Whistleblocking: Obama pays billions to keep secrets out

via: RT
July 30, 2012

US security agencies have acquired even more powers under president Obama – that’s despite his pre-election pledges to make the government more open to ordinary citizens. Instead, his administration is spending record amounts to keep its secrets – and is cracking down on whistleblowers.

GSK whistleblower says Glaxo Marketing VP ‘Sir’ Andrew Witty was deeply involved in massive criminal cover-up

via: NaturalNews
Friday, July 27, 2012
By: Ethan A. Huff

[NaturalNews] The recent landmark ruling against drug giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which as we recently reported led to a massive criminal fine of more than $3 billion and a guilty plea by the company of committing felony crimes (http://www.naturalnews.com/036499_Glaxo_whistleblower_bribery.html), was followed by an apology from GSK Vice President of Marketing “Sir” Andrew Witty for the company’s “past” failures. But according to whistleblower Gregory Thorpe, the apology is meaningless, as Witty had been working for GSK during the years when the company was proven to have been engaged in illegal activity, and was more than likely involved in it.

Not only that, but Thorpe was the one punished by GSK for coming forward with the truth, a retribution that he has had to sustain for more than a decade, while Witty was recently “knighted” by the U.K. government for his supposed service to the British economy and pharmaceutical industry. If anything, Witty’s ridiculous apology is nothing more than a lame attempt at shifting blame from himself to supposed “past” scapegoats, all the while claiming that GSK is now a new company that operates honestly.

Thorpe; however, says that he and Blair Hamrick were the ones that tried to change GSK for the better by coming forward with evidence that the pharmaceutical giant was engaged in a massive criminal enterprise that involved illegally marketing drugs, bribing doctors, and drugging children. And rather than change, the corrupt-to-the-core leadership team at GSK, which included Witty, put Thorpe and his family through years of hell for exposing the truth.

“[Witty] calls [the corruption] echoes of the past, another era, another company, yet he was there,” wrote Thorpe in the comment section of a recent article on the GSK scandal published by the U.K.’s Yorkshire Post (YP). Like most other mainstream reports on the GSK scandal, YP glosses over Witty’s potential involvement in the GSK scandal, and all the corresponding unanswered questions, and seems to accept his apology as valid and sufficient.

“Did he participate? Did he know? What did he know? Why did he not come forward? Why won’t he answer these questions?” asks Thorpe about Witty’s likely participation in the GSK scandal. “I blew the whistle, I was tossed out after 24 years with the company. I was terminated and retaliated against for the last 11 years … GSK covered up their conduct, got caught, and now Witty is ‘sorry’?”

“They took 11 years from me and my family suffered. I was blackballed in the pharmaceutical business. In the meantime, Witty was ‘knighted.’”

You can read Thorpe’s full comments at the bottom of the following article:
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk

If that comment gets deleted, here’s our captured screen shot of it:
http://www.naturalnews.com/images/YorkShirePost-Glaxo-Mistakes-GThorpe.jpg

$3 billion may seem like a lot, but it is nothing for a massive company like GSK

Even though it represents the largest criminal penalty in pharmaceutical history, the $3 billion fine levied against GSK is mere pocket change in the bigger picture of the company’s overall financial assets and revenues. GSK openly admitted to engaging in a longstanding, organized criminal enterprise that likely cost thousands of people their lives — does a measly $3 billion fine and a phony apology really serve justice in light of this?

According to the allegations originally filed by Thorpe and Hamrick against GSK, which the company has now pleaded guilty to, GSK’s entire marketing strategy involved exploiting and defrauding government health programs; illegally promoting drugs for off-label uses that included marketing them to children; and bribing doctors to promote drugs to patients that did not need them in exchange for illicit kickbacks.

You can watch the recent interview between Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, and whistleblower Blair Hamrick, where Hamrick explains this and much more, here:

http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=1FE6404520AA77A877753AA936722510

Since Witty held numerous high-level positions at GSK during the time in which the company was proven to have engaged in the most colossal criminal conspiracy yet unveiled in the pharmaceutical industry, he had to have, at the very least, been aware of what was going on at the company — and more than likely, he was actively involved in it. But either way, Witty did not come forward and speak up about GSK’s crimes, nor did he defend Thorpe and Hamrick in trying to turn the company around by exposing its corruption.

Instead, Thorpe and Hamrick made the decision to do the right thing by themselves, and consequently suffered years of torment by pharmaceutical big-wigs like Witty that continued to hide their company’s evil deeds from the public. And now that the truth has been exposed in plain sight, Witty and his company are getting off scot-free with a canned apology and a relatively small, at least for GSK, financial penalty?

Be sure to read the full NaturalNews report on the GSK scandal here:
http://www.naturalnews.com/036499_Glaxo_whistleblower_bribery.html

Sources for this article include:

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk

http://www.justice.gov/opa/documents/gsk/plea-ex-b.pdf

http://www.naturalnews.com/036499_Glaxo_whistleblower_bribery.html

Read More At: NaturalNews.com

FDA caught spying on its own scientists to muzzle whistleblowers

via: NaturalNews
Monday, July 23, 2012
By: S. D. Wells

[NaturalNews] A massive covert and secret operation by the FDA to seek out and muzzle several of THEIR OWN SCIENTISTS, those who were seeking to blow the whistle on the FDA’s own fraud and unethical handling of information regarding cancer treatment methods, has been completely exposed. The issue actually began as a dispute between the scientists and their superiors at the FDA, in which the scientists accused the latter of “FAULTY REVIEW PROCEDURES,” which directly led to the approval of the CANCER CAUSING mammogram and colonoscopy imaging machines.
(http://newsfeedresearcher.com)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration secretly kept critics of its policy under surveillance, which is the epitome of a U.S. government agency creating a chilling fear for anyone trying to expose the fraud of the cancer “chronic care mismanagement” industry. The whole operation ensnared 21 workers, including journalists and Congressional officials.

As part of its surveillance, the FDA swept up thousands of confidential emails the scientists had with lawyers, journalists, Congressional staff and even President Obama. Although the investigation began with only five scientists, it is now revealed that the massive campaign is still in operation to suppress over 80,000 pages of documents and end the whistle-blowing on all fronts. The FDA has been caught red-handed trying to cover up a scam which adds to the blight of the $100 billion cancer industry, which is fed and bred by the FDA.

Muzzling the whistleblowers fails

This latest “SNAFU” is part of a broader, two-year long campaign to counter inside and outside critics of the agency’s medical review process. The FDA was most interested in intercepting and destroying confidential letters to at least a half-dozen Congressional offices and oversight committees, but unfortunately for the FDA, one of their private document handling contractors posted the personal emails to a public web site by mistake for a few days, and that’s when a few Congressional staff members, who are actually sympathetic to the scientists, saw the emails from the whistle-blowers. Drafts and final copies of letters the scientists sent to President Obama about safety concerns were also included.

In March of 2010, an article in The New York Times examined the safety concerns about imaging devices and quoted two agency scientists, who would later come under surveillance. Dr. Robert C. Smith and Dr. Julian Nicholas served as “ringleaders” for the group of “complaining” scientists. Lawyers for G.E. Healthcare wanted surveillance placed on the scientists because they were exposing to the media the fraud and danger of their mass money making devices. (http://www.nytimes.com)

Scientists’ computers were monitored down to the last keystroke, according to The New York Times. The FDA had pressured scientists to approve medical devices despite their own reservations about health risks, and wanted to make sure the scientists weren’t communicating this coercion with anyone. Democratic Rep. Chris Van Hollen fumed after he learned that he was on the list, saying, “It is absolutely unacceptable for the FDA to be spying on employees who reach out to members of Congress to expose abuses or wrongdoing in government agencies.”

This is proof that the cancer scam has been covered up for decades (since WWII). The fact that the FDA is spying on employees who reach out to members of Congress to expose fraud is just the tip of the iceberg. After the surveillance began, four of the five scientists lost their jobs. The unnamed scientists are suing the FDA, and say their treatment was in response to their claims of SAFETY ABUSE within the FDA.

Radiation and chemotherapy- The chemical holocaust

The bottom line is that Western medicine and the cancer industry in general offer no cures. In fact, a cure would destroy the industry by wiping out billions of dollars in profits that drug companies, radiologists and oncologists are counting on right now. This is precisely why the cancer industry dares not tell women the truth about vitamin D; for example, which prevents 77 percent of all cancers, including breast cancer. That is precisely why the “chronic care industry” has a blackout on vitamin D information while pushing hard for annual mammograms and colonoscopies that continue to cause cancer and generate repeat business. (http://www.conspiracyplanet.com)

On top of it all, global cancer rates are expected to increase by 50 percent by 2020, according to the latest report from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a branch of the World Health Organization (WHO). Cancer is responsible for more than 12 percent of the 60 million deaths worldwide from any and all causes, and cases in the U.S. alone have increased nearly 20 percent just since the year 2000. It’s time to look into NATURAL CURES and stop believing in the agencies which profit from sickness.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.cbsnews.com

http://www.redorbit.com

http://www.nytimes.com

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/apr2003/canc-a26.shtml

http://www.conspiracyplanet.com

Read More At: NaturalNews.com

Why a Decline in Mammography Rates is Really GOOD News

via: Mercola
by: Dr. Mercola
July 18, 2012

The “C” word; probably the most feared word there is in healthcare. Just the mere mention of cancer conjures up images of death and despair. Cancer screening like annual mammograms is the conventional go-to “prevention” strategy. But researchers increasingly agree that mammography is ineffective at best, and harmful at worst…

In November of 2009, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a federal advisory board, revised their cancer screening recommendations, saying annual mammograms weren’t necessary for women under age 50 and that screenings were recommended only every two years after that¹.

The panel based the new guidelines on data indicating that mammography does more harm than good when used on younger women.

Besides the fact that the ionizing radiation delivered during mammography can cause cancer in and of itself, overdiagnosis of cancer, as well as misdiagnosis, has been shown to be a significant problem plaguing this form of cancer screening.

According to a Norwegian study, published in April of this year², as many as 1 in 4 women are consistently overdiagnosed with breast cancer that, if left alone, would never have caused them any harm.

Whistleblowers Claim FDA Approved Dangerous Mammography Equipment

On July 15, the New York Times revealed that the FDA has engaged in an intense spying campaign against five whistleblowers within the organization³, as well as “FDA opponents” deemed to be in collaboration with the whistleblowers.

According to the NYT:

“What began as a narrow investigation into the possible leaking of confidential agency information by five scientists quickly grew in mid-2010 into a much broader campaign to counter outside critics of the agency’s medical review process, according to the cache of more than 80,000 pages of computer documents generated by the surveillance effort.

Moving to quell what one memorandum called the “collaboration” of the F.D.A.’s opponents, the surveillance operation identified 21 agency employees, Congressional officials, outside medical researchers and journalists thought to be working together to put out negative and “defamatory” information about the agency.

… The extraordinary surveillance effort grew out of a bitter dispute lasting years between the scientists and their bosses at the FDA over the scientists’ claims that faulty review procedures at the agency had led to the approval of medical imaging devices for mammograms and colonoscopies that exposed patients to dangerous levels of radiation.”

As a longtime critic of mammograms, I’m familiar with the kind of harassment the FDA can dish out, so it does not surprise me the agency would stoop so low as to spy on their critics.

How can the FDA justify spying on and harassing their own scientists—professionals hired to assess the safety of devices such as mammograms—just because these employees found serious health threats that the agency would rather continue to ignore in order to protect their industry clients? It’s completely unconscionable and there’s no good defense.

Good News: Fewer Younger Women are Getting Mammograms

While U.S. Preventive Services Task Force’s new guidelines initially ignited fierce protests from cancer advocacy groups, mammography rates for women in their 40s are declining⁴.

According to recent findings by the Mayo Clinic⁵:

“Presented last week at an annual research meeting, the study analyzed data from 100 health plans across the U.S. Looking specifically at the number of mammograms performed from January 2006 to December of 2010, researchers found a drop of nearly 6 percent among women ages 40 to 49.

Meanwhile, the number of mammograms among women ages 50 to 64 remained steady, despite the same panel’s recommendation that women need only be screened every two years.

“We applaud this news,” says ACSH’s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan. She notes that, while too many people still believe there’s no harm in getting a mammogram, the task force study demonstrated that this is clearly not the case. “We now have reason to hope that the influence of the USPSTF guidelines will only increase, meaning that we’ll see a decrease in the number of women who unnecessarily undergo procedures such as radiation, mastectomy, or lumpectomy.” 

Cancer Overdiagnosis, Still a Serious Concern

According to Dr. Otis Webb Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, the term “overdiagnosis” in cancer medicine refers to⁶:

“… a tumor that fulfills all laboratory criteria to be called cancer but, if left alone, would never cause harm. This is a tumor that will not continue to grow, spread and kill. It is a tumor that can be cured with treatment but does not need to be treated and/or cured.”

The problem, according to a report by CNN published back in April, is related to advances in technology⁷. As mammograms are able to detect tinier and tinier spots in the diagnostic films, the possibility overtreatment increases exponentially when overzealous clinicians insist that more tests, including invasive MRIs with dye and painful biopsies, be done on women who have the misfortune of having a tiny spot in their X-ray.

Concerns about overdiagnosis of both breast- and prostate cancer have increased over the years. (According to Dr. Webb Brawley, an estimated 60 percent of prostate cancers are also harmless tumors that do not need treatment.)

The findings from Norway support several previous studies, such as the Cochrane Database review from 2009⁸, which found that breast cancer screening led to a 30 percent rate of overdiagnosis and overtreatment, which actually increased the absolute risk of developing cancer by 0.5 percent. The review concluded that for every 2,000 women invited for screening throughout a 10 year period, the life of just ONE woman was prolonged, while 10 healthy women were treated unnecessarily. Another 200 women undergo psychological stress and trauma for several months due to false positives.

Continue Reading At: Mercola.com

Alternative media blows the lid on Big Pharma’s massive bribery network

via: NaturalNews
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
by Mike Adams

[NaturalNews] Two of the most influential alternative media organizations on the ‘net — InfoWars.com and NaturalNews.com — have blown the lid wide open on Big Pharma’s massive bribery network. Through exclusive interviews with pharma insiders, InfoWars and NaturalNews have done what the mainstream media refuses to do: grant a platform to credible whistleblowers who are exposing the systematic, criminal Big Pharma bribing of doctors who willingly accept kickbacks to write prescriptions for high-profit pharmaceuticals.

These revelations are surfacing on the heels of the drug industry’s largest settlement in history: GlaxoSmithKline’s $3 billion fine and guilty plea to committing felony crimes (http://www.naturalnews.com/036416_GlaxoSmithKline_fraud_criminal_char…). NaturalNews editor Mike Adams (the Health Ranger) was able to connect with one of the key whistleblowers who initiated that nine-year DOJ investigation, and he went on the record with shocking allegations about off-label pharmaceutical marketing and the systematic bribery of doctors (http://www.naturalnews.com/036499_Glaxo_whistleblower_bribery.html).

The video interview with Blair Hamrick is available at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_RJ9QPG70U
and:
http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=1FE6404520AA77A877753AA936722510

Blair was also interviewed by Adams on the Alex Jones Show (www.InfoWars.com), where he revealed additional information about Glaxo’s activities such as the “coaching” of pharmaceutical sales reps to enroll doctors in elaborate kickback schemes. The video of that interview is available below.

Caller blows the whistle on the physician bribery underground

Following Blair’s interview on the Alex Jones Show, a woman who identified herself as “Ally” called in to the show and described, in authentic language and tone, how she had worked inside a company that managed the “kickback” relationships between drug companies and doctors. On live national radio, she proceeded to describe details about how doctors would earn up to $6,000 a day as part of Big Pharma’s speakers bureaus. In her own words, below, she explains how doctors and physicians lined up to cash in on the bribery payoffs, happy to sell their souls to Big Pharma while pimping out drugs that were often shown to be dangerous — even deadly — to the consuming public.

Hear her call-in conversation with the Health Ranger at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEbWrNL4_SY

Continue Reading At: NaturalNews.com

FDA Spies On Whistleblowers’ Personal Information … Then Uses It to Smear Them

via: WashingtonsBlog
July 18, 2012

Regulators and Politicians Work Hard … to Protect Corporate Wrongdoing and Smear Whistleblowers

When one of the most respected radiologists  in America – the former head of the radiology department at Yale University – attempted to blow the whistle on the fact that the FDA had approved a medical device manufactured by General Electric because it put out massive amounts of radiation, the FDA installed spyware to record his private emails and surfing activities (including installing cameras to snap pictures of his screen), and then used the information to smear him and other whistleblowers:

Continue Reading At: WashingtonsBlog.com

Big Pharma’s massive bribery network exposed!

via: TheHealthRanger
July 17, 2012

FDA caught spying on e-mails of its own scientists in huge surveillance operation

via: NaturalNews
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
By: J. D. Heyes

[NaturalNews] If you need any measure of just how statist and paranoid our Leviathan government has become, look no further than recent revelations that one of its own agencies has been caught spying on some of its own employees, just because they had differences of opinion regarding its operation.

The New York Times said previously undisclosed documents revealed recently indicate the Food and Drug Administration had conducted a “wide-ranging surveillance operation” against a group of disgruntled FDA scientists who had privately sent thousands of emails to Congress, attorneys, labor officials, journalists and, on occasion, even President Obama.

The report said initially the FDA had launched a narrow investigation into possible leaks of confidential agency data by five scientists, but that its scope grew quickly in mid-2010 into a far broader effort aimed at countering outside critics of the agency’s medical review process, as a cache of some 80,000 pages of computer documents indicated.

FDA officials who ordered the surveillance operation were seeking to squash what one memo called the “collaboration” of agency opponents comprised of 21 people, including FDA employees, congressional officials, outside medical researchers and journalists presumed to be working in unison to produce “defamatory” information about the agency.

A ‘specific danger to public safety’

As expected, agency officials defended the massive spying effort, using the excuse that agency computer monitoring was limited to just the five scientists who the FDA believed were leaking confidential information about the design and safety of some medical devices. Agency officials admitted the goal of the surveillance was to track the scientists’ communications, but they said the goal was never to impede those communications – only to see if the scientists were improperly sharing information.

Continue Reading At: NaturalNews.com

‘Obama promised to be whistleblowers’ best friend, became enemy no.1′

via: RT
July 17, 2012

Pre-trial hearings are underway for Bradley Manning – the jailed US soldier accused of releasing information to Wikileaks. His lawyer claims Manning was tortured and treated worse than a terrorist during nearly two years in solitary confinement. He faces 22 charges including ‘aiding the enemy’ – which carries a death sentence.

FDA Spied on Whistleblowers with Big Brother Surveillance Software

via: OccupyCorporatism
by: Susanne Posel
July 17, 2012

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began a surveillance initiative into 5 scientists suspected of releasing confidential documents to the mainstream media and Congress; however the FDA quickly turned their investigations into the creation of an “enemies list” after thousands of emails sent by FDA employees to Congressional officials, the White House and other scientists were intercepted.

Members of Congress were targeted as being in opposition to the FDA. The illegal monitoring consisted of gathering confidential messages, correspondence with attorneys, whistleblowing complaints to Congress and workplace grievances.

Senator Charles Grassley, who was targeted in the spying operation, commented: “The FDA has a lot of explaining to do in the weeks ahead.” Grassley also said that the FDA “is discouraging whistleblowers” and “[the agency] have absolutely no business reading the private e-mails of their employees. They think they can be the Gestapo and do anything they want.”

An estimated 80,000 pages of emails were confiscated by the FDA with spying software and then posted “by accident” on a public website. When scientists who were being investigated “goggled” themselves, they found the relating documents on the internet.

Continue Reading At: OccupyCorporatism.com