WP: Grassley Defends (FDA) Whistle-Blower (atty: "he'd be gone")

Grassley Defends Whistle-Blower
Senator Asks FDA Not to Retaliate

By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 30, 2004; Page A17


Food and Drug Administration whistle-blower David J. Graham believes he will soon be transferred or fired in retaliation for telling a congressional hearing that the agency is falling short on ensuring drug safety, but his Senate champion is trying to keep that from happening.

In a letter sent yesterday to acting FDA Commissioner Lester M. Crawford, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) formally asked whether Graham was going to be moved, and made clear that he would regard any reassignment as punishment for Graham's public criticism of the agency....

***

During his Nov. 18 testimony before Grassley's hearing into the withdrawal of the arthritis drug Vioxx, Graham said the FDA is incapable of protecting the public from similar harmful drugs in the future. Asked by another senator whether other unsafe drugs remained on the market, Graham named five that he considered to be problematic: the diet drug Meridia, the arthritis drug Bextra, the asthma medication Serevent, the acne treatment Accutane and the cholesterol-lowering drug Crestor.

His attorney, Tom Devine of the Government Accountability Project, a whistle-blower protection group, said Graham was offered a transfer to the FDA commissioner's office just before his Senate testimony. Devine said that Graham declined -- saying his life's work was to review the safety of drugs on the market -- but that efforts to move him have continued.

"The reason that Dr. Graham is surviving in his position now is solidarity beyond the call of duty from Senator Grassley and his being in the public spotlight," Devine said. "Without that, he'd be gone."...


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20662-2004Nov29.html

I hope he succeeds in protecting the whistleblower.

the Minneapolis FBI agent who blew the whistle in that letter to Mueller.
He's still owned by the enforcers in the GOP, but sometimes he gets worked up and does the right thing.

I'm proud -- but he's still connected with those "Cedars" and "Ivanwald" crazies from the Jeffrey Sharlet, "Jesus Plus Nothing," article -- that was enough to scare me away from him. He won his re-election overwhelmingly, though.

And he mows his yard with two push mowers, at the same time.