[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 192 (Tuesday, November 2, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Page S7588]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Whistleblowers

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, during my time in the Senate, I have 
always tried to honor the work of whistleblowers. Those who speak up 
about government wrongdoing ought to be rewarded and not sidelined and 
punished. But that is exactly what happened in the Indian Health 
Service according to a recently released internal report. Now, this 
goes back a few years, but it still is a constant reminder of how 
whistleblowers aren't listened to and bad things happen.
  According to this internal report, in August 2006, a Dr. Mark 
Butterbrodt wrote to his superiors about a fellow doctor. Over the 
course of years, he repeatedly made extremely serious whistleblower 
complaints alleging that his colleague, a Dr. Stanley Weber, was 
sexually assaulting his young patients. He was not alone, because other 
staff tried to report Weber to those at the very top. His behavior was 
described as an ``open secret.'' It is even alleged that the standard 
orientation for new nurses included a warning to never leave Dr. Weber 
alone with young boys.
  The response from the Indian Health Service senior staff was silence, 
so the crimes continued. Over a decade after the first whistleblower 
report, Dr. Weber continued to sexually assault young boys who came to 
the Indian Health Service for help.
  Instead of removing the man who had been repeatedly, credibly accused 
of sexually abusing his patients, they punished the whistleblower.
  Too often in government, we see the people who report wrongdoing 
being punished.
  Numerous senior officials broke the law by failing to report 
allegations to law enforcement, so the crime could continue. Instead, 
what did they do? They promoted Dr. Weber to manage those who witnessed 
his crimes.

  By contrast, the report states that Dr. Butterbrodt was 
``banished''--and the word ``banished'' is in quotation marks--to the 
``very remote and rural facility'' in Belcourt, ND. So the doctor who 
was the patriotic American, reporting crimes, eventually resigned, and 
that was shortly after he was banished to a very remote and rural 
facility.
  This shameful response by the Indian Health Service leadership had a 
direct impact on future whistleblowers. If you have an environment that 
discourages whistleblowing, what are you going to get? Less 
whistleblowing.
  This internal report states that ``nurses told Dr. Butterbrodt that 
now he could see why they never speak up.''
  It is unconscionable that these whistleblowers were ignored and a 
pedophile was allowed to act with impunity. That is why I recently sent 
a letter to the Acting Director of Indian Health Service to ensure that 
future patients and whistleblowers do not face the same treatment. I 
want to make sure that processes have been put in place so that this 
doesn't happen again.
  Dr. Butterbrodt and those like him were right to blow the whistle. We 
need to make it easier, not harder, to do the right thing.
  There is a pattern about whistleblowers. They tend to be treated like 
skunks at a picnic. They usually end up doing what is patriotic, only 
to hurt themselves professionally, maybe even becoming unemployed just 
because they do what most civil servants want to do--just have the 
government do what the law requires or how the money is spent according 
to law.
  So I take the advantage--every time a Cabinet person or sub-Cabinet 
person comes to my office for their usual interviews before 
confirmation, I advise them, whether they run an Agency that maybe has 
3,000 or 4,000 people to an Agency that has--I suppose like the 
Veterans Administration, which I think has 400,000 people--you are head 
of that Department. You don't know what is going on by everybody 
underneath you. You should listen to whistleblowers.
  They all assure me that they will, but somehow the culture in our 
government doesn't seem to change.