Medical whistleblowers get harassed and fired; so they sue the FDA

Did you know that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is being sued for keeping tabs on its employee's email? Check out the January 29, 2012 Washington Post article by Ellen Nakashima and Lisa Rein, "FDA staffers sue agency over surveillance of personal e-mail."

Six researchers say they were fired after being harassed because they warned Congress that the FDA was approving risky medical devices. These doctors and scientists wanted to protect millions of patients from potential harm. They should be called heroes.

Did the FDA's employees actually think their email at work on government computers would remain private? After all, the startup screen on FDA computers warns employees, “you have no reasonable expectation of privacy,” including any communication accessed or sent from the machine. It's nothing new. They saw this message for at least the past two years.

The law firm suing the FDA represents whistleblowers on behalf of the National Whistleblower Center, as part of the lawsuit against the agency. This specific message has appeared since at least December 2010. The screenshot and other materials were compiled by Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto, LLP, the law firm representing the whistleblowers. Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto is a leading American whistleblower protection law firm based in Washington DC.

What happened as a result of the whistleblowing is that the FDA continued to monitor the personal e-mail of several of its own scientists and doctors. The doctors warned Congress about the FDA because the FDA was approving or about to approve

medical devices that those doctors and scientists believed posed unacceptable risks to patients, government documents show.

Should the doctors have tried to protect the public from harmful products? Did the FDA agree the products were defective?

Those six doctors and scientists complained. The result of their 'whistleblowing' then contributed to the harassment or dismissal of all six of the FDA employees, the suit alleges. All had worked in an office responsible for reviewing devices for cancer screening and other purposes, according to the Washington Post article, "FDA staffers sue agency over surveillance of personal e-mail."

Read the article for the details about these whistleblower complaints. See copies of the e-mails. Of course the FDA was listening and and photographed electronic snapshots of the computer desktops of those FDA employees. The FDA then reviewed the documents the doctors and scientists saved on the hard drives of their government computers.

The doctors and scientists have a duty to protect the public from any product, device, or pill that is defective. Did the scientists and doctors share information without permission? No. Protecting the public from gadgets and devices isn't a crime.

FDA doctors and scientists do have a right to complain to Congress or journalists. Who else can they complain to? If they complain to the general consumer, the shopper or patient as an average person with no authority or power to make changes isn't going to do much other than go to the media. But at least Congress can take some action in their voting power.

Is the mission of the FDA undermined by whistleblowers? Check out the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health. Any time a doctor or scientist working for the FDA finds problems when reviewing devices for cancer screening or other situations such as a device giving off too much radiation per patient, they have a duty to protect the public from harm.

That's what a doctor's oath is about--first do no harm. Who comes first, the patient or the FDA? Do some doctors and scientists have to choose between getting fired if they complain to Congress (whistleblowing) or protecting millions patients? Is the problem about going over the head of the FDA to Congress?

Is it about ego in government? Or is it more about protecting the public from defective gadgets that were about to be approved unless somebody did some whistleblowing to a higher power in government. What other higher powers are there to complain to on the globe?

The problem focused in part on the doctors complaints about the FDA being on the verge of approving at least a dozen devices that posed risks to millions of patients--radiological devices, for example. So the doctors went to Congress, the White House, and the HHS inspector general. Should the doctors and scientists be fired or punished for looking out for the safety of the public?

Do they have the right to sue the FDA when coming across, for example, a device that falsely diagnosed bone loss? What about that device that created a risk of causing cancer in healthy people because it was defective?

It's time the public learned about those devices and the doctors who fought to protect the public. Or what about the gadget made for colon cancer screening that had such high doses of radiation that they raised the risk of cancer in healthy people?

Would you be a whistleblower if you worked for the FDA and found questionable devices about the be approved? Read the Washington Post article and find out all the details. There's no reason why these six researchers who worked for the FDA should have been harassed or fired.

Who speaks for the average patient if not doctors and scientists hired to look at products or evaluate them for the FDA before approval? And is Congress the only source of help these professionals could go to as whistleblowers?

After all, you can sue any given corporation, but it's a lot harder to sue the government without getting fired or harassed, especially when government jobs usually are thought to be lots more secure than jobs in private industry. What course of action do you think the doctors and scientists could have had when they saw something not working right?