White House Pharmacy Dispensed Drugs Without Verifying Patient Identities: Inspector General
Watchdog finds ’severe and systemic problems.’
The pharmacy at the White House repeatedly gave controlled drugs to ineligible staffers, according to an inspector general.

“All phases of the White House Medical Unit’s pharmacy operations had severe and systemic problems due to the unit’s reliance on ineffective internal controls to ensure compliance with pharmacy safety standards,” the U.S. Department of Defense’s Office of Inspector General said in a report this month detailing its investigation into allegations the White House clinic was engaging in “improper medical practices.”
The probe involved interviewing more than 120 officials and reviewing over 200 documents
Witnesses testified to rampant issues.
“Anything that took place at the White House Clinic was never written down, never recorded,” one witness told investigators. “The only record that you ever had that a patient came in and got any sort of medication would have been if it was a controlled substance that we were required to document for the pharmacy.”
The clinic failed to properly account for opioids and other controlled substances, wrote prescriptions without required information, and dispensed prescriptions without checking the recipient’s identity, the probe found.
The clinic’s actions violated both federal law and Department of Defense (DoD) policy, such as a law that requires medical providers keep track of drugs, the inspector general said.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
The clinic is run by the White House Medical Unit, a military unit that was established in 1945 and includes both military and civilian DoD employees. Staff members include doctors, nurses, and psychologists.
The unit was composed of 60 staff members as of 2019, triple the number from 2005.
In interviews with investigators, White House Medical Unit staffers said that the clinic does not constitute a true pharmacy because of the relatively low volume of drugs it handles.
“We did not find DoD guidance that outlines the volume of pharmaceutical services that would require a full time pharmacist. However, we concluded that while the White House Medical Unit may be performing a smaller number of pharmaceutical tasks, those tasks entail the full universe of pharmaceutical operations,” the watchdog report states.
“During our site visits, we observed White House Medical Unit staff performing tasks customarily associated with those of a pharmacy, such as ordering and storing a variety of prescription and non‑prescription medications and dispensing medications to patients in conventional, amber‑colored pill bottles that were marked ‘White House Medical Unit.’ Additionally, at the WHCA clinic, we observed a sign that read ‘Pharmacy.’”
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