At least partly in response to the rising political pressure, department officials acknowledge, HHS agreed June 3 to review the internal personnel transfer. But there are suggestions that neither the scope of the ongoing inquiry nor its eventual outcome will resolve the controversy. Also, no date has been set for completion of the review.
"Certainly, their assignment and reassignment are matters we're going to look at," says Harriet Rabb, HHS general counsel, "just to make sure that every `i' was dotted and every `t' was crossed and that whatever the procedures are that people are entitled to, that those procedures were followed.... If we discover that something should be altered, of course, we'll do it."
The two misconduct researchers ran into trouble with their bosses when they used a computer system of their own design that compares texts for similarities to accuse historian Stephen Oates of plagiarism (Franklin Hoke, The ...
