U.S. Department of Health & Human Services -- Recognition of the Goldwater Rule

November 10, 2004

Mr. Gary Freedman
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW
#136
Washington, DC  20008

Dear Mr. Freedman:

This is in response to your letter to Thomas Insel, MD, Director of the National Institute of Mental Health asking for his comments on the termination of your employment and the subsequent years on disability retirement.

Only a doctor who has examined you and reviewed your complete medical history would be in a position to offer comments.  I am sorry we are unable to help you.

Sincerely yours,

Margaret W. Strock
Office of Communications

The irony is that the U.S. Social Security Administration in approving my claim for disability benefits in 1993 relied in part on a psychiatric opinion made by a psychiatrist who had never examined me and reviewed my complete medical history.  See Freedman v. D.C. Dept. Human Rights, D.C.C.A. no. 96-CV-961 (Sept. 1, 1998) (Gertrude Ticho, M.D. advised the employer, without having examined plaintiff in private consultation in violation of the American Psychiatric Association's Goldwater Rule, that plaintiff suffered from a psychiatric disorder that might be associated with a risk of violence).