Petition for Clinical Safety, Organizational Integrity and

ongoing Trusted Patient Partnership at the NIH

We the undersigned as patients, former patients and supporters of a trusted patient partnership at the NIH fully support and agree with the need to have a highly functioning Clinical Center at the National Institutes of Health; one which fosters a culture of safety, excellence and compassion; one which pushes the envelope of clinical knowledge and expands the boundaries of research frontiers.

We support an integrated clinical intramural research program at the NIH as being a necessity going forward for good science and good patient care.

We believe that time after time, the leadership at the clinical center takes into account patient needs, patient safety and patient care in a demonstrable fashion through transparent inquiry, decisive action, enthusiastic accreditation and clinical execution.

We call for a reversal of the stated intent to replace the current clinical center leadership team. Doing so will violate patient trust in the integrity of the NIH as an institution to follow the facts where they lead and of the clinical care delivery that takes place there. The current management team has a multi-decade proven track record of high integrity, effective execution and transparent investigation into clinical issues that may arise from time to time.

We fully support the current leadership, John Gallin, Maureen Gormley and David Henderson, staying in place as being the best path toward creating a highly functioning clinical center.

We fully support convening a formal board of directors for clinical center operations that has oversight authority over clinical programs at the center and across the institutes.

We believe that the director of the NIH through the office of the Director has the ability to reorganize authority, information flow and financial resources to streamline consistency at the clinical center by increasing the authority of the clinical center leadership over institute protocols and personnel involved in clinical care and request that these changes occur within the calendar year.