All Things Whistleblower: A GAP Blog

GAP Celebration this Wednesday

GAP is happy to invite you, our supporters, to a celebration in honor of our thirty year legacy, and to offer a toast to whistleblowers and their defenders. To commemorate the occasion, GAP will recognize select whistleblowers and elected officials for their outstanding dedication and commitment to the whistleblower cause. This event will be hosted by special guest Erin Brockovich.

This reception will take place this coming Wednesday, September 26, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at The Mott House in Washington.

Click here for the full invitation!

Senators Recommend Instituting Committee to Investigate Wartime Contracting

Last week, Senators Jim Webb (D-VA) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) re-filed an amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill to establish an independent, bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting which would investigate government waste and fraud. GAP sent a letter of support for the amendment.

GAP supporters are encouraged to contact the Senate Leadership and request that the “Webb-McCaskill amendment be given an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor.” The number for Majority Leader Harry Reid is 202.224.5556. Thank you.

Op-ed on Consumer Safety

Jay Cook, an attorney from Georgia who heads the board of the Georgia Civil Justice Foundation (GCJF), penned an op-ed that ran yesterday in the Atlanta Journal Constitution. The piece, while mentioning GAP client David Graham, is a solid opinion about how government agencies, such as the FDA and EPA, are not quite completely fulfilling their promises of protecting Americans.

Coincidentally, the GCJF site has some nifty animation.

Climate Science News

Climate Science Watch had another substantial victory in last month’s federal ruling of the Center for Biological Diversity et al. v. Dr. William Brennan et al. A U.S. District Judge ruled that the Bush administration violated the Global Change Research Act by failing to produce a national global change research plan due and a scientific assessment of global change due. The judge ordered the Bush administration to produce both papers no later than the end of May 2008.

In related news, there’s a New York Times story today about how the U.S. Climate Change Science Program “has been plagued by delays, and that it has not devoted enough money or effort to studying the effects of climate change, or to disseminating the findings to those who would be most affected.”

INT Reports

The long-awaited Volcker report on the World Bank’s INT came out today, one week after GAP released its own. GAP is going through the Volcker report and plans to respond to it tomorrow. 

More Studies Show Avandia Unsafe; New Warning on Actos

Avandia, the popular diabetes drug that GAP client David Graham recently testified against at an FDA advisory board meeting, has been shown to substantially increase heart attack risk and heart failure, according to two new studies. (USA Today, Reuters)

One might recall that, despite Graham’s protest, the FDA advisory board voted (in June) for the drug to remain on the market. That decision came immediately on the heals of a vote by the same advisory board finding that Avandia probably did raise the risk of heart attack.

But the actual new news (or at least, what we weren’t pretty sure about before), is that Avandia rival Actos, while cutting the risk of heart attack, does raise the risk of heart failure.

Study: Sarbox Not Effective

A recent study from the University of Nebraska College of Law has concluded that under Sarbanes-Oxley federal protection (since its inception in 2002), whistleblowers aren’t very successful in winning lawsuits against former employers after suffering retaliation. The study found that only 3.6% of all cases brought to administrative hearings by whistleblowers have resulted in successes. (Add. Article)

From a Financial Times article:

The Government Accountability Group, a non-profit organisation that lobbies for whistle-blowers, described Sarbox in 2002 as "a revolution in corporate governance freedom of speech". Its president, Louis Clark, now says it is "a disaster".

Whistle-blowers struggle to win cases because Osha and judges who hear claims and appeals have tended to reject them either on a narrow reading of procedure or after deciding that claims "fail to fit within the exact legal parameters of a Sarbanes-Oxley claim", the study says.

Jason Zuckerman, a lawyer at The Employment Law Group, a law firm that represents Sarbox whistle-blowers, says: "Part of the problem is that investigators misunderstand the relevant legal standards and believe that a complainant must have a smoking gun – that is, unequivocal evidence proving retaliation."

Nine Presidential Candidates Support Federal Employee Whistleblower Protections

Nine of the major presidential candidates have gone on the record as pledging their support to upgrade federal employee whistleblower protections. This includes all three of the Democratic frontrunners -- Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards.

Specifically, the legislation that the candidates are backing has already passed the House and a Senate committee.