Carolyn Washburn, editor and vice president of the Des Moines Register, calls on Iowa Gov. Chet Culver for more openness and accountability on the Atalissa bunkhouse case, in which is it alleged that 21 workers with intellectual disabilities were exploited for years without state intervention. Among her complaints: The state has not explained why state workers cleared Henry’s Turkey Service of complaints received in 2001 and 2005.

How, Washburn wonders, can members of the public believe that vulnerable people are being protected when the state is shrouding its actions in secrecy?

… we don’t know whether state inspectors did their job adequately or failed and left those men in a vulnerable situation for four more years.

The governor has now appointed a task force. All members are employees of those same state agencies.

 And to bring this full circle, we don’t know what changes in staffing the directors of those departments have recommended for budget cuts. Would their recommendations improve this situation or leave some Iowans more vulnerable?

Someone in the community said to me this week, “Our public trust cannot be blind at this critical moment.”

See also: Widow at ex-turkey farm faces questions — Houston Chronicle

Jane Ann Johnson of Goldthwaite, Texas, is the widow of Thurman “T.H.” Johnson, whose Hill Country Farms Inc. sent workers with intellectual disabilities from Texas to Atalissa, Iowa. Hill Country Farms and its subsidiary, Henry’s Turkey Service, are being investigated by the Texas attorney general’s office, the state of Iowa, the U.S. Department of Labor, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Social Security Administration.

[Although] Texas and federal officials have said they had little or no prior knowledge of the operation, the array of plaques on Johnson’s wall and the recollections and records of those in Goldthwaite reveal a long history of government awareness and oversight.

It was a decades-old arrangement born out of the state of Texas’ desire for farms to take older, mentally challenged wards off their hands.

From the Des Moines Register, a letter from ARC of the United States executive director Peter V. Berns about reports that 21 men with intellectual disabilities were warehoused in deplorable conditions while employed by a meat-processing company:

As the treatment of people with intellectual disabilities has progressed, it is astonishing that state agencies in Iowa and Texas — from human and social services to labor and fiscal agents — provided no oversight on the care and employment of these individuals.

A swift investigation along with the filing of charges against those responsible is one step toward addressing the rights of these individuals and restoring some of their dignity by ensuring their inclusion within the community.

In the New York Times, a letter from David S. Perlin about the court ruling that found autism is not caused by childhood vaccines:

I am outraged as a scientist and infectious diseases specialist that a vocal group of media personalities and politicians, latching onto a badly flawed vaccine-link hypothesis, could have so wrongly influenced society.

… We need to learn that engaging in amateurish science makes for bad public policy.

Perlin is is director and a professor at the Public Health Research Institute-New Jersey Medical School

From the Houston Chronicle:

Nelda Lashley says she was shocked to learn that her son Ronnie was among 21 men evacuated from an Iowa bunkhouse last week. The labor broker that placed the men there is under investigation for the alleged mistreatment of workers with intellectual disabilities.

Lashley, who has four other children, said she placed her son in an institution in 1961 on the advice of  elementary school officials. Her son, who did not speak intelligibly, was not permitted to attend public school, she said.

“It was very hard,” Lashley, now 75, said Tuesday. “For 30 days, I didn’t do nothing but cry. It’s awful to lose a child like that.”

She said she didn’t raise questions when representatives of the Abilene State School told her in the mid-1970s they were placing Ronnie with a Texas company that would teach him a trade, working in turkey plants.

The Texas state school system has no record of any of the 21 men because records are not kept that long, said an agency spokeswoman. Lashley’s son is now in protective custody in Iowa.

(Houston Chronicle photo)

See video here.

Earlier posts here, here, here, here, and here.

From the Des Moines Register:

A councilman from Atalissa said he called the Iowa Department of Human Services several years ago to complain about housing provided to the disabled employees of Henry’s Turkey Service, but officials there refused to act.

The building was shut down by the state fire marshall 10 days ago, and state and federal agencies are now investigating the company.

Dennis Hepker told a legislative committee he was concerned about fire safety because the front door of the bunkhouse was chained and padlocked from the outside.

“I was informed that they were understaffed and that if I didn’t have hard evidence there was nothing they could do,” Hepker said.

See also:

• Atalissa officials didn’t think men were being mistreated — AP/Houston Chronicle
• Governor pledges action over ‘deplorable’ conditions for dependent adults — Des Moines Register

From the Des Moines Register:

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) is planning congressional hearings over the alleged exploitation of workers with intellectual disabilities for decades at an Iowa meat processing plant.

The scandal began last week when the Des Moines Register reported that Henry’s Turkey Service, a Texas company, was paying 21 workers as little as 44 cents an hour to work in the Iowa plant. The company was housing the men in a 106-year-old bunkhouse with windows that were boarded up to keep out the cold.

“This is pretty close to slavery,” Harkin said. “It should shock all our consciences that something like this would go on in this day and age.”

(more…)

From the Des Moines Register:

Henry’s Turkey Service acknowledged Tuesday that it retained most of the government disability checks of its disabled workers, and paid the men a monthly wage of only about $65 each. The rest of the government money was deducted for room, board and “kind care.”

Payroll records obtained by the Des Moines Register show that the effect of that practice was to pay the men as little as 44 cents an hour for their work.

The company is being investigated by local, state and federal agencies after the workers with disabilities were evacuated last week amid safety concerns. Officials called their living situation “deplorable.”

See also:

Pulled from their routine, meat plant workers’ future is uncertain – Des Moines Register

Earlier posts here and here.

By Clark Kauffman in the Des Moines Register:

The 21 mentally retarded men who have lived for decades in a century-old bunkhouse in rural Atalissa were declared dependent adults Monday, opening the door to criminal prosecution of their employer.

At the same time, Muscatine County prosecutors filed a court petition seeking an emergency order placing the men under the protective supervision of the Iowa Department of Human Services.

… Sen. Joe Bolkcom, D-Iowa City, said it appeared all the money the men were making was routed to a bank account in Texas, where Henry’s Turkey Service is based. The men lived on $60 to $70 per month, he said.

“This seems to me it is virtually slave labor here in our state,” Bolkcom said.

Earlier post here.