Flashback: FDA Abused Power of Federal Government to Smear Whistleblowers and Protect Corporations

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To be an honest person and also hold a high position within the government is a paradox, especially at the federal level. And if its the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) you’re working for from a position of integrity, don’t plan on keeping your job for long, as the agency has an extensive history of targeting whistleblowers who object to its institutionalized crime racket.

You either go along to get along or you get axed, as many an FDA scientist has learned the hard way over the years. One of the most recent cases of this was a group of FDA scientists who became targets of illegal agency spying, which ultimately led to their dismissal. What was their “crime”? Learning the truth about dangerous, FDA-approved medical devices and talking about it.

According to a 2012 report in The New York Times (NYT), the FDA tapped both the work and personal email accounts of at least five of its scientists after the agency employees expressed concerns about the safety and design of certain FDA-approved medical devices. In retaliation, the FDA installed spy software on their computers to intercept all emails, documents and even key strokes.

The NYT admitted at the time that the “extraordinary surveillance effort” was a type of revenge by the higher-ups at the FDA against the agency’s lower-level scientists, who warned that FDA-approved medical imaging devices for mammograms and colonoscopies “exposed patients to dangerous levels of radiation.”

A special review by the Office of Special Counsel, which deals specifically with concerns expressed by government workers, confirmed that these warnings were accurate, which should have prompted a full investigation into what the scientists had deemed “a substantial and specific danger to public safety.” Instead, the FDA targeted the scientists simply for doing their jobs with honest intent.

Top FDA senior scientist admits agency is built on corruption, robbing human life for profit

Sadly, U.S. District Court Judge Reggie B. Walton also proved to be in on the fix when he dismissed a lawsuit filed by the FDA scientists against the agency for illegally monitoring their online activity.

Legally speaking, government agencies are prohibited from intimidating, threatening or otherwise targeting whistleblowers. And yet the FDA appears to have gotten away with targeting its own scientists, thanks to a corrupt legal system that clearly sides with corporations and government bureaucracy rather than the people.

The Pentagon has also been caught targeting whistleblowers, including journalists and other “dissenters” who attempt to expose the Department of Defense and other government departments for corruption and treason. This was one of the big issues surrounding the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA, which threatens to greatly increase surveillance and spying activity by the government against citizens.

During an exclusive interview with Life Extension Magazine, Dr. David Graham, a senior drug safety researcher at the FDA, revealed how the FDA has essentially turned the human body into “a profit-generating machine,” largely through deceit and coercion. Those at the agency who approve pharmaceutical drugs, he admitted, are the same people who oversee the post-marketing regulation of them, which means they are incentivized to hide any dangers associated with FDA-approved drugs from the public.

“The people who approve a drug when they see that there is a safety problem with it are very reluctant to do anything about it because it will reflect badly on them,” stated Dr. Graham. “As currently configured, the FDA is not able to adequately protect the American public. It’s more interested in protecting the interests of industry.”

Be sure to read the full transcript of LEF’s interview with top FDA scientist Dr. Graham here:
LEF.org.

Sources:

http://www.washingtonsblog.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com

http://www.nytimes.com

http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov

http://www.washingtonsblog.com

http://www.lef.org


Articles by: Ethan A. Huff

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