Iran Wants War (cartoon)/ Zero Hedge

Finally, putting Iran's aggression in context: 

Vaccines: You can't say No. But they're free

It is interesting... in the days when Americans paid for vaccines ourselves,  in cash, we were allowed to choose them for ourselves.  We did so, judiciously and appropriately.

No, I'm putting the wrong slant on this:  there was no "allowed" about it.  Back then, who ever imagined a future US government inserting itself into our health decisions, phones and every online click?

When I was a young adult, we thought only a Soviet gulag would treat its citizens like this.

We thought we had a Constitution that was the ultimate law of the United States.  We thought the job of the Supreme Court was to guarantee that US laws complied with our Constitution.

That was the world I knew.  My children know a different world entirely.  The Surveillance State, the corporatization of our public institutions, and endemic political corruption is all they have ever seen. 

They also grew up when health insurance and the Vaccines for Children program started covering the cost of American childrens' vaccinations.

Then came Obamacare, which was going to improve our health and save us money (ha!) by paying the costs for disease prevention.  "Prevention" under Obamacare turned into a few measly tests (which my ACA insurer is unable to identify) and a whole lot of vaccines--covered 100%! Several thousand dollars' worth of vaccines. The Affordable Care Act required all new health insurance policies to cover all vaccines recommended by CDC.  

And the 21st Century Cures Act, passed by the House in 2015 and pending in the Senate, will require CDC/ACIP (CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices) to rapidly consider for addition to the recommended list of vaccines every newly licensed vaccine. Many states automatically require every CDC-ACIP listed vaccine in order to attend school. This is one way the federal government manages to insert itself into our healthcare, an area legally excluded from federal control by the 10th Amendment to the Constitution:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Last spring, in the blink of an eye, a sprinkling of measles grew a bumper crop of legislation in states throughout the US, informing parents the state would no longer educate their children, unless they let the state doctor them, as well.  

According to FOX News analyst (and retired New Jersey Superior Court Judge) Andrew Napolitano, if you don't give your children all state-mandated vaccines, the state can take your children from you, and the state--New Jersey--will educate them, doctor them and raise them for you:

New Jersey law... shows no deference to parents’ rights and permits exceptions to universal vaccinations only for medical reasons (where a physician certifies that the child will get sicker because of a vaccination) or religious objections. Short of those narrow reasons, in New Jersey, if you don’t vaccinate your children, you risk losing parental custody of them.

Requiring flu shots for preschoolers shot down in NYC/ NY Times

The NY Times had a comprehensive article about NYC's preschool flu shot mandate last January 2015. I blogged about the issue here; and now, in December, a judge has thrown out the mandate.

Children aged 6 months to 5 years and who attended any preschool program licensed by NY City were required to receive a flu shot.  The schools had to be the enforcers; if they failed to comply, they could be fined up to $2,000.  This rule was imposed in 2014 under outgoing Mayor Bloomberg, by decree of the unelected Board of Health.

Only two states, New Jersey and Connecticut, have imposed similar preschool flu mandates. Preschool flu shots were not required elsewhere in NY state.

If the shots worked well, choosing to get one might be a good idea.  But they work rather poorly. Estimates of efficacy range from 40% (CDC) to 1-3% (Cochrane Collaboration).

Because it is very difficult to assign side effects to vaccines, and because flu shot composition generally changes every year, it is impossible to know what the vaccine's side effects will be, until at least a year after the flu season is over.  This means that it is very difficult to determine the risk versus benefit of a flu shot before you get one.  Why subject our youngest citizens to vaccines for which both the benefit and risk are invariably unknown when they are used?

The judge ruled against the mandate on the basis that the NY legislature voted on other mandated vaccinations, and only the elected legislature, not NYC's health board, holds the authority to mandate vaccines.

UK govt trying to stop compensation it already granted for Narcolepsy cases linked to GSK's Pandemrix swine flu vaccine/ Guardian

Over 1,300 people who received the Pandemrix swine flu vaccine in 2009-10 developed narcolepsy.  Demographically,  adolescents were hardest hit. The vaccination caused profound neurologic disability and frequent personality changes in those affected.   

All governments that gave out swine flu vaccines were required (by manufacturers, the World Health Organization and pre-existing contracts that had been inked years earlier in the expectation they would be used for a deadly bird flu pandemic) to assume all liability for any injuries the vaccines might cause. Poland was the only country that publicly balked, and did not offer vaccine to its citizens.

After the swine flu pandemic ended, Finland noticed a spike in narcolepsy cases.  Since then, many studies have been done in about a dozen countries, and it has been established that Glaxo's Pandemrix swine flu vaccine caused a 10-16 fold increase in new narcolepsy cases. After years of debate, this part of the science is settled.

Although initially claiming the vaccine was not implicated in narcolepsy,  in 2013 the UK government admitted that the Pandemrix vaccine had in fact caused narcolepsy.  Some injured parties who were refused initially, were compensated with government funds.

However, in 2015 the UK government requested the right to appeal its earlier granting of compensation.  Most of those affected were adolescents, and the UK is now suggesting that they are less disabled than a working adult might have been. From the Guardian:

... Government lawyers are seeking to block compensation payments to people who developed the devastating sleep disorder, narcolepsy, as a result of a faulty swine flu vaccine. The Pandemrix vaccine made by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) was given to 6 million people in Britain and millions more across Europe during the 2009-10 swine flu pandemic, but was withdrawn when doctors noticed a rise in narcolepsy cases among those who received the jab. 

Government lawyers are seeking to block compensation payments to people who developed the devastating sleep disorder, narcolepsy, as a result of a faulty swine flu vaccine.

In June 2015, a 12-year-old boy was awarded £120,000 by a court that ruled he had been left severely disabled by narcolepsy caused by Pandemrix. The win ended a three-year battle with the government that argued his illness was not serious enough to warrant compensation. 

The government has paid out to the boy’s family, but has nonetheless asked the court of appeal for permission to challenge the decision. A successful appeal would effectively deny compensation to 100 more families awaiting damages and could rule out any prospect of damages for other children who are injured by different vaccines in the future.

The government argues that vaccine damages should be decided on the immediate, rather than the future, impact of the vaccine-related injury. In this case, that would mean comparing the life of a 12-year-old boy with narcolepsy with a healthy boy the same age. Any effect on his future sex life, his ability to drive, his ability to work or go to university would be completely disregarded. 

“That is a radical interpretation of the law. It is very hard to show that you are disabled enough [to qualify for compensation] if the vast majority of your disability had to be ignored,” said the boy's attorney. “If their interpretation was accepted by the court of appeal, it would virtually abolish the prospects of anybody ever getting any vaccine injury compensation in the UK, because vaccines are mainly given to children and usually very young children.”

In the US, a new industry-friendly FDA Commissioner (Robert Califf, MD) is likely to be confirmed by the Senate this month. The 21st Century Cures Act, a bill that makes approval of drugs and devices easier, and promises to expedite the addition of new vaccines onto CDC-ACIPs list of recommended/required school vaccinations, was passed by 83% of the House and will soon be voted on by the Senate.  Other efforts are underway to weaken FDA regulation of drug safety and rush products to market.  Three hundred plus vaccines are in development. The head of FDA's vaccine center, Karen Midthun, MD, has announced her imminent retirement.

One might suspect that a cabal of industry and government insiders are working feverishly to deny any possibility of industry-provided compensation for injuries caused by drugs, medical devices and vaccines, before a slew of new, hurriedly approved products hits the market.  [In fact, since the 2011 Supreme Court Brucewitz decision, US vaccine manufacturers have had no liability for vaccine injuries in both federal and state courts. The goal of the UK government may be to reduce the definition of compensable injuries over there, before the wave of new vaccines appears.]

UPDATE: Feb 4, 2016 TechTimes

"A 10-year-old boy who developed narcolepsy from swine flu vaccine won £120,000 (nearly $175,000) in damages after a six-year legal bout. In 2010, Josh Hadfield received a Pandemrix vaccine and in three weeks developed narcolepsy, a condition that made him fall asleep almost every five minutes regardless of activity..."

FDA, CDC, NIH all have Foundations to Collect Industry Money to "Advance their Missions"

I blogged (here and here) about how the Inspector General System, set up by Congress to provide independent oversight of the 70 plus executive branch federal agencies, has been prevented from doing its job during the Obama administration.  In this post I discuss another way 3 federal health agencies (FDA, CDC, NIH) have been redirected from their public mission: private slush funds (Foundations) exist for each of the agencies.  In other words, there is a private back-channel for money to come in and go out from these agencies. To what purpose?

"... the Foundation provides a unique opportunity to bring all parties to the table (FDA, Patient Groups, Academia, other Government entities, and Industry) to work together in a transparent way to create exciting new regulatory science... " [And yet, the mission statement goes on to claim] "... it [the Foundation] does not participate in, nor offer advice to the FDA on regulatory matters or policy issues."

Fabulous.  "Exciting new regulatory science" in the current FDA context, means less careful drug/device approval. Over the past few years FDA has introduced 3 new pathways by which a drug, vaccine or medical device can be approved faster, and with less evidence than before. A new FDA Commissioner is expected to be confirmed soon by the Senate, despite his industry connections (he was paid by seven pharmaceutical companies in the year before his 2015 temporary FDA appointment).  He has called for more efficient, faster drug approvals.

Using a Foundation to transfer funds is certainly not the only means by which industry has its way with the executive branch agencies, but it is instructive nonetheless to see who donates and how much.

For the FDA Foundation, six pharmaceutical companies paid $350,000 each in 2013, two entities paid $400,000 each and one $500,000.  The following were named (page 17) while others were unnamed in the tax return.

 Eli Lilly $ 400,000.00
 AstraZeneca 350,000.00
 GlaxoSmithKline 350,000.00
 Johnson & Johnson 350,000.00
 Merck 350,000.00
 Novartis 350,000.00
 Pfizer 350,000.00

In its 2014 tax filing, 5 unnamed entities gave the Foundation $500,000 each.

Do these amounts look like voluntary donations?  Why are the amounts so similar?  They look more like some sort of "tax" or "tithe" the companies were told to pay.  Is the Foundation the FDA's "enforcer"?

One liability in the 2014 tax return was for $255,000--a "grant refund payable."  Did FDA fail to carry out the conditions of the grant?  What conditions might those have been?

And check this out:  even though the FDA Foundation (Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA) is a 501C3, the FDA pays its operating expenses:

"Core Operations will be run on a day-to-day basis by the Executive Director and will be funded through:

1. FDA funds specifically prescribed under the statute to be appropriated to the FDA and then transferred to the Foundation ($500k-$1.25m)"

While the FDA Foundation collects over $4 million a year, this turned out to be peanuts.  The CDC Foundation received over $42 million in "donations" in 2013.  The NIH Foundation received almost $73 million in 2014.  What did these funds buy?

NIH (like CDC) has an industry slush fund, with NFL its largest donor, allowing NFL veto power over concussion research/ ESPN

The story about the NIH funding for concussion research is confusing, because neither NIH nor the NFL will say exactly what transpired.  But the NFL gave (or merely promised) $30 million to the NIH Foundation in 2012.  But it seems there were strings attached.  NFL was unhappy with a researcher given the NIH grant, and appears to have rescinded the money--refusing to pay for the study that NIH promised to fund, apparently using NFL money.  Now NIH says it will fund the study itself. Under what set of conditions does the NIH Foundation take industry money, one might ask?  

We've learned that, like CDC, NIH has a Foundation (the Foundation for NIH, or FNIH) which seems to be a conduit through which it can receive industry funds and do industry bidding, while the taxpayer funds NIH to the tune of $30 billion/year.  The 30 million dollar NFL grant to FNIH is said to be the largest the Foundation has received.

According to ESPN, 

"The NFL, which spent years criticizing researchers who warned about the dangers of football-related head trauma, has backed out of one of the most ambitious studies yet on the relationship between football and brain disease, sources familiar with the project told Outside the Lines...

From 2003 to 2009, the NFL published its own research denying that football players get brain damage; much of that research was later discredited. But since then, the NFL has poured tens of millions of dollars into concussion research, allowing the league to maintain a powerful role on an issue that directly threatens its future...

Dr. Walter Koroshetz, director of the NIH's National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke, told Outside the Lines this week that he had asked the FNIH over a period of several months if the NFL would be providing funding for the study but never received a definitive response. He said he attempted to expand the study over the summer to include other researchers -- a proposal that might have satisfied the league. But the NIH ultimately decided to fund the study on its own... 

The NFL's $30 million grant -- its largest single donation -- is administered by the Foundation for the NIH (FNIH), a nonprofit organization that solicits donations for NIH research... 

From the Foundation for NIH: 

"The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health procures funding and manages alliances with public and private institutions in support of the mission of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the premier medical research agency...
The FNIH was established by Congress in 1990 as a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) charitable organization. The Foundation began its work in 1996 to facilitate groundbreaking research at the NIH and worldwide. As an independent organization, it raises private funds and creates public private partnerships to support the mission of the NIH—making important discoveries that improve health and save lives."

Since 2010, prescription overdose deaths dropped slightly while heroin overdose deaths tripled/ CDC

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm64e1218a1.htm?s_cid=mm64e1218a1_w

FIGURE 2. Drug overdose deaths* involving opioids,†,§ by type of opioid¶ — United States, 2000–2014

Source: National Vital Statistics System, Mortality file.

* Age-adjusted death rates were calculated by applying age-specific death rates to the 2000 U.S. standard population age distribution.

† Drug overdose deaths involving opioids are identified using International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision underlying cause-of-death codes X40–X44, X60–X64, X85, and Y10–Y14 with a multiple cause code of T40.0, T40.1, T40.2, T40.3, T40.4, or T40.6.

§ Opioids include drugs such as morphine, oxycodone, hydrocodone, heroin, methadone, fentanyl, and tramadol.

¶ For each type of opioid, the multiple cause-of-death code was T40.1 for heroin, T40.2 for natural and semisynthetic opioids (e.g., oxycodone and hydrocodone), T40.3 for methadone, and T40.4 for synthetic opioids excluding methadone (e.g., fentanyl and tramadol). Deaths might involve more than one drug thus categories are not exclusive.

Editorial: Federal corruption watchdogs are being denied access to necessary information/ LA Times

See the blog post below this one (from the NYT) on how Inspector Generals from over 70 federal agencies have been (illegally) (and continue to be) denied information by the agencies they are supposed to oversee. This thwarts the Inspector Generals from doing their jobs to root out corruption and mismanagement.  This denial of information is supported at the highest levels (i.e., by the White House).  The Inspector General system, placing independent watchdogs in executive branch agencies, was instituted by Congress in 1978 as a check and balance to executive branch power. 

Now, a month later, the LA Times has editorialized about this huge problem to our democracy.  They suggest that Congress fix it during the next session.  I think a lawsuit might speed things along, since the executive branch is not complying with the Inspector Generals Act:

Since Congress created the first inspectors general for federal agencies in 1978, these in-house watchdogs have proved their worth again and again. Inspectors general have investigated the CIA's inhumane “enhanced interrogation methods,” revealed abuses in the FBI's acquisition of telephone and other records, and documented the selective enforcement by the Internal Revenue Service of regulations governing political spending by tax-exempt groups. 

Given the nature of their mission, it is not terribly surprising to learn from inspectors general for several federal agencies that their work is being hampered by the unwillingness of the officials they monitor to provide some necessary information — despite the fact that the Inspector General Act requires that inspectors general have access to “all records, reports, audits, reviews, documents, papers, recommendations or other material” necessary to do their job. 

The Justice Department has come under particular — and deserved — criticism for stymieing the work of its inspector general. Beginning in 2010, FBI lawyers argued that some records couldn't be shared because of protections in federal law. In July, the department's Office of Legal Counsel concluded that the inspector general could be denied access to some information in three categories: the contents of wiretaps, grand jury proceedings and credit information.
The author of that opinion, Deputy Assistant Atty. Gen. Karl R. Thompson, concluded that the Inspector General Act's requirement that inspectors general have access to “all records” must be qualified in light of the provisions of the federal Wiretap Act, the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and Section 626 of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. His opinion said that the department could provide the inspector general with information protected by these laws for “many, but not all” of its investigations. 

That isn't good enough for Michael E. Horowitz, the department's inspector general, who said that without greater access “our office's ability to conduct its work will be significantly impaired.” But the problem isn't confined to the Justice Department. In a letter to congressional leaders, the council representing inspectors general from throughout the government warned that the Office of Legal Counsel's opinion “represents a potentially serious challenge to the authority of every inspector general and our collective ability to conduct our work thoroughly, independently and in a timely manner.” 

In fairness to the Justice Department, laws must be read in conjunction with others. And, legal interpretation aside, it's important to protect the privacy of personal information, including financial records and the products of electronic surveillance, which can capture private conversations of innocent people. But in such sensitive situations, information can be provided to inspectors general with the understanding that it will be redacted in any public report. 

A Justice Department spokeswoman said that the department would support legislation to clarify Congress' intent. Fortunately, there is a bipartisan effort in Congress to make it clear that, irrespective of other laws, inspectors general are entitled to “all records” necessary for them to perform their vital function. Enacting such a law must be a priority when Congress returns to work.

Obama's Stake in the Heart to the Inspector General system at 70 federal agencies: "No records for you!"

Just in case you still think the US government has a functioning system of checks and balances, the following article in yesterday's NY Times' by Eric Lichtblau should disabuse you of such a quaint notion.

As the article explains, the Inspector General (IG) watchdog system was instituted in the wake of Watergate to provide independent oversight of 72 agencies in the executive branch of government:  i.e., so the President cannot become the Emperor, and secret operations would not be conducted by the agencies, because they could be unmasked.  

Other Presidents chafed under the IG regimen; Reagan fired 15 IGs. But Obama has thrown the biggest wrench in the works so far, advising agencies to "Just Say No" when the IGs ask for agency records to learn what the agencies they oversee are doing.

The ramifications are huge.  What can be done with a 3.8 trillion dollar federal budget when no one is looking? Here is the piece in full:

 

WASHINGTON — Justice Department watchdogs ran into an unexpected roadblock last year when they began examining the role of federal drug agents in the fatal shootings of unarmed civilians during raids in Honduras.

The Drug Enforcement Administration balked at turning over emails from senior officials tied to the raids, according to the department’s inspector general. It took nearly a year of wrangling before the D.E.A. was willing to turn over all its records in a case that the inspector general said raised “serious questions” about agents’ use of deadly force.

The continuing Honduran inquiry is one of at least 20 investigations across the government that have been slowed, stymied or sometimes closed because of a long-simmering dispute between the Obama administration and its own watchdogs over the shrinking access of inspectors general to confidential records, according to records and interviews.

The impasse has hampered investigations into an array of programs and abuse reports — from allegations of sexual assaults in the Peace Corps to the F.B.I.’s terrorism powers, officials said. And it has threatened to roll back more than three decades of policy giving the watchdogs unfettered access to “all records” in their investigations.

“The bottom line is that we’re no longer independent,” Michael E. Horowitz, the Justice Department inspector general, said in an interview.

The restrictions reflect a broader effort by the Obama administration to prevent unauthorized disclosures of sensitive information — at the expense, some watchdogs insist, of government oversight.

Justice Department lawyers concluded in a legal opinion this summer that some protected records, like grand jury transcripts, wiretap intercepts and financial credit reports, could be kept off limits to government investigators. The administration insists there is no intention of curtailing investigations, but both Democrats and Republicans in Congress have expressed alarm and are promising to restore full access to the watchdogs.

The new restrictions grew out of a five-year-old dispute within the Justice Department. After a series of scathing reports by Glenn Fine, then the Justice Department inspector general, on F.B.I. abuses in counterterrorism programs, F.B.I. lawyers began asserting in 2010 that he could no longer have access to certain confidential records because they were legally protected.

That led to a series of high-level Justice Department reviews, a new procedure for reviewing records requests and, ultimately, a formal opinion in July from the department’s Office of Legal Counsel. That opinion, which applies to federal agencies across the government, concluded that the 1978 law giving an inspector general access to “all records” in investigations did not necessarily mean all records when it came to material like wiretap intercepts and grand jury reports.

The inspector-general system was created in 1978 in the wake of Watergate as an independent check on government abuse, and it has grown to include watchdogs at 72 federal agencies. Their investigations have produced thousands of often searing public reports on everything from secret terrorism programs and disaster responses to boondoggles like a lavish government conference in Las Vegas in 2010 that featured a clown and a mind reader.

Not surprisingly, tensions are common between the watchdogs and the officials they investigate. President Ronald Reagan, in fact, fired 15 inspectors general in 1981. But a number of scholars and investigators said the restrictions imposed by the Obama administration reflect a new level of acrimony.

“This is by far the most aggressive assault on the inspector general concept since the beginning,” said Paul Light, a New York University professor who has studied the system. “It’s the complete evisceration of the concept. You might as well fold them down. They’ve become defanged.”

While President Obama has boasted of running “the most transparent administration in history,” some watchdogs say the clampdown has scaled back scrutiny of government programs.

“This runs against transparency,” said the Peace Corps inspector general, Kathy Buller.

At the Peace Corps, her office began running into problems two years ago in an investigation into the agency’s handling of allegations of sexual assaults against overseas volunteers. Congress mandated a review after a volunteer in Benin was murdered in 2009; several dozen volunteers reported that the Peace Corps ignored or mishandled sexual abuse claims.

But Peace Corps lawyers initially refused to turn over abuse reports, citing privacy restrictions. Even after reaching an agreement opening up some material, Ms. Buller said investigators have been able to get records that are heavily redacted.

“It’s been incredibly frustrating,” she said. “We have spent so much time and energy arguing with the agency over this issue.”

The Peace Corps said in a statement, however, that it was committed to “rigorous oversight” and has cooperated fully with the inspector general.

Agencies facing investigations are now sometimes relying on the Justice Department’s opinion as justification for denying records — even records that are not specifically covered in the opinion, officials said.

At the Commerce Department, the inspector general this year shut down an internal audit of enforcement of international trade agreements because the department’s lawyers, citing the Justice Department’s guidance, refused to turn over business records that they said were “proprietary” and protected.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s inspector general has reported a series of struggles with the organization over its access to documents, including records the agency said were classified or covered by attorney-client privilege. And investigators at the Postal Service, a special Afghanistan reconstruction board, and other federal agencies have complained of tightened restrictions on investigative records as well.

Hopes of a quick end to the impasse have dimmed in recent days after the Obama administration volunteered to restore full access for the Justice Department’s inspector general — but not the other 71 watchdogs.

Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch, asked about the issue at a House hearing last week, said the proposal was intended to ensure, at least at the Justice Department, “that the inspector general would receive all the information he needed.”

 “It’s no fix at all,” said Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, who leads the Judiciary Committee.

In a rare show of bipartisanship, the administration has drawn scorn from Democrats and Republicans. The Obama administration’s stance has “blocked what was once a free flow of information” to the watchdogs, Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said at a hearing.

A Justice Department spokeswoman, Emily Pierce, said in a statement on Friday: “Justice Department leadership has issued policy guidance to ensure that our inspector general gets the documents he requests as quickly as possible, even when those documents are protected by other statutes protecting sensitive information. The department is unaware of any instance in which the inspector general has sought access to documents or information protected from disclosure by statute and did not receive them.”

Nowhere has the fallout over the dispute been felt more acutely than at the Justice Department, where the inspector general’s office said 14 investigations had been hindered by the restricted access.

These include investigations into the F.B.I.’s use of phone records collected by the National Security Agency, the government’s sharing of intelligence information before the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, a notorious gun-tracing operation known as “Fast and Furious” and the deadly Honduran drug raids.

In the case of the Honduran raids, the inspector general has been trying to piece together the exact role of D.E.A. agents in participating in, or even leading, a series of controversial drug raids there beginning in 2011.

Details of what happened remain sketchy even today, but drug agents in a helicopter in 2012 reportedly killed four unarmed villagers in a boat, including a pregnant woman and a 14-year-old boy, during a raid on suspected drug smugglers in northeastern Honduras. They also shot down several private planes — suspected of carrying drugs — in possible violation of international law.

An investigation by the Honduran government cleared American agents of responsibility. But when the inspector general began examining the case last year, D.E.A. officials refused to turn over emails on the episodes from senior executives, the inspector general’s office said. Only after more than 11 months of back-and-forth negotiations were all the records turned over.

The D.E.A. refused to comment on the case, citing the investigation. A senior Justice Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the continuing review, said the refusal to turn over the records was the flawed result of “a culture within the D.E.A.” at the time — and not the result of the Justice Department’s new legal restrictions.

Mr. Horowitz, the inspector general, said the long delay was a significant setback to his investigation. He now hopes to complete the Honduran review early next year.

In the meantime, the watchdogs say they are looking to Congress to intervene in a dispute with the administration that has become increasingly messy.

“It’s essential to enshrine in the law that the inspector general has access to all agency records,” said Mr. Fine, who is now the Pentagon’s principal deputy inspector general. “The underlying principle is key: To be an effective inspector general, you need the right to receive timely access to all agency records.”