Once heralded as tidy way to clean up spreading slicks, the chemical agent has proven toxic for sea life—and humans. Every three to four weeks, a cycle of horror repeats itself across Steve Kolian’s face. First it becomes itchy. Then the bumps appear. Then a raw, irritating redness sets in before the skin peels away in patches. Finally, it all disappears for a while. Other parts of his body, however, seem to be in perpetual disrepair. Dizziness, nausea, diarrhea, bloody stools and cognitive issues surface intermittently, painful reminders of the toxic assault he and untold others endured following the April  [ Read More ]

By Jason Grant/The Star-Ledger NEWARK — In July 2005, authorities say, just as Par Pharmaceutical won FDA approval to use a prescription drug it had developed for AIDS-related weight loss, treatment options for AIDS got to the point that significant weight loss — or wasting — didn’t occur nearly as often. Worried that the drug wouldn’t reach the lucrative sales figures once anticipated, the Woodcliff Lake-based company “plowed ahead” anyway with a different plan, authorities say — one never sanctioned by the Food and Drug Administration: It began to market the drug to geriatric patients, many living at nursing homes  [ Read More ]

by Jack Davis on March 04, 2013 ( The Whistleblogger / 2013 ) Democracy Now!: WikiLeaks Whistleblower Bradley Manning Says He Wanted to Show the Public the “True Costs of War” Military whistleblower Bradley Manning went to court on Friday and pled guilty to 10 charges, still facing as many as 12 more charges at an upcoming court-martial. The most serious of these remaining ones is ‘aiding the enemy,’ which could send Manning to prison for life. The soldier said his intent was not to harm the US but rather to “spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and  [ Read More ]

New Jersey’s Conscientious Employee Protection Act (CEPA) is one of the most far-reaching whistleblower laws in the nation. It was enacted to protect employees from the retaliatory actions of their employers for having disclosed or “blown the whistle” on their employer’s participation in unlawful or harmful activity.  Our New Jersey Supreme Court has made clear the overarching goal of CEPA is to “protect and encourage employees to report illegal or unethical workplace activities and to discourage public and private sector employers from engaging in such conduct.” CEPA effectuates important public policies of overcoming the victimization of employees and protecting those who  [ Read More ]

Setting up a policy for county employees who suspect fraud in their workplace to report it anonymously is an idea that has been a long time coming. A new policy agreed upon yesterday takes a solid first step in establishing guidelines in the county government structure for a web-based whistleblower hotline. It also establishes guidelines and training on reporting fraud, waste and abuse. Additionally, there will be an expansion of the Controller’s Office software to identify unusual financial activities. The cost is minimal, but the impact will be great whether it’s used or not. Because there will be a way  [ Read More ]

Landis, whose ’06 Tour de France victory was revoked because of doping, had already shared some of the anecdotes and allegations in the lawsuit in interviews with the media shortly before the suit was filed, but the stark descriptions reinforce the seriousness of the allegations facing Armstrong. While Attorney General Eric Holder considers whether Lance Armstrong should trade his yellow bracelets for silver handcuffs, there is a compelling argument for the feds to take on the disgraced cyclist by joining the whistleblower lawsuit cyclist Floyd Landis filed against his embattled teammate: The lawsuit itself. The Daily News has obtained and  [ Read More ]

Betsy Andreu, the wife of Lance Armstrong’s former teammate, joined HuffPost Live Friday to react to Armstrong’s doping confession to Oprah in an interview airing Thursday night. In 2006, Andreu testified that she heard Armstrong admit to his cancer doctors a decade earlier that he had used EPO, growth hormone and steroids. After her testimony, Andreu became one of Armstrong’s many targets, calling her a liar, crazy and a “bitch.” In one of the more bizarre portions of the interview, Oprah asked Armstrong about Andreu and whether she was lying in her testimony about his doping admission in 1996. Armstrong  [ Read More ]

I was president and CEO of Olympus Corporation when the financial scandal broke last year, after I had exposed a massive fraud of approaching $2 billion which has subsequently become known as Japan’s Enron. Less than a month after I had been forced to leave the company, Olympus’s share price had dropped by a staggering 81.5% compared to the day before my dismissal. In monetary terms this represented a fall in market value of over $7 billion, and in witnessing the meltdown of this iconic Nikkei listed company the business world was aghast. My new book, “Exposure: Inside the Olympus  [ Read More ]

Subscribe Now!: http://full.sc/SwIjS1 Support the Government Accountability Project and demand that federal contractors be allowed their free speech. Watch to find out more. For More Visit: http://bit.ly/QqsGzu About the Government Accountability Project The Government Accountability Project’s mission is to promote corporate and government accountability by .protecting whistleblowers, advancing occupational free speech, and empowering citizen activists. Visit the G.A.P. website: http://bit.ly/V0kRPY Brought to you by Take Part: http://full.sc/NHOG6H TakePart TV is the channel from some of the people behind An Inconvenient Truth, Food Inc., The Help, Contagion and Waiting for Superman, among others. Here, you’ll find entertaining content that’s real and  [ Read More ]

Thank You! Senate Passes WPEA; Bill Heads to President by Hannah Johnson on November 14, 2012 ( The Whistleblogger / 2012 ) Good news! In case you hadn’t heard, the Senate passed the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA) yesterday by unanimous consent! The legislation will provide millions of federal workers with the rights they need to safely report government corruption and wrongdoing. The bill reflects an unequivocal bipartisan consensus, having received the vote of every member in the 112th Congress. The House unanimously approved the bill in September, and the Senate immediately followed suit during the lame duck session. It  [ Read More ]

Main Category: Psychology / Psychiatry Article Date: 13 Oct 2012 – 0:00 PDT From politics to finance, government to education, ethics-related scandals seem to crop up with considerable regularity. As whistleblowers and investigative journalists bring these scandals to light, one can’t help but wonder: Are there specific character traits that predispose people to unethical behavior? Converging evidence suggests that the answer could be guilt proneness. In a new article in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, researchers Taya Cohen and Nazli Turan of Carnegie Mellon University and A.T. Panter of the University of  [ Read More ]

By msnbc.com staff and news services The Justice Department says Wells Fargo & Co. will pay at least $175 million to settle accusations that it allegedly discriminated against qualified African-American and Hispanic borrowers in its mortgage lending from 2004 through 2009. The settlement, which needs approval from a judge, would end the investigation into whether the fourth largest U.S. bank between 2004 and 2009 knowingly targeted minorities for risky mortgages that came with higher costs, according to documents filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. “The Department of Justice today filed the second largest fair lending  [ Read More ]

New Mexico Business Weekly Date: Friday, April 20, 2012, 9:35am MDT – Last Modified: Friday, April 20, 2012, 9:36am MDT New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has filed a lawsuit against Sprint Nextel Corp., alleging that the wireless carrier deliberately under-collected and underpaid more than $100 million in New York state and local sales taxes. The allegations, which started with a whistleblower, deal with taxes collected from consumers on flat-rate access charges for wireless calling plans. The suit, brought under the New York False Claims Act, would require Sprint (NYSE: S) to pay three times its underpayment plus penalties —  [ Read More ]

The SEC recently charged executives James T. Miceli and Douglas A. McClain and their California based investment firm, Argyll Investments, for participating in an $8 million stock lending scheme. They convinced at least nine corporate officers, since 2009, to transfer ownership of millions of shares of publically traded stock to Argyll at a discounted rate, and separately, sell the stock at full price as collateral for the loans if they defaulted. In turn, Mr. Miceli and Mr. McClain sold the shares for full market value to fund the loans and used the proceeds for their own personal benefit. If you  [ Read More ]

A former U.S. Department of Agriculture scientist has come forward with a startling tale of how a substance known as “pink slime” has been embedded in about 70 percent of ground beef sold in the U.S. – a topic ABC News investigated for a segment Wednesday night. ‘Pink slime’ panic grows online: Are we overreacting? By Jane Weaver, Deputy health editor | Vitals on MSNBC.com Updated March 9: An online petition urging the government to stop the use of “pink slime” — the scrape and waste meat products that are treated with ammonium-hydroxide — in school food has collected almost  [ Read More ]