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The government's AIDS research agency "is a troubled organization" and its managers have engaged in unnecessary feuding, sexually explicit language, and other inappropriate conduct that hampers its global fight against the disease, an internal review found. The review for the National Institutes of Health director's office, obtained by the Associated Press, substantiates many of the concerns that whistle-blower Jonathan Fishbein raised about the agency's AIDS research division and its senior managers. The division suffers from "turf battles and rivalries between physicians and Ph.D. scientists," and the situation has been "rife for too long," the report concluded. Nonetheless, the NIH formally fired Fishbein on Friday, over the objections of several members of Congress. The top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee are protesting, saying the firing was an example of whistle-blower punishment. "Retaliation against an employee for reporting misconduct or voicing concerns is unacceptable, illegal, and violates the Whistleblower Protection Act," senators Charles Grassley and Max Baucus wrote the NIH late last week. "Moreover, it would have a chilling effect on other NIH employees who might make truthful but critical comments about the NIH," the senators said. Citing personnel privacy, NIH officials declined to address the senators' letter or Fishbein's termination--except to say that his last day was Friday. In the past, NIH officials have said they were terminating Fishbein for poor performance. Fishbein, an accomplished private sector safety expert, was hired by the NIH in 2003 to improve the safety of its AIDS research. He alleges that he was let go because he raised concerns about several studies and filed a formal complaint against one of the division's managers alleging sexual harassment and hostile workplace. In a series of recent stories the AP has reported: >One of the NIH's AIDS studies in Africa violated federal safety regulations. >Senior NIH managers engaged in sexually explicit pranks and sent expletive-laced e-mails to subordinates. >NIH-funded researchers used foster children to test anti-HIV drugs since the late 1980s. >An internal report, written on August 9, 2004, by a special adviser to NIH chief Elias A. Zerhouni but never made public, raised concerns that the NIH's efforts to fire Fishbein at the very least gave the "appearance of reprisal." The report says no documentation was ever provided to Fishbein suggesting poor performance until after he complained about the safety in one sensitive AIDS study and filed a formal complaint alleging that the division's deputy director was acting unprofessionally with subordinates.
The report said after formally complaining about conduct of the deputy director, Jonathan Kagan, Fishbein was inexplicably forced to begin reporting to Kagan, who then went ahead with efforts to fire Fishbein. The report said Kagan and the division's director, Edmund Tramont, acknowledged that Kagan "uses sexually explicit and colorful language, saying that no one ever complained until" Fishbein did. The report broadly condemns the NIH's Division of AIDS. "It is clear that [the Division of AIDS] is a troubled organization," the report concluded, saying the Fishbein case "is clearly a sketch of a deeper issue." "To have the senior management behave in this manner, spend incredible amounts of time feuding, and writing numerous long e-mails while seemingly unaware of the need for appropriate behavior decorum and enforcement of good management practices and the rules of supervision and concerns about appearance of reprisal clearly indicate a serious problem," the report said. Fishbein's lawyer, Stephen M. Kohn, said Friday he had not seen the report obtained by the Associated Press, but he hailed its conclusions. "The NIH's internal admissions are unprecedented and damning. Dr. Fishbein was right. The NIH must fix its troubled management and stop harassing the whistle-blowers," Kohn said. The report, however, also criticized Fishbein, citing some of his supervisors' statements that he did not take enough time to adapt to the "culture" of the AIDS division before making sweeping changes to improve the agency's research safety. "It seems apparent that both sides behaved badly, that a new senior employee did not orient himself about the division and that the most senior people engaged in inappropriate behavior," the report said. The report urged the NIH to require sensitivity training for its senior managers and provide instruction about "inappropriate personnel procedures." (AP)
Review finds
federal AIDS agency is "troubled"
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