Was a U.S. Attorney Fired for Helping Cancer Victims? - Murray Waas

[kpete]

The Ninth Man Out: Was a U.S. Attorney Fired for Helping Cancer Victims?

By Murray Waas, HuffingtonPost.com. Posted June 7, 2007.



When a Kansas City pharmacist was convicted of diluting drugs for cancer patients, former U.S. Attorney Tom Graves thought the victims and their families should be compensated. The FBI thought otherwise.

The first sign that crimes may have been committed was when the victims no longer felt nauseous and their hair stopped falling out. Also, it wasn't cold going deep into the vein the way it was before. They needed that hurt. And when it was too long in coming, they grew anxious. Their discomfort after all was their comfort. That was the only way they knew that the chemotherapy was working.

When the FBI believed that they had enough to make a case, they brought the file to Todd Graves, the then-U.S. attorney in Kansas City, Missouri. Ultimately, Robert Courtney, a local pharmacist would be sentenced to 30 years in prison without parole for watering down chemotherapy prescriptions for thousands of cancer patients.

When the Bush administration ordered Graves to resign as U.S. attorney in Jan. 2006, the prosecutor wondered if it might have something to do with the Courtney case. Graves was the first of nine U.S. attorneys fired by the Bush administration for reasons that still are not entirely clear.

much more at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/53370/