The FDA spying on its own scientists, lawmakers, reporters and academics is only the tip of the iceberg.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is often accused of serving industry at the expense of consumers. But even FDA defenders are shocked by reports this week of an institutionalized FDA spying program on its own scientists, lawmakers, reporters and academics that included an enemies list of "actors" and collaborators.

The paranoid and retaliatory email monitoring program, which sought to suppress the safety opinions of those hired to give their safety opinions, has provoked swift action from Capitol Hill. "I am writing to express my disappointment and disbelief with the way the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has retaliated against whistleblowers who expressed concern to Members of Congress and the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) regarding safety concerns about medical products," wrote Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, to FDA Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg, the day after the breadth of the surveillance was reported in The New York Times.

Government agencies cannot discourage whistleblowing and reporting of wrongdoing by monitoring employees, echoed a White House memo sent to all government agencies about the FDA spy program.

"Devicegate" dates back at least to January 2009 when scientists in the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health wrote President Obama that top FDA managers "committed the most outrageous misconduct by ordering, coercing and intimidating FDA physicians and scientists to recommend approval, and then retaliating when the physicians and scientists refused to go along." Review procedures at the agency (which approves stents, breast implants, MRIs, and other devices and machinery) were so faulty that unsafe devices - including those that emit excessive radiation - were approved, charged the scientists, provoking an OSC investigation.

For reporting the safety risks, the scientists became targets of the now-disclosed spy program and some lost their jobs. "It has been brought to our attention that FDA management may have just recently ordered the FDA Office of Criminal Investigations (OCI) to investigate us, rather than the managers who have engaged in wrongdoing!" wrote the FDA scientists in a follow-up letter a few weeks later to President Obama. "It is an outrage that our own Agency would step up the retaliation to such a level because we have reported their wrongdoing to the United States Congress."
http://truth-out.org/news/item/10524-former-fda-reviewer-speaks-out-about-intimidation-retaliation-and-marginalizing-of-safety