Letter from a Texas physician, D MD

Shirley,

I don’t know your views on our governor, but of course he has appointed everyone on the current Texas Medical Board.

A few days ago Dallas Investigative Reporters Bennett Cunningham gave a story about Perry’s recent trip to the Middle-East. Perry won’t release some of his expense reports but he took a DPS security patrol to Jerusalem to get an award from his buddies. It is called the “Defender of Jerusalem Award”.

He took his kids and his son’s fiancé. The Mrs. went and at least the parents flew First Class on tickets that were each over $5K. You probably know Perry has been giving speeches about how state employees need to curtail their travel.

The guy that gave him the award had been arrested in Florida the week before for drug and related charges.

This reporter interviewed one of the principals at www.opensecrets.org who stated the trip did not pass the smell test and was highly suspect the trip was a “secret junket”. All said, the cost to taxpayers was some $70,000. He had tried to ask Perry about it several times and the guy dodged the questions repeatedly.

The reporter is a former patient of mine. I sent him some of your info and asked if he might talk to you. I recall him telling me in the past he had video of board members entering the Driskill Hotel late one afternoon and hours later stumbling out, obviously drunk, and getting in their cars to drive off. He knew they had rightly disciplined doctors that day, however, for doing the same thing.

I’ll let you know if I hear from him. I was not so surprised by the story but still disappointed. Who is to say the next governor won’t make similar appointments but it would be awful difficult to do worse than Dr. Roberta Kalafut. Does Perry have any culpability for the situation and how do you regard his responsibility for any of the problems you know about the Board? D MD