What Happens to Pharmaceutical Industry Whistleblowers After the Dust Settles?

That is the question that Senator Chuck Grassley has posed to 16 pharmaceutical companies regarding their treatment of employee whistleblowers who file under the False Claims Act

The False Claims Act, also known as “Lincoln’s Law”,  provides a pathway for private citizens to sue on behalf of the government and share in any recovery.

The Act is called “Lincoln’s Law” as President Lincoln supported and enacted the law in an effort to crack down on post-Civil War carpetbaggers who filed false claims with the US government for funds that were intended to rebuild the South. The law remained dormant for over a century until the mid-80s when Congress re-enacted it to recover funds and prevent those infamous claims for $800 toilet seats at the Pentagon.

Today, whistleblowers whose information leads to a government investigation and recovery eventually share in the recovery.  Justice Department records show that whistleblowers who filed under the False Claims Act were paid $2.39 billion from 1987 to 2009.

We are interested in the findings of Sen. Grassley’s fact-finding mission as the concern is that potential whistleblowers’s fears of retaliation may impede future Justice Department investigations and recoveries. So many US companies are towing the line and have implemented stringent in-house compliance programs that we need those “bad apples” separated from the bunch to prevent us all being cast in a negative light. We’ll post the findings as soon as they are published.