Blowing the whistle: A pharmacist`s vexing experience unraveled
Follow this link to Medscape`s posting of this as featured story of the week; January 10, 2007 and reaction from readers.
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Go to www.vawhistleblower.com !!!
The following are articles related to Dr. Fudin's whistleblowing activity at the Stratton Veterans Administration Medical Center in Albany, New York. These are posted here from the original paindr.com website as pictured on the homepage icon below. For more detailed, RECENT and UPDATED articles and information, and DOCUMENTS please go directly to VAwhistleblower.com. Also see our VA whistleblower colleagues VAWBC.com.
The New York Times:
02-06-2005, Abuses Endangered Veterans in Cancer Drug Experiment or PDF
Times Union (local newspaper):
03-02-2003, Records reveal earlier VA alert
03-05-2003, Drug trials at VA queried
04-06-2003, Drug research at VA at heart of 2 inquiries
04-22-2003, Not vets, but still deemed heros
05-26-2003, Cover-up charged in VA probe
05-27-2003, Splash of pride, pipes, puddles
09-14-2003, One in, one out in VA cases
11-02-2003, Concerns over VA hospital unheeded
11-11-2003, McNulty pushes for VA stories to be heard
01-22-2004, FBI opens inquiry into VA allegations
10-09-2004, Stratton medical chief to quit post
10-21-2004, VA whistle-blower denied leave for conference
01-18-2005, Former VA staffer set to plead guilty
01-19-2005, Authorities set to widen VA inquiry
06-27-2005, FBI Closes Inquiry at VA
08-03-2005, Ex-VA staffer details scheme
08-12-2005 Families revile fate of victims
Daily Gazette (local newspaper):
11-16-2003, Stratton VA whistleblowers spur call for hearings
03-21-2004, Doctor alleges VA vindictive
01-19-2005, Ex-researcher guilty in death
04-10-2005, CAPITAL REGION: Sentencing in May for VA fraud
Professional Journals:
12-2003, Whistle-blowers sound the alarm on faulty clinical trials. Pharmacy Practice News.
12-2003, Whistle-blowers share survival strategies. Pharmacy Practice News.
Fall 2004, Phi Delta Chi, Alpha Theta Chapter (Albany College of Pharmacy), 2004 Year In Review.
Other Media Sources:
05-27-2003, Ex-workers say patients at VA hospital may have dies prematurely. Medline Plus Health Information
11/11/2003, VA workers to tell stories. MSNBC
08-11-2005, CAPITAL NEWS CHANNEL 9, Sentencing postponed for former researcher
Please visit Dr. Fudin's personal whistleblower site by clicking the homepage link below:
Am J Health-Syst Pharm. 2006; 63:2262-5
Jeffrey Fudin
JEFFREY FUDIN, PHARM.D., B.S., DAAPM, is Clinical Pharmacy Specialist, Stratton Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Albany, NY; and Adjunct Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice, Albany College of Pharmacy, Albany, NY.
On February 6, 2005, the New York Times reported that Paul Kornak pled guilty to fraud and criminally negligent homicide a month earlier.1 Kornak was a nonphysician employee at the Stratton Veterans Affairs Medical Center (SVAMC) in Albany, New York. On November 21, 2005, a federal judge sentenced Kornak to the maximum prison term of six years. According to a local report, "At least one veteran died and 64 others suffered unduly or were harmed by the forgeries, which involved manipulating their medical backgrounds so they would qualify to participate in lucrative drug studies ...."2 A decade earlier, two pharmacists had warned that patients were placed at risk or had died because of similar unethical experimentation.2
Currently, an elusive federal investigation purportedly continues to determine which Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) physicians and administrators were an integral part of the patient abuse conspiracy, the cover-ups, and the retaliation against the two pharmacists who dared to expose the truth for greater than a decade; I am one of those pharmacists. I will share some personal experiences and lessons learned and review the professional guidelines and moral responsibilities that are explicit in the pharmacists` code of ethics. I will also share the strategies that enabled me to persevere, should pharmacy colleagues face similar challenges to their professionalism and integrity.
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JEFFREY FUDIN, PHARM.D.,B.S., DAAPM, is Clinical Pharmacy
This commentary is the sole opinion of the author and does not reflect the opinion of, nor was it reviewed by, any government agency or the Albany College of Pharmacy. It was not prepared as a part of the author`s official government duties in his capacity as a Clinical Pharmacy Specialist. All rights reserved.
Copyright 2006 by American Society of Health-System Pharmacists
Jeffrey Fudin
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