All Things Whistleblower: A GAP Blog

Whistleblower on Short List for FDA Commissioner

This article is a quick look at the four individuals who are thought of as being on the “short list” to take over the role as FDA Commissioner, one of the most important jobs in the Obama administration for protecting the public. One of these candidates is Dr. Susan Wood, the FDA assistant commissioner who resigned from the agency in protest in 2005 over the politicization and delay of releasing the ‘Plan B’ pill. From the Washington Post, Wood’s Quote:

The FDA is an agency that has been taken off track, and we truly need FDA to return to its mission of protecting and promoting the public health. One key way that it can accomplish this is by ensuring that FDA scientific staff are supported, and by ensuring that decisions made by the agency are based on the best available science and medical evidence.

Wood is a friend of the whistleblower community, as she is one herself. This corresponding article in the Post details the numerous issues the FDA is facing that will challenge the new boss, whoever it is.

-- Dylan Blaylock

Accountability, Finally, for Defective HIV Kits in India?

This article (from DNA India) shows how the Indian agency NACO, a central health department in that country, may finally be held accountable for its role in distributing defective HIV-test kits. The company is being asked to answer questions by a separate Indian government agency. Last year, a GAP client revealed that the World Bank and NACO were distributing the kits despite having strong evidence of their defectiveness. This may have (it is unknown for a certainty) allowed HIV-positive individuals to donate blood to that country’s general blood supply.

The World Bank’s delayed actions involving this case have been alarming, inadequate, and failed to ensure Indian public health. The Washington Post first reported on this story back in October 2007, but little was done then. Or since, for that matter. Oh, and GAP also showed earlier this year how the Bank used the CDC to cover-up this major and despicable error.

-- Dylan Blaylock

Something to Fix

It was previously known that a leading child psychiatrist had underreported his income/financial ties from drug-makers, hiding the figures from his university. This New York Times story details a much further deception and huge conflict of interest – smoking gun documents involving Johnson & Johnson show that the psychiatrist was pressuring the company to finance a research center at a hospital, with the goal to “move forward the commercial goals of J. & J.” From the NYT:

The documents offer an unusual glimpse into the delicate relationship that drug makers have with influential doctors.

In a November 1999 e-mail message, John Bruins, a Johnson & Johnson marketing executive, begs his supervisors to approve a $3,000 check to Dr. Biederman as payment for a lecture he gave at the University of Connecticut.

“Dr. Biederman is not someone to jerk around,” Mr. Bruins wrote. “He is a very proud national figure in child psych and has a very short fuse.”

Mr. Bruins wrote that Dr. Biederman was furious after Johnson & Johnson rejected a request that Dr. Biederman had made for a $280,000 research grant. “I have never seen someone so angry,” Mr. Bruins wrote. “Since that time, our business became non-existant (sic) within his area of control.”

Mr. Bruins concluded that unless Dr. Biederman received a check soon, “I am truly afraid of the consequences.”

Perhaps the new FDA chief, whoever it may be, can seek guidelines to ensure this improper pressuring and type of relationship won’t happen anymore.

-- Dylan Blaylock

Long Overdue

A federal judge has ordered that five prisoners at Guantanamo be set free, as the only evidence against holding them for the last seven years were the statements of an unnamed witness. From the Los Angeles Times:

The question in the case was whether the men, who lived in Bosnia and had never fought or been near a battlefield, had plotted with Al Qaeda and were planning to fight in Afghanistan. In Thursday's ruling, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, a Bush appointee, said the government's case was weak because it relied on only one unnamed witness who linked the men to Al Qaeda. They deserve to be released, he said.

The events that make up the timeline of this case are truly shocking:

In the fall of 2001, the Algerian-born men whose case was decided Thursday were suspected of plotting to bomb the U.S. Embassy in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo. But a court in Bosnia rejected the allegation and released the men. Then, U.S. authorities took them into custody and shipped them to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay.

In January 2002, President Bush referred to the case in his State of the Union address. “Our soldiers, working with the Bosnian government, seized terrorists who were plotting to bomb our embassy,” he said.
But when the case went before the judge, the administration's lawyers dropped that claim. Instead, they asserted that the Algerians planned to travel to Afghanistan to take up arms against U.S. forces. Leon concluded there was little or no evidence to prove the men made such a plan.

Unfortunately, the ruling may not mean the release of the prisoners immediately, as the Justice Department usually just goes along with the policies of the Bush administration. But with Obama stating his intention to shut down the prison, this travesty of justice might come to an end sooner rather that later.

-- Dylan Blaylock

Farmed Raised Fish = Organic?

The National Organics Standards Board, part of the USDA, yesterday approved criteria that would allow for farmed raised fish to qualify for an “organic label.” From the Washington Post:

The question of whether farmed fish could be labeled organic -- especially carnivorous species such as salmon that live in open-ocean net pens and consume vast amounts of smaller fish -- has vexed scientists and federal regulators for years. The standards approved yesterday by the National Organic Standards Board would allow organic fish farmers to use wild fish as part of their feed mix provided it did not exceed 25 percent of the total and did not come from forage species, such as menhaden, that have declined sharply as the demand for farmed fish has skyrocketed.

Some food safety advocates were angry at this decision (which serves as a recommendation for USDA regulations), and understandably so:

Activists questioned why up to 25 percent of fish feed could be made up of non-organic material, while all other animals certified as organic must eat 100 percent organic feed. They also noted that open-net pens can harm the environment by allowing fish waste and disease to pollute the ocean.

It’s an obvious double-standard that doesn’t really need to be in place. Allowing this new label to proceed would lower the effectiveness and honestly of the organic label as it stands now. Hopefully, this issue isn't going away. (Also covered by the St. Louis Post- Dispatch)

-- Dylan Blaylock  

Drinking Water at Risk Because Of Natural Gas Drilling

An eye-popping report published in the Denver Post on Monday is a cause for serious concern regarding community water supplies around the country.  

A common and relatively new process called hydraulic fracturing, pioneered by Halliburton, and developed as a method of releasing natural gas, originally was considered safe by a 2004 EPA study, which found no risk posed to drinking water.

This investigative report, researched and written by the new nonprofit journalism organization ProPublica, details how it was discovered earlier this year that the process actually poses a very serious risk to public drinking water, due to the massive amounts of toxins released. From the Post:

The process has been considered safe since a 2004 study by the Environmental Protection Agency found that it posed no risk to drinking water. After that study, Congress even exempted hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking Water Act. Today, fracturing is used in nine of every 10 natural-gas wells in the United States

So the use of this technology is widespread. And just how bad is it?

An investigation by ProPublica found that water contamination in drilling areas around the country is far more prevalent than the EPA asserts.

This investigation also found that the 2004 EPA study was not as conclusive as it claimed to be. A close review shows that the body of the study contains damaging information that wasn't mentioned in the conclusion. In fact, the study foreshadowed many of the problems now being reported across the country.

How could this happen? Granted, the Bush administration has used the EPA as an industry tool as much as possible since 2001. But this means the scientists knew this was a problem, but the agency went ahead anyway. Seems like if stronger whistleblower protections for federal scientists were in place, maybe more people would have spoken out about the problem.

But that’s not the worst part – the EPA scientists don’t know exactly what the problem is now, because they don’t know exactly what chemicals are used in the process. Check it out:

It is difficult to pinpoint the exact cause of each contamination or measure its spread accurately because the precise nature and concentrations of the chemicals used by industry are considered trade secrets. Not even the EPA knows exactly what's in the drilling fluids. And that, EPA scientists say, makes it impossible to vouch for the safety of the drilling process or precisely track its effects.

Meanwhile, this process has allowed for a surge in natural gas drillings across the country. And that continues to this day.

-- Dylan Blaylock

Whistleblower Treatment Point of Contention in Georgia Senate Race

In the Senate race in Georgia, which is headed for a run-off early next month, one key issue that has emerged in the past week is that the incumbent, Sen. Saxby Chambliss, is fighting a subpoena that would make him answer questions related to his relationships with corporate executives from a company that owns a Sugar plant that exploded earlier this year. Chambliss scolded a whistleblower testifying before the Senate in July about a lack of safety precautions at the plant. From the AP:

Savannah attorney Mark Tate - who calls himself a "partisan Democrat" - has subpoenaed Chambliss to submit to questions Thursday about whether Imperial Sugar executives enlisted him to help the company avoid blame in the Feb. 7 explosion that killed 14 workers and injured dozens more.

Tate says he wants to know if Imperial Sugar executives persuaded Chambliss to sharply criticize a company whistleblower during a July Senate hearing on the explosion. He says he also wants the senator to respond to plaintiffs' claims that the company arranged a meeting between Chambliss and victims' families to dissuade them from suing.

-- Dylan Blaylock