The U.S. Office of Special Counsel has announced that it is broadening its probe into FDA's surveillance of the personal emails of employees who expressed concern over medical device safety, The Hill's "Healthwatch" reports (Pecquet, "Healthwatch," The Hill, 2/15).
Background
Last month, six current and former FDA scientists and physicians filed a lawsuit alleging that FDA monitored their personal email after they warned congressional staffers that the agency approved medical devices that might pose risks to patients.
According to government documents gathered by the plaintiffs, FDA started intercepting personal Gmail communications between several of its employees and congressional staffers in January 2009 and continued the surveillance for two years. FDA also took screenshots of the employees' computer desktops and reviewed documents that they had saved on their hard drives.
The plaintiffs argued that FDA violated their constitutional right to privacy by checking their personal email accounts. They also argued that the information obtained by FDA contributed to the harassment or dismissal of the six employees.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) recently sent a letter asking FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg to explain why the agency monitored the employees' personal emails
Last week, FDA said it started monitoring the emails because it was conducting an internal probe into claims that confidential data were being leaked to the public. An FDA spokesperson also noted that FDA employees are required to give consent to have their computer usage monitored when they log into FDA's computer system (iHealthBeat, 2/10).
OSC Widening Investigation
According to OSC, the personal emails monitored by FDA included emails that employees sent to OSC. OSC reviews information about federal agencies that engage in wrongdoing or retaliate against whistleblowers (Rein, Washington Post, 2/16).
According to OSC's announcement, the agency has "received new and troubling allegations of retaliatory surveillance of OSC communications and other acts of retaliation against the whistleblowers, including FDA attempts to initiate criminal prosecution of the whistleblowers."
OSC said it is reviewing the new allegations and information from Congress, adding that it will "take appropriate action" (Daly, Modern Healthcare, 2/15).