All Things Whistleblower: A GAP Blog

In The News

Rick Piltz, director of Climate Science Watch, a GAP program, explains in this article how the combination of politics and the effects of Bush−era climate change denial are keeping the US from developing a concrete climate policy, and how the American climate policy debate treats global climate change as solely a domestic issue.

Fourteen states and the District of Columbia sued a biotechnology firm and other drug suppliers over a scheme that paid doctors to sell their anemia drug. The suits were brought after a whistleblower claim was made in 2006 against the firm for illegal marketing practices. The suit alleges the firm provided kickbacks to doctors — such as sham consultancy agreements and posh weekend retreats — to induce them to purchase and prescribe the drug.

The climate-change bill that has been moving through the Senate is facing heavy criticism and daunting hurdles from Republicans and Democrats alike. With Democrats deeply divided on the issue, the bill is unlikely to pass unless some Republican lawmakers break with their party and support the legislation.

‘Expert’ Drug Studies Commonly Ghost-Written by Big Pharma

A doctor in the United Kingdom is being tried in front of a medical council for allowing his name to be put on a study on an osteoporosis drug when he did not have access to all the data on which the study’s conclusions were based. This practice of doctors “ghostwriting” medical studies, actually written by drug company employees, seems to be becoming more common.

The article mentions former GAP client Aubrey Blumsohn, a colleague of the accused doctor, Dr. Eastell. In his case, Dr. Blumsohn wanted the all of the data about Proctor & Gamble’s osteoporosis drug, Actonel, and asked the company for it. They refused. And they did so while publishing articles in his name. Blumsohn fought back, demanding his name be removed from the studies.

Researchers are supposed to be granted access to full data sets to reach informed conclusions. In 2001, an international coalition of the world’s leading medical journal editors called for all journal article authors to pledge that they had “full access” to drug study data. This was recommended in order to avoid data manipulation by corporate sponsors of product information. That editorial appears in the September 18, 2001 edition of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

In 2004, P&G allowed Blumsohn to review, at one of its British facilities, what the company purported to be the actual data set. In reviewing the data, Blumsohn realized that numerous graphs (illustrating Actonel’s effectiveness in preventing bone fractures) omitted 40 percent of a data set, apparently manipulating results to suit P&G’s marketing objectives. P&G officials told Blumsohn that if these additional data were included in the results, the study would have favored a competitor’s drug –Merck’s Fosamax.

Unfortunately, its five years later, and things look the same.

HVP Drug Promoted by Medical Associations with Manufacturer's Money

Three medical associations promoted the HPV vaccine Gardasil using money that came directly from the manufacturer Merck, according to the Washington Post. Money given to the medical associations - the American College Health Association, the American Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology, and the Society of Gynecologic Oncologists - by Merck totaled almost $750,000.

The HPV vaccine is used for fighting a virus that causes cervical cancer. The marketing campaign was an effort to promote the safety of the drug without disclosing its risks. And, the campaigns done by the medical associations were eerily similar to those Merck produced.

“Dirty Tricks” by the Healthcare Industry

A former vice-president-turned-whistleblower from the healthcare giant Cigna says that the healthcare industry is using “dirty tricks” to form public opinion over the healthcare debate, according to CNN. Skilled with its use of language, Wendell Potter says the industry is ratcheting up its efforts to criticize many of the reform plans, including the government-run plan originally proposed by President Obama.

These dirty tricks include currying favor with members of Congress at the same time as they wage huge campaigns to undermine the efforts at reform, according to an article in Politico.

Many citizens have been riled up over the healthcare debate, taking their voices to town hall meetings with their members of Congress across the country. One Congresswoman says that the extreme dialogue on healthcare is not new; in fact it is an elevated form of the loud town halls of the 1990s when healthcare reform was originally proposed.

But Potter has now stated that the ‘buzzwords’ being used to counter and criticize health care legislation originate from industry spinmeisters, who are doing so, according to the CNN article, “in an effort to manipulate public opinion.”

WWYW Episode 14 - A Conversation with Noted Tobacco Whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand

This is the page to leave comments about Episode 14 of Whistle Where You Work, GAP’s television program. To view the show online, visit www.whistleblowertv.org. Here’s a description of the program:

In a special WWYW episode, we sit down for a lengthy conversation with Dr. Jeffrey Wigand, noted tobacco whistleblower and subject of the movie The Insider. In 1995, Dr. Wigand achieved national prominence when he became the tobacco industry’s highest ranking former executive to address public health and smoking issues.

The episode was filmed in March 2009 during the National Whistleblowers Assembly.

Making the FDA Transparent

In a somewhat sweeping, sea change-ish tone, the Obama administration seems set to made the FDA a more open, transparent place – especially in dealing with drug information. This NY Times piece details some of the problems that could be solved:

For years, the Food and Drug Administration has withheld information about drugs and medical devices from the public when their makers cite trade secrecy — even in cases where the agency suspects that the products are causing serious illness or death.

Now the new leadership at the F.D.A. may change that.

A new “task force” at the agency will be created to (among other things) make such "privy" data available to the public, in the name of safety. But if they do try to, as the article indicates, potentially reveal what is currently viewed as “secret data about drugs and devices under study,” you can bet the drug lobbyists will come out in full force against it. Still, the new number #2 at the FDA, Joshua Sharfstein, is tapped to lead this task force.

This could be a good fight.

-- Dylan Blaylock

WWYW Episode 13 - Obama's Signing Statement on Whistleblowers; Protecting Patients from Faulty Medical Devices

This is the page to leave comments about Episode 13 of Whistle Where You Work, GAP’s television program. To view the show online, visit www.whistleblowertv.org. Here’s a description of the program:

In March, President Obama signed a $410 billion omnibus spending bill, but in so doing, he attached a signing statement asserting that certain provisions of the legislation raised constitutional concerns that Congress was stepping on Executive powers. Specifically, the president stated he was not waiving his authority to control communications by federal employees to Congress involving information that is properly privileged or otherwise confidential. What are the ramifications of this statement for federal employee whistleblowers who wish to take concerns to Congress? Guests include Sharon Bradford Franklin of The Constitution Project and Tom Devine, Government Accountability Project

Then, we sit down with Lisa Hayes of Alliance for Justice, who is fighting for legislation that would allow patients injured by medical devices to sue the manufactures of such faulty products. If patients harmed by prescription drugs have legal recourse against manufacturers, why shouldn’t medical device producers be held accountable too?

This program was filmed in late April 2009.