Whistleblower Protection Legislation
H.R. 985 / S. 274
Last year, both the House and the Senate approved, by overwhelming margins, bipartisan bills to protect federal whistleblowers. Since then, the House and Senate have spent months negotiating a final whistleblower law to strengthen protections for all federal workers who blow the whistle on waste, fraud, and abuse of authority at their federal agencies, ensuring their right to sue if their efforts result in termination or harassment.
The whistleblower bill passed by the House of Representatives in 2007, H.R. 985, includes protections for scientists. But the Senate version of the bill, S. 274, which was also passed in 2007, does not. It is crucial that specific protections for scientists be included in that final bill. At federal agency after federal agency, surveys and investigations have revealed political interference in the work of scientists.
Scientists report that they are being asked to change research data or have their research suppressed. They are afraid to publicize this breach of public trust and harm to public health and safety for fear that their jobs and careers will be jeopardized. Of the nearly 3,400 federal scientists across nine agencies who have responded to UCS questionnaires about this issue, more than 1,100 scientists report that they fear retaliation for openly expressing concerns about their agency's mission-driven work (pdf).
These fears are understandable. Many federal scientists who have spoken out have been ostracized, demoted, threatened, or intimidated by supervisors:
- In February 2006, Dr. Rosemary Johann-Liang, deputy director of the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) division of Drug Risk Evaluation, recommended that the label for the diabetes drug Avandia include a strong warning about possible heart problems related to the drug. She was reprimanded by FDA managers and her FDA superiors not only failed to act on her recommendation, they shifted the supervision of the safety review of Avandia to her boss. Dr. Johann-Liang was vindicated in May 2007, when the New England Journal of Medicine raised similar concerns about Avandia, and the FDA finally asked for the warning label.
- When Robin Ingle, a hazards statistician at the Consumer Product Safety Commission, finished her report on the increasing dangers of All Terrain Vehicles, a political appointee at the agency tried to intimidate her into changing her conclusions. When that didn't work, he sat on the report for three months. It wasn't until after Ingle left the agency—and retained a lawyer to help her navigate the non-disclosure agreement that all departing staffers are required to sign—that she felt she could discuss her experience in public
UCS is urging Congress to pass a final bill that would protect federal scientists from retaliation for exposing efforts to alter or suppress federal research or technical information.
