WASHINGTON: A Pentagon report shows that the White House Medical Unit during the Trump administration improperly provided drugs and misused funds.
According to the report the White House Military Office, did not follow the federal government and Department of Defense guidelines.
It said that controlled substances were provided to ineligible staff and tens of thousands of dollars were spent on brand-name drugs.
The report found that ineligible staffers received free care and surgery at military medical facilities and were given drugs including controlled substances, in violation of federal law.
It added that the White House Medical Unit’s management ineffectively used funds by obtaining brand-name medications instead of generic equivalents.
The report noted that the unit lacked proper control to ensure compliance with safety standards.
It found that the medical unit spent $46,500 from 2017-2019 on 8,900-unit doses of Ambien while it also spent $98,000 on 4,180-unit doses of Provigil, a brand name stimulant.
According to the report both drugs were disbursed without verifying identities of the patients. It added that opioids and sleeping medicines were also not properly accounted for.
The report shows the findings of the Pentagon’s Office of the Inspector General, which probed the unit from September 2019 through February 2020 after receiving a complaint in 2018.
The assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, Lester Martinez-Lopez, in response to the report’s findings, sent a memo to the Inspector General concurring with all its recommendations.
