Whistleblower Week in Washington

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Whistleblower Week in Washington (WWW) was an event that took place the week of May 13-19 2007. Whistleblowers from all over the country gathered in Washington, D.C., to lobby Congress to pass stronger protections for both government and private sector workers. Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, founder of the No FEAR Coalition and No FEAR Institute, served as co-Chair. Dr. James J. Murtagh served as co-founder and co-chair of the event. Doctors from the Semmelweis Society joined forces with the No FEAR institute as the primary organizers. The organizers have since decided to make it an annual event.

The week was timed to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the May 15, 2002 enactment of the "Notification and Federal Employee Antidiscrimination and Retaliation Act of 2002" (Public Law 107-174), which is now known as the No-FEAR Act. One purpose of the act was to "require that Federal agencies be accountable for violations of antidiscrimination and whistleblower protection laws." The law came to fruition after Dr. Coleman-Adebayo provided congressional testimony about American companies exposing African miners and their families to vanadium, a deadly substance.

Over 50 nonprofit organizations and groups, as well as individual whistleblowers, participated in a broad range of activities that included discussion panels, testimony, award ceremonies, a film night and book signing, and workshops in advocacy, stress management, whistleblower law, and mentoring.

The event was featured in the New York Times,^[1] and in publications around the world.

1 Participants
2 Activities
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Participants

Doctors from the Semmelweis Society International played a leading role in organizing the event, along with the civil rights whistleblower advocates and the No FEAR Institute. Prominent organizations included the Government Accountability Project, The National Whistleblower Center, The Veterans Affairs Whistleblower Coalition, The National Whistleblower Security Coalition, the American Civil Liberties Union, Public Citizen, the Liberty Coalition, and The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Betsy Combier represented the E-Accountability Foundation. Linda Lewis, chair of Whistleblowers USA, played a special role and noted that "too many very brave whistleblowers were present to adequately honor their accomplishments and their contributions to the conference."

Speakers and participants included both well-known figures and unfamiliar but important whistleblowers such as:

Republican Senator Charles Grassley, the keynote speaker at two of the week's events. He was given a lifetime achievement award for his fight against waste, fraud and corruption in government. The award, like the conference, is completely bipartisan and has been endorsed by both blue-chip conservatives and liberals.

Jeffrey Wigand, who was featured in the movie The Insider, testified before Congress.

Joan Claybrook, President of Public Citizen, was a keynote speaker on "Whistleblower Protection Legislation – The Need for Reform."

Mahatma Gandhi's grandson Dr. Kanubhai R. Gandhi.

Religious leaders, including Reverend Walter E. Fauntroy, stressed the role of speaking the truth and the role of faith based initiatives in America's civil rights heritage.

Climate change whistleblower Rick Piltz, who suffered numerous retaliations after reporting that White House officials with no scientific training tampered with critical reports.

Susan Wood, who resigned in protest against the Food and Drug Administration's delaying of a ruling on whether the Plan B pill would be made more accessible to patients. She charged that then-acting FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford interfered in FDA decisions.

Physicians Dr. Helen Salisbury and Dr. Larry Poliner, who put their careers on the line to protect quality patient care. Dr. Janet Chandler battled to protect the humane treatment of her patients, and after more than a decade of legal appeals won a Supreme Court verdict upholding her stand for integrity in medical decisions for patient care.

Coleen Rowley, who blew the whistle on the FBI's negligence preceding the September 11 terrorist attack. Ms. Rowley was named as one of Time Magazine's Persons of the Year, along with conference supporter and Enron whistleblower Sherron Watkins. The FBI Oversight Panel was led by former FBI Special Agents Rowley and Mike German.

Dane Von Breichenruchardt, from the Bill of Rights Foundation, pointed out that anyone against whistleblowers had something to hide. Von Breichenruchardt also chairs the Patient Quality Care Project of the Liberty Coalition.

Gil Mileikowsky, M.D. presented an intriguing model of how sham peer review against whistleblowing doctors severely harms patient care. His remarks were introduced, along with all of the testimony and collected stories, into the Congressional record.

Stephen Kohn, of the National Whistleblower Center, hosted a series of workshops to aid whistleblowers and their lawyers.

Janet Howard, Tanya Ward Jordan and Joyce E. Megginson, Class Agents who blew the whistle on widespread systemic racism and retaliation within the Department of Commerce against African-American employees (Janet Howard, et al. vs Carlos M. Gutierrez).

Members of Congress and panelists were led by Rev. Walter E. Fauntroy, Chairman of No FEAR and Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee. Other notable panelists included Congressman Al Wynn, Joseph Madison, Radio One Host, Dick Gregory, Linda Plummer, NAACP, Montgomery County, Dr. Jim Murtagh, Doctors for Open Government, and Tom Devine, Government Accountability Project.

[edit] Activities

Abraham Lincoln.

Paul Revere is named America's first whistleblower.

Ignaz Semmelweis (1860 portrait).

Paul Revere was recognized as America's first whistleblower, and Ignaz Semmelweis was described as a pioneer who asked for "clean hands in medicine."

Abraham Lincoln was honored as the author of America's first whistleblower protection act, also known as the Qui tam statute, or the False Claims Act. Lincoln noted that corrupt defense contractors were endangering the American Civil War effort through fraud. Munitions manufacturers were defrauding the government with shoddy guns and sawdust in gunpowder. Lincoln offered bounties to encourage private citizens to come forward to report fraud, waste and corruption. Ronald Reagan updated the Lincoln law into the modern Qui tam act. Recently, defense contractors have paid huge fines and restored billions of dollars to the US treasury.

Doctors have become active in whistleblower cases, and 80% of fraud is now reported in hospital related Qui Tam suits. Doctors noted that they were often subjected to "sham peer reviews" and their careers were jeopardized if they stood up for their patients or reported corruption within HMOs. Dr. Larry Poliner was noted as an outstanding example of a doctor who stood up for his patients, and suffered massive retaliation, leading a jury to eventually award a $366,000,000 verdict.

Dr. Larry Huntoon pointed out that sham peer review resulted in doctor shortages, lack of access to care, decreased competition, decreased safety, and protected "Big Medicine" HMOs from the consequences of medical errors and corruption. Dr. Helen Salisbury testified that she had been subjected to retaliation for decreasing the C-section rate in her community from 50% to 10%. Doctors also presented the consensus that sham peer review was typically used to silence some of America's best doctors, and needed to be recognized as a prohibited retaliation. Dr. James Tate testified that minority physicians are singled out for particularly brutal retaliations when they stand up for quality patient care. Evidence was presented that a doctor exposed to sham peer review had a 80% chance of never returning to work. A 20% rate of suicide was found in the group of doctors falsely accused of peer review violations.

Steve Twedt, the ground breaking investigative journalist, was quoted as the definitive source documenting the harm of sham peer review. He wrote a series of articles^[2] that concluded, "physicians who are wrongly or maliciously accused may be pulled into a hearing where they have no legal representation and no opportunity to face their accusers. Or, in some cases, their accusers sit on the panel investigating them."

"The assumption that peer review is always only about quality and not about economic or intra-professional political struggles is less and less realistic as the economics of the health care industry become more competitive," said Sallyanne Payton, a University of Michigan health law professor

Civil rights advocates drew parallels to the struggles of federal workers who blew the whistle on retaliation. Horror stories were from members of the No FEAR Institute who had previously passed the first United States civil rights law of the 21st Century.

Dr. Jeffrey Fudin, founder and Chair of the Veterans Affairs Whistleblowers Coalition, presented sobering data showing the failure of governmental agencies to protect whistleblowers' rights. Fudin asserted that the Department of Veterans Affairs continues to "discourage the reporting of poor quality care by harassing" healthcare workers who provide quality care for veterans.