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Posted on 12/08/2002 3:33:14 PM PST by BLOODHOUND (askel5)
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Dole praised as Red Cross head, but problems from her time remain
By SCOTT MOONEYHAM, , Associated Press Writer RALEIGH, N.C.(AP) - When Elizabeth Dole took control at the American Red Cross, the organization had never been more troubled. Tainted blood collected by the charity had infected hundreds of people with AIDS and hepatitis. Congressional hearings were under way to examine blood handling procedures and the safety of the blood supply. Soon, the Food and Drug Administration was breathing down the agency's neck to try to bring the problems under control. In Dole's own words, "Blood was about to go off the cliff." The two-time Cabinet secretary was courted by the charity's board for several months before she became Red Cross president in February 1991. She stayed until 1999, though she took a 14-month leave from November 1995 to January 1997 while her husband, former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole, ran for president. Today, Dole - a Republican nominee for U.S. Senate - proclaims her eight-year tenure at the Red Cross a success. She talks about transforming a blood-handling infrastructure that hadn't changed since World War II, bringing centralized control and testing to the system. Dole also says her fund-raising prowess helped raise $3.4 billion during her time as president, and touts changes she made to better coordinate responses to disasters. Such successes won many admirers, including two Democrats who served in the Clinton administration - former FDA chief David Kessler and Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala. But there are critics, too, who point to problems with the blood supply and charitable giving that remain today. "Her record really doesn't support any kind of commendation from the Red Cross," Judith Reitman, author of the 1996 book, "Bad Blood: Crisis in the American Red Cross," said last week. Even Dole's critics concede that she inherited a massive organization faced with monumental problems. The FDA had been scrutinizing the Red Cross, which provides almost half of the nation's blood supply, for its blood-handling practices since 1985. Despite public pressure and increasingly hostile federal regulators, Dole arrived to an organization where blood was tested at 53 labs with 53 sets of operating standards. The blood went through only two test procedures as it was processed. The blood banks and labs were controlled by local directors, hired by local boards. Carlton Brownell, who served on the agency's governing board during Dole's tenure, said its local leaders felt a sense of ownership and many resisted change. "You had corporate cultures that frankly were not compatible with what management wanted to do. There were blood regions that just thumbed their noses," Brownell said last week. Dole went about changing everything connected with blood handling and the lines of authority in the agency. Eventually, the 53 blood labs were merged into eight, testing increased and became standardized, management was centralized and local directors hired nationally. "It was wrenching cultural changes," Dole said recently. "You had to do away with a lot of local operating procedures. This is not easy stuff." In speeches and interviews, Dole often compares the reforms to "changing the tires while the car is running." Still, they didn't come quickly enough for the FDA. In 1993, the federal agency took the Red Cross to court, forcing it to operate under a court-supervised consent decree. The consent decree remains in effect today. In December 2001 - two years after Dole left the Red Cross - the FDA went back to court to ask that the charity be held in contempt for not following the agreement. That fight is continuing. "She came into the Red Cross and it was, 'Well, can it get worse?' Things were really bad and they did get worse," Reitman said, referring to Dole's first two years with the organization. Shalala says reform could have come more quickly, but gives Dole credit for not running from the problems. "It took a while to get a handle around. But once that happened and once the consent decree was ordered, she stayed there and worked through it," Shalala said. "She has neither avoided tough jobs nor avoided working through tough situations." The changes Dole brought to the Red Cross don't stop with the charity's blood banks. She centralized communication systems and revamped disaster relief services. Volunteer training became standardized and disaster relief operations were monitored continuously. Authority and staffing at the national headquarters increased. But Robert Gibbs, a spokesman for the Democratic Sen.ial Campaign Committee, points out that the same kind of questions regarding Red Cross donations that arose following the Sept. 11 attacks had come up during Dole's tenure. Critics blasted the organization last year when some solicitations for the Sept. 11 Liberty Fund omitted the fact that the charity planned to use some of the donations for broad relief efforts. "If you go back to the Red River floods in Minnesota and North Dakota, or even back to (the federal building bombing in) Oklahoma City, Elizabeth Dole's Red Cross asked people to give for people who were hurt by those disasters and then failed to give all the money for the those disasters," Gibbs said. "What the Red Cross did after 9-11 was perfected by Elizabeth Dole." Dole's campaign spokeswoman Mary Brown Brewer said the charity never told donors during her term that money raised would go to the specific relief efforts. "They were very clear and straightforward about that," Brewer said. Democrats also point to a critical 1996 audit of the Red Cross that recommended management changes. For critics like Reitman, the evidence points to a top administrator more concerned with image than substance. "I think she is brilliant at putting forward an image that inspires confidence, but behind that is a record that is really kind of a disaster," Reitman said. Dole bristles at the criticism. "I have no idea where it comes from," she said. Her supporters say critics like Reitman have trouble understanding that Elizabeth Dole is about both style and substance. "In terms of addressing issues, she was very straightforward," Brownell said. "I think she does a pretty good job with image, but I don't think that is her primary motivation. It certainly wasn't at the Red Cross." |
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THERE MUST BE SOMEONE WHO WILL SUE BILL CLINTON OVER TAINTED BLOOD
Unfortunately, I doubt the story will see the light of day so long as Dole is running for office again.
Thanks again for posting the blood box, guy.
(I was actually happy to find this much spilled on the story ... didn't look as though it had been posted.)
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