WACO (June 4, 2009)—The Department of Veterans Affairs is moving its Brain Injury and Recovery Laboratory from the University of Texas in Austin to the Waco VA Hospital’s Center of Excellence for Research on Returning War Veterans, acting VA Under Secretary For Health Dr. Gerald Cross said Thursday.

“This move will place our laboratory in an ideal location that will allow us to better server our nation’s military families and Veterans,” Cross said.

“This program consolidation will enable VA to meet its mission of better understanding brain injuries and to help Veterans recover from such injuries.”

The move will give veterans easier access to VA hospitals in Waco and Temple and will enable researchers to work with soldiers at Fort Hood.

It will also give researchers access to what the VA said is the world’s most powerful MRI machine, which is at the Center for Excellence in Waco.

All of the Austin researchers have started research either at the Waco VA or at other facilities in the Central Texas Veterans Health Care System, the VA said.

The Austin Lab was the focus of an investigation last summer by the VA’s Office of Inspector General into allegations of mismanagement and misspending dating back to September 2006.

The report concluded that while most of the allegations were unsubstantiated, lab funds “had been misspent since approximately September 2006 because 8 hours per week of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner time at a rate of $486.70 per hour was paid to the University of Texas at Austin without BIRL research to support expenditures of this magnitude.

“OHI concluded that CTVHCS entered into a faulty contract. We also found that CTVHCS did not comply with VA policy in contracting with a consultant at the BIRL and that the consultant was not employed with a valid contract. In the absence of a valid contract, it was difficult to assess whether fraud had occurred.”