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Public Citizen issued the following four press releases, Jan. 15

1. Mad Cow Disease an Accident Waiting to Happen

2. Public Citizen Report Describes Some of Maryland's Dangerous Doctors as Physicians Gear Up for a March on Annapolis 3. Public Interest Groups Call for Special Prosecutor to Launch Criminal Investigation of Attorney General John Ashcroft and his Political Committees in Campaign Finance Case 4. Egregious Violations in Ashcroft PAC Case Require Investigation by Department of Justice - Statement of Craig Holman, Legislative Representative, Public Citizen

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Mad Cow Disease an Accident Waiting to Happen

Meat Inspectors: Companies Have Too Much Control Over USDA Testing Program

Washington, D.C. - A coalition of citizen and consumer groups said that today the discovery of mad cow disease in Washington state last month provides the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) with an opportune moment to strengthen inadequate meat inspection standards and protect the public health.

The coalition met with congressional aides today before holding a press briefing on the first mad cow case in the United States. The coalition released affidavits from federal meat inspectors in three regions of the country. The affidavits are part of an ongoing investigation by the Government Accountability Project (GAP), the nation's leading defender of whistleblowers. According to George Pauley, a consumer safety inspector for the USDA in the Northeast, "The lack of oversight by the USDA could be a recipe for disaster."

Pauley's and the other affidavits reveal that the training of frontline inspectors for spotting bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) is sorely inadequate and, in numerous cases, non-existent. Further, meatpackers and producers participate in a voluntary, unscientific mad cow surveillance program with little oversight or management by the USDA. A study by Public Citizen and GAP last year revealed dramatic inconsistencies in testing among states. For the largest cattle-producing states, there was a 400- to 2,000-fold difference in testing rates between those with the highest and lowest rates. In many cases, the inspectors have direct experience with companies that select the cattle to be tested and harvest the samples themselves. An anonymous whistleblower from GAP's investigation alleges that a financial incentive program paid producers and packers to voluntarily test animals, which they were allowed to choose.

"Our preliminary investigation has opened a Pandora's box of avoidance by the USDA," said Felicia Nestor, the Food Safety Program director at GAP. "The inspectors stepping forward today are on the front lines of defending the food supply from disease. Their disclosures open the door for the USDA to implement real reform rather than public relations Band-Aids applied to a real public health threat."

The watchdog organizations participating in the coalition include the Global Resource Action Center for the Environment, Public Citizen, Government Accountability Project, Community Nutrition Institute, and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. The coalition is committed to advocating reform in food safety practices. In April 2001, these and other organizations demanded that USDA Secretary Ann Veneman and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tommy Thompson ban the consumption of downer cattle to lower the risk of mad cow disease. The USDA announced last week it was taking such action, but only after public furor over the incident in Washington state, where a Canadian-born cow was discovered with BSE.

"The ban is a prudent step that should have been taken when our coalition proposed it almost three years ago, because it removes an important potential source of contamination," said Patricia Lovera, deputy director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program for Public Citizen. "The risk to health can be lowered, however, only by strengthening the testing program."

Last year, the United States tested fewer than 25,000 cattle for BSE, while nearly 33 million cattle were slaughtered.

"I'm extremely concerned that industry may be self-selecting the animals in some regions of the country. If true, industry will not select animals from the high-risk categories, as trained government inspectors would," said Dr. Michael Hanson, senior research associate with Consumers Union.

The organizations also said that the USDA was ill-prepared to implement the new ban on downer cattle, a conclusion supported by affidavits from federal inspectors in several regions. "The USDA's current meat safety system should not be a sacred cow," Nestor said. "We need tougher standards, honest enforcement and greater accountability by the USDA to protect the public health."

The coalition proposed that USDA and HHS take several immediate steps to strengthen food safety, in addition to testing all cattle over 20 months of age for BSE at slaughter. These include:

- Banning the human consumption of materials produced through advanced meat recovery and mechanical deboning of cattle carcasses;

- Incorporating rapid testing technology and making the results public on a timely basis; and,

- Eliminating loopholes and strengthening enforcement of the current "feed ban," which still allows the use of cattle blood as a feed supplement for cattle, the use of rendered cattle and bone meal as a feed supplement for hogs and poultry, and the use of rendered hogs and chickens and chicken waste as cattle feed.

In addition to these immediate steps, the coalition proposed other actions and reforms:

- Congress should establish and fund a commission on food safety, which was authorized in the 2002 farm legislation. President Bush has never requested funds and Congress has not authorized them. The commission would recommend steps in 2005 to improve food safety; and,

- Congress should direct the Government Accounting Office (GAO) and the USDA's Inspector General to investigate and report on the mad cow disease outbreak.

In addition, the coalition said it was establishing an Accountability Center to publicly monitor the implementation of programs and policies to address mad cow disease reforms over the next year.

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Public Citizen Report Describes Some of Maryland's Dangerous Doctors as Physicians Gear Up for a March on Annapolis

Despite 2003 Passage of Disclosure Law, Public Still in Dark About "Repeat Offender" Doctors

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Maryland's real medical malpractice problem is a subset of "repeat offender" doctors who have not been disciplined, whose names are hidden from public disclosure and who thrive in an environment where malpractice lawsuit awards are capped, according to a Public Citizen report released today.

These findings stand in stark contrast to claims made by the Maryland Medical Society (MedChi) and Medical Mutual, the largest insurer of doctors in the state. MedChi is preparing for a January 21 statehouse demonstration to demand that the state legislature pass a law that will significantly limit a patient's ability to hold a health care provider fully accountable for negligence.

The study was spurred by Public Citizen's finding that just 3 percent of Maryland's doctors have been responsible for 50.8 percent of malpractice payouts to patients since 1990, when the federal National Practitioner Data Bank began collecting such information. The study determined that under Maryland's new "Physician Profile" law, only five of 180 repeat offender doctors are eligible to have their names made public on the state Web site - and none have yet been posted.

The study focuses on some of the 143 three-time malpractice offenders who have never been disciplined and remain eligible to practice in Maryland. Three of the dangerous doctors, referred to as Doctors X, Y and Z in the report, injured five or more patients.

"The report provokes several questions for MedChi," said Frank Clemente, director of Public Citizen's Congress Watch and an author of the study. "Will Doctors X, Y and Z be marching in Annapolis on Wednesday? If they lobby for the bill, will they disclose their records to legislators? Will they be covered by a proposed damages cap? And why shouldn't the state tell the public who they are?

"Marylanders need to look beyond the scare tactics of the Medical Society," Clemente added. "It would be a huge mistake to restrict patients' legal rights so that they cannot hold doctors, hospitals and insurance companies fully accountable for deaths or serious injuries."

Public Citizen called on the legislature to improve disclosures of repeat malpractice offenders rather than penalize the victims of malpractice. Under the physician discipline reform law enacted last year, the fact that a doctor has settled three or more malpractice cases is supposed to be disclosed, but only if all three occurred during the past five years and if each settlement exceeded $150,000. According to Public Citizen's analysis of National Practitioner Data Bank records, only five Maryland doctors are covered by the law. Worse yet, none of the five's records has yet been posted on the Board of Physicians' Web site.

Public Citizen's report pieces together the stories of three of the state's dangerous doctors - and their victims - from public records, redacted files of the National Practitioner Data Bank and the few details of lawsuits that are not hidden by confidential settlements. All three doctors are still practicing in Maryland despite having lost or settled five or more lawsuits.

include:

- Doctors with repeated malpractice claims against them suffer few consequences. Only 20.6 percent (37 of 180) of Maryland doctors who made three or more malpractice payouts since 1990 were disciplined by the Maryland authorities. Moreover, Maryland in 2002 ranked 46th among all states and the District of Columbia for the frequency with which it takes serious disciplinary actions against doctors for incompetence, misprescribing drugs, sexual misconduct, criminal convictions, ethical lapses or other offenses, according to Public Citizen's analysis.

- Doctor X, an obstetrician/gynecologist practicing in the Baltimore area, has made payments to at least seven patients who sued him for medical malpractice since 1981. In one case, Dr. X punctured a patient's colon during surgery, nearly costing the patient her life. This case resulted in a jury verdict for the patient in June of 2000 of $1.5 million, later reduced due to Maryland's cap on non-economic damages, which is significantly higher than the $350,000 cap that is proposed. Dr. X has never been disciplined by the state of Maryland.

- Doctor Y, an orthopedic surgeon practicing in the Baltimore area, has made payments to at least five patients who sued him for medical malpractice since 1980. In one case, Dr. Y performed an unnecessary carpal tunnel surgery on a patient that created a cascade of problems including numerous corrective surgeries. He ordered follow-up procedures to fraudulently conceal his original negligence. An arbitrator ruled in favor of the patient and awarded her almost $1.4 million. Doctor Y has never been disciplined by the state of Maryland.

- Doctor Z, an orthopedic surgeon practicing in the Baltimore area, has made payments to at least six patients who sued him for medical malpractice since 1989. In one case, he lacerated a patient's nerves during carpal tunnel surgery. The case was settled for an undisclosed amount. Doctor Z was put on probation by the state of Maryland within the past 10 years and his probation was terminated two years later. But he currently practices with no restrictions on his license and has numerous current cases pending against him.

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Public Interest Groups Call for Special Prosecutor to Launch Criminal Investigation of Attorney General John Ashcroft and his Political Committees in Campaign Finance Case

WASHINGTON, D.C. - A coalition of public interest organizations sent a letter today to the U.S. Department of Justice calling for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate potential criminal actions involving U. S. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, his 2000 Senate campaign committee and his leadership PAC. The letter, based on newly released documents from the Federal Election Commission (FEC), outlines evidence that Ashcroft knowingly accepted, during his 2000 Senate re-election campaign, a fundraising mailing list, developed at a cost of $1.7 million, constituting an illegal, excessive contribution of at least $255,000, in direct violation of federal campaign finance law. The letter also charges that Mr. Ashcroft and his political committees engaged in a criminal conspiracy to cover up the illegal contribution.

According to FEC documents, Mr. Ashcroft claims that he - and not his leadership PAC - owns the fundraising list. The public interest groups' letter argues that if Mr. Ashcroft's claims are true, then Mr. Ashcroft has violated federal law by failing to disclose the fundraising list as an asset on his U.S. Senate financial disclosure forms and that there is probable cause to suspect that Mr. Ashcroft may have engaged in tax evasion, by failing to report income earned from the asset on his income tax filings before the Internal Revenue Service.

"There can be no doubt that the appointment of an outside special counsel is required in this case to fully investigate potential criminal actions implicating the United States Attorney General himself," the public interest groups state in their letter. "Failure to appoint an outside special counsel in this case would send the dangerous message to the American people that the nation's chief law enforcement officer is above the law."

The letter, issued to Deputy Attorney General James Comey, is signed by John C. Bonifaz, executive director of the National Voting Rights Institute; Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington; Nick Nyhart, executive director of the Public Campaign Action Fund; Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen; and Stephanie Moore, executive director of the Fannie Lou Hamer Project.

On Dec. 11, 2003, the FEC issued a $37,000 fine to Mr. Ashcroft's 2000 campaign committee for the U.S. Senate and his political action committee, the Spirit of America PAC, for violations of federal campaign finance law during the 2000 election. The FEC's action came in the midst of a federal lawsuit brought by a coalition of campaign reform groups and Missouri voters that accused the FEC of excessive delay in investigating the violations. The FEC's "conciliation agreement" with the Ashcroft committees revealed that Mr. Ashcroft was directly involved in the circumstances leading to the violations.

The allegations in the underlying case center on the disclosure, first reported on Feb. 1, 2001, by The Washington Post, were that the Spirit of America PAC had contributed a fundraising list of 100,000 donors to Ashcroft's 2000 Senate campaign in Missouri. Federal campaign finance law prohibits political action committees from making campaign contributions to federal candidates that exceed the value of $10,000 in an election cycle (primary and general election included). The article appeared on the day the U.S. Senate voted to confirm Mr. Ashcroft to be United States Attorney General.

In its conciliation agreement with Mr. Ashcroft's political committees, the FEC determined that Ashcroft 2000 had improperly received rental income from the fundraising list totaling more than $110,000, constituting "an excessive contribution from the PAC to Ashcroft 2000" in violation of federal campaign finance law. The FEC, however, refused to find that the donation of the list itself constituted an excessive contribution, apparently accepting the contention that Ashcroft, and not his PAC, owned the list as an "exchange for the use of his name and likeness" in creating the list. Federal candidates may make unlimited donations to their campaigns.

The public interest groups' letter points out that if Mr. Ashcroft does, in fact, own the fundraising list, then he would have had to report it as an asset in financial disclosure reports as a U.S. senator and as the U.S. attorney general, and he would have had to pay taxes to the IRS on income earned from the fundraising list. FEC documents reveal that he did not disclose the list as an asset on his Senate financial disclosure statements in 1998 and 1999, and the groups say there is probable cause to suspect that he similarly has not disclosed the asset as an executive branch official. They further say that there is probable cause to suspect that Mr. Ashcroft has not paid taxes on income earned from the list, giving rise to potential tax evasion charges.

The issuance of today's letter and the FEC's recent action come as the agency fights to avoid discovery in the related federal court case. On July 22, 2003, Federal Judge Emmet G. Sullivan issued a ruling denying the FEC's motion to dismiss the case and ordering the agency to provide the plaintiffs with crucial information on the agency's handling of the matter. The plaintiffs, represented by the National Voting Rights Institute and the Washington, D.C., law firm of Jenner & Block, have filed before Judge Sullivan a motion to compel the FEC to turn over documents in its investigation of the charges against the Ashcroft committees. Judge Sullivan has scheduled oral argument for Jan. 21, 2004, on that motion, along with the FEC's renewed motion to dismiss the case.

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Egregious Violations in Ashcroft PAC Case Require Investigation by Department of Justice

Statement of Craig Holman, Legislative Representative, Public Citizen

Nowhere is the integrity of democratic governance more at stake than in the field of money in politics. Campaign finance laws and regulations are developed with the intent of ensuring that officeholders and candidates abide by fair and reasonable rules in raising and spending campaign funds, and that these financial activities be open to public scrutiny.

These principles were violated by the leadership PAC of John Ashcroft, called Spirit of America, and his campaign committee, Ashcroft 2000. There is also reason to suspect that these violations were done knowingly and willfully and in a manner intended to conceal the violations from the public.

That illegal contributions were made between Ashcroft's leadership PAC and campaign committee is undisputed. Even a divided Federal Election Commission (FEC) voted that contribution violations had occurred and leveled a fine against both the PAC and the campaign committee.

But in its "conciliation agreement" with the Ashcroft committees, the FEC failed miserably at carrying out its duties to enforce the law. The commission levied a $37,000 fine against a series of illegal contributions that could have amounted to as much as $1.7 million, and avoided altogether dealing with the issue that there may have been criminal conspiracy in concealing the illegal transactions.

The FEC's fine amounts to about 2 percent of the potential value of the violation.

The reason behind the elections agency's extraordinary leniency can be found in the "Statement of Reasons" issued by two of the Republican members of the commission, David Mason and Michael Toner. After describing the issue as a "garden variety complaint," the commissioners begin their analysis by dismissing the complaint as "political attacks by opponents of the current Administration" and the "sitting Attorney General."

Partisanship may or may not have been a motivation behind the complainants; of that, I - and the FEC - are not to judge. But partisanship clearly formed the basis of the FEC providing only a slap on the wrist for Ashcroft's campaign.

Without getting into too much detail of the violations, a brief synopsis shows why even those who wish to defend the sitting attorney general could not dismiss the complaint outright.

Within a period of a month, John Ashcroft established both his campaign committee (Ashcroft 2000) and his leadership PAC (Spirit of America). Though there is no legal precedent for leadership PACs, the FEC has generally accepted their existence as long as they do not serve as conduits for candidates to evade the contribution limits. Leadership PACs are intended as unaffiliated committees that usually make contributions to other candidates, subject to the contribution limits.

Ashcroft's leadership PAC developed a contribution list of more than 100,000 contributors at a cost of about $1.7 million. The PAC is prohibited from making a contribution to Ashcroft's campaign committee beyond $5,000, which includes the transfer of anything of value such as a contributor list.

So, Spirit of America transferred exclusive control of the contributor list to John Ashcroft personally rather than his campaign committee, then Ashcroft transferred the list to his campaign committee. The transfer was unreported.

This is nothing short of laundering a campaign contribution - a huge one at that.

To make matters even more flagrant, the Spirit of America routed additional proceeds for the rental of the list to Ashcroft 2000, and Ashcroft 2000 derived even more income from renting the list to others as well. Both committees have a common treasurer, Garrett Lott.

The value of the laundered campaign contributions can be a matter of dispute. But it is highly unlikely that John Ashcroft, a former governor and senator, or that his financial manager, would have been unaware that such transactions are illegal. And the professional manner in which the illegal transactions were conducted raises red flags sufficient to lead to criminal investigations of lesser-known candidates.

All this, and the FEC does nothing more than fine the sitting attorney general's campaign a meager $37,000, with no criminal culpability.

The violations of law in this case are egregious. And the enforcement thus far has been patronizing. Public Citizen asks that the Department of Justice take this case with all the seriousness it is due. ###

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