Once about Knowledge and knowledge systems, especially knowledge applied to economic development, but since I retired branching into politics, music and whatever catches my attention.
Friday's the day when longtime Loop favorite and Health and Human Services official Cristina V. Beato will take the oath of office as deputy director of the Pan American Health Organization.
In February 2003, her boss, Assistant Secretary for Health Eve Slater, stepped down after losing an ideological battle with her deputy, Beato, and other conservatives at the department and the White House. Beato was later nominated to replace Slater, but that move foundered amid allegations of résumé embellishment by Beato. She remained acting secretary, however, for many months.
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., the ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, has sent Beato a nine-page list of questions to be answered. Some are resume-related, but a few have nothing to do with her credentials. These other inquiries are of a different nature -- such as how much of Beato's travel involved political events and whether she was involved in the controversial rewriting of an HHS report on inequities in health care for minorities.
These questions are more than just blind stabs in the dark. The reference to the minority health-care report is designed to underscore the Democratic contention that the Bush administration is "politicizing" science. The curiosity about Beato's travel arrangements stems from her road trips proselytizing for the administration's Medicare plan - and possibly from her impolitic appearance at a July 2003 town hall meeting held by Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., just before he announced he would challenge Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, a member of Kennedy's committee......
If nothing else, one thing is certain about Beato: Over the course of her career as a polarizing hospital administrator - she was at the center of controversy surrounding hospital policy on restricting undocumented immigrants' access to medical services - and as a Bush political appointee, she has made a habit of stepping on toes.
No comments:
Post a Comment