OCR Text |
Show niV (RCpOTt by Senator Orrin Hatch r ii 1 1 1 inmiii In St. George In the spring of 1979, I heard 48 people re -late what It was like to lose their loved ones to cancer. It was an experience I will never forget. I heard Evan Cooper describe how It is to hear your wife has the disease: "It is quite a blow," he said. "You know there Is an end coming because you don't expect a cure. You will hope, but you don't really expect It." In Washington, D.C. this summer, I chaired the Senate hearings that uncovered past instances of waste, fraud, and mismangement In the highly respected National Cancer Institute (NCI) the federal agency charged with studying cancer treatments and potential cures. It Is always disturbing to learn of federal administrators adminis-trators who spend tax money unwisely, but in light of my experiences In St. George, I was especially upset to find instances where even the normally effective NCI wasted was-ted resources targeted for cancer research. Any group or agency, no matter how noble their cause needs to operate efficiently If they're operating on tax money. In fact, the more Important Im-portant the work and what could be more important than a cure for cancer? the more important It Is that funds go right to that work, and not be siphoned off by Instances In-stances of administrative excess or poor management. The hearings revealed that In the past, some NCI funds were wasted because of poor supervision of grants, cozy relationships with sometimes some-times undeserving scientists or contractors, Inadequate surveillance of contracts, and even tolerance of fraud and mismanagement. For example, the NCI awarded a $910,000 research grant your money and my money to a doctor who has asked to resign from an Eastern hospital after allegations al-legations surfaced of him falsifying test results, faking physical conditions and charts, administering dangerous dang-erous drugs without patient consent, and even drawing in a bogus tumor on a patient's pat-ient's chart! The NCI apparently didn't want to pre -judge the doctor until those charges had been tried. That's justifiable, but did they have to award almost al-most $1 million to him while they waited? If it was your money, would you give it to someone before charges like that were resolved? Probably Pro-bably not. WcVe asking for the same kind of consideration, considera-tion, the same kind of cautiousness, caut-iousness, In spending tax payers money. That's the whole point of the NCI hearings. For too long Congress has authorized and' funded new agencies, then let tax money swirl down the drain without cles then let tax money swirl cies are doing their jobs, if they really need all they money that's given them, and if they're spending It wisely. The Labor and Hum an Resources Re-sources Committee, which sponsored the NCI hearings, has spawned many such agencies, ag-encies, but has never, until now, held oversight hearings. hear-ings. Hopefully, the NCI. hearings have sent other federal fed-eral agencies, many of them in worse shape than the NCI a message: people are concerned con-cerned about how they're using tax money, and waste( and mismanagement will not! be tolerated. |