Ann CULLINANE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SECRETARY OF the DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES OF the UNITED STATES, Defendant-Appellee

IRVING R. KAUFMAN, Circuit Judge:

An Administrative Law Judge (hereinafter “ALJ”) has an affirmative duty to ensure that pro se disability insurance benefit claimants receive full and fair hearings. Gold v. Secretary of Health, Education & Welfare, 463 F.2d 38 (2d Cir.1972). We are presented here with a case in which an ALJ failed to heed appellant’s objections to the judge’s reliance on a letter' written by an oral surgeon against whom she had filed a malpractice suit. Because this claimant had the right, at the very least, to be informed of her opportunity to cross-examine the oral surgeon…