the facility and help perform necropsies, post-death examinations that involve sawing the carcass into pieces.



The two received comments during meetings and through e-mail that suggested the matter should be handled internally rather than reported to outside authorities.



Ronald Horst, who was acting director at the time, asked at one point whether Auwerda had told anyone outside the lab about the waste disposal questions. "NADC could be shut down," Horst said. He later said that he just wanted to finish his final three months as acting director without "something like this" bringing controversy before he returned to a role as researcher.



Regardless of his bosses' opinions, Auwerda reported the issues to authorities outside the lab - including the U.S. Department of Agriculture's inspector general's office, which is investigating the issues.



When federal investigators showed up, Auwerda and Gogerty described a lack of protocols, or frequent changes in them, problems with equipment, bureaucratic runarounds, sewage backups that could threaten workers' health, worker injuries, and other problems.



Lab spokeswoman Sandy Miller Hays, who is based in Beltsville, Md., said last week that Auwerda was right to address the issues, even when he had to turn to outside authorities for satisfaction.



"I wish we could have addressed his concerns internally, but he has every right to ask these questions" outside the agency, Miller Hays said. "If I lived in Ames, that's what I would have wanted him to do."



Auwerda said the workers feared for their safety and that of the livestock industry and the public. The lab's protocol and federal employment rules required them to report problems, Auwerda said.



The complaints led to investigations and an independent review by international experts that is in progress.



In an interview, the two workers said they don't want to tarnish the overall image of a lab that is considered the premier domestic animal disease facility in the country.



"The main thing people need to realize is that NADC does a good job," Auwerda said. "Basically, 99.9 percent of people here are very careful people, follow protocols, are hard workers and provide a much-needed service. We've had some problems when bureaucrats get involved."



In a meeting that was tape-recorded, Marcus Kehrli, a research leader, said he was prepared to shut down the unit that employed Auwerda and Gogerty.



"I'm ready to pull the plug on it if necessary," Kehrli said on the tape.



Kehrli then complained about the time it took to answer Auwerda's questions about handling elk infected with chronic wasting disease.



Kehrli began a meeting among lab brass and the whistle-blowers by saying he wanted to address Auwerda's "legitimate questions."



"I don't know where communication broke down," Kehrli said.



Later in the meeting, he said with sarcasm: "What I would like to see happen from this point forward and never change again is when I have an investigator working for me and they have animals and are working on an experiment, then they damn well better be talking to Rich on everything. Is that clear enough? They shouldn't walk away from Rich until Rich knows everything."



Kehrli added: "I don't know how many thousands of dollars in staff time has been spent in the past 24 hours just trying to figure out where we are on this."



Gogerty said he wondered why Kehrli seemed angry even after acknowledging that the questions were valid. "Why threaten our jobs if we had legitimate questions?"



Auwerda said later: "I knew we had stepped into it here. He threatened my job and those of the rest of the unit. I couldn't believe it."



Word of Horst's and Kehrli's comments spread to Beltsville, Md., headquarters of the USDA's Agricultural Research Service, which runs the Ames disease lab. Steven Kappes, who oversees all the research service animal researchers, spoke to Horst and Kehrli, but no disciplinary action was taken, Miller Hays said.



Steven Shafer, Midwest director for the Agricultural Research Service, stressed during meetings with lab employees after the complaints were filed that no action should be taken against the whistle-blowers and that they were not to be harassed, Miller Hays said.



Kehrli apparently lost his patience in the meeting with Auwerda and Gogerty, Miller Hays said. Workers are encouraged to report problems, and no action will be taken against any whistle-blowers, she said.



"There is no excuse for some of those statements, but humans lose their patience sometimes," Miller Hays said. "They have every right to ask questions and to report problems."



In the more recent waste-disposal dispute, Kehrli apparently did not appreciate Auwerda's steady e-mail traffic on the matter.



"In the future, please come see me before you initiate a massive email list that takes hours to sort through," Kehrli wrote in a message to Auwerda. "Until you get the information that we will gladly share with you at the meeting, please cease and desist on further propagating these meandering and sometimes cryptic emails that do not get to the core questions that you seem to be asking around an animal experiment."



Auwerda explained his actions in an interview: "The more questions you asked and couldn't get answers to, the more you asked. It just snowballed."
 

Econ101

Well-known member
Anyone who watches the inadequacies at the USDA that is some sort of stakeholder is getting tired of their inability to competently fulfill their government functions and we are tired of the reasons why. The biggest reason why is that the govt. will not listen and make good decisions. They want to kill every messenger that gives them any information that doesn't agree with the politics.

This leads to the emperor (or decider) not having any clothes.

It is the result of running a govt. on politics and not ethics.
 

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