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While waiting for that opinion we continued to talk with UTMB legal people and they agreed to provide the names of the applicants but withhold their employers names until the AG's opinion is received. On that basis we were able to get the following list which bears several names we recognize and many we do not.
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In 2003, as treatment for breast cancer, Cynthia Malveaux underwent a lumpectomy, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy. When she sought breast-reduction surgery in 2006, physicians told Mrs. Malveaux that the radiation rendered the tissue in her right breast inoperable. But Dr. Lisa Gould, a surgeon at UTMB, disagreed and maintained that she could operate on the irradiated tissue. On July 19, 2006, Dr. Gould performed a bilateral reduction mammoplasty on Mrs. Malveaux at UTMB. After the surgery, Mrs. Malveaux's right breast failed to heal, and she suffered extensive ulceration and fat necrosis. As a result, Mrs. Malveaux has undergone numerous procedures, including an unsuccessful skin graft and a total mastectomy of her right breast.
Some say this is in the works and it's the reason Wiley withdrew his application for the Police Chiefs job at UTMB. There is a lot of speculation over who's idea it was but donut gossip says when it looked like Wiley was bailing out of the GPD, city hall bigwigs started scambling for a way to hold on to him.
Engells comes to UTMB with many years of police experience in academic health care settings. Since 2005, he served as assistant chief of police at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. Engells also has extensive experience in commanding a large police and security operation.
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UTMB administrators have a history of trying to stay in the shadows when it comes to public scrutiny, which makes me a little nervous as the Galveston National Laboratory prepares to go hot. In fact, administrators tried to shield any aspect of the Biolab from public scrutiny if they chose to withhold that information from the public. Here is what the Galveston County Daily News had to say as UTMB was trying to push a change to the Texas Public Information Act through the legislature (click on the highlighted text above for the complete article):
Under the proposed law, if the newspaper heard a rumor about a suspected leak of deadly germs, as it did just months ago, the university could refuse to release any documents about the accident or alleged security breach. That’s dangerous to you and your children.
Thankfully, no doubt due to an angry public, this bad bill, SB 2556, never reached the Governor's desk.
I believe the greatest threat to public safety is not the biolab, per se, or even the deadly pathogens that scientists work with there. It is the culture of secrecy at UTMB, whether refusing to provide information about a fired police chief or this. Even though the lab is going "hot," let us hope cooler heads prevail when it comes to sharing information with the public.
National Lab ready to start its mission in earnest
Through the tours, the medical branch, which owns and operates the laboratory funded by state and federal money, has sought to assure residents the facility is safe and secure.Now those tours have ended as the medical branch prepares the facility to go “hot.”
For those who would like to see more about the Galveston National Laboratory, click on the highlighted text to see Dr. Stanley Lemon in a video titled "Inside the BSL-Four Lab" on the "State of Tomorrow" website. Dr. Lemon, who was the principal investigator for the Galveston National Laboratory, is neither inside the laboratory nor part of its tomorrow, as he decided to leave UTMB not too long ago. Sort of fills one with confidence, eh?
Hell almost all of our staff is going to High Security, what the hell, why get rid of our staff who is great, and send us someone elese. Yeah i already know, they fired them, then rehired them at a lower pay, some at a lower title, and then put them on a different unit, some a lot farther to drive to. We are getting high security staff, goree staff, huntsville staff, and one from el paso. lol.
UTMB won't be laying off quite as many people in their correctional managed care division as previously reported, restoring dental care to previous levels. (Nurses, especially R.N.s, were the other big category affected.) A reader informed me of the news, which was confirmed when I contacted UTMB's Raul Reyes who declined to respond verbally but later emailed me this written statement:
In a lawsuit filed July 9 in Galveston County District Court, Dwight Tatum's relatives accuse Brenner Tank, Brenner Tank Services and Southern Tank Leasing of either manufacturing, distributing, or selling a defective tank trailer to Intergulf Corporation, Tatum's employer, and UTMB of misplacing his skull cap as its physicians treated him after his July 16, 2008, accident.
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TPN will continue to pursue the list and if successful in obtaining it, will make it public even if the new chief is hired before we get the list. We believe the public, especially those employed by the University of Texas Medical Branch, have the right to know who the candidates for the Police Chief's position are and if the most qualified candidate is hired.
Meanwhile, Galveston's police chief has withdrawn his application for UTMB's top cop slot.
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The Police News is also waiting to see if UTMB will continue it's secret policies in dealing with public issues such as the selection of the Police Chief for the states largest, taxpayer supported, medical university.
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