Doctors Urge Transparency and Hippocratic tradition

Make Sure Patient and Doctor Protection is on the White House Transparency Agenda!

Especially when dealing with chronic devastating illnesses like Cancer and AIDS, the public must know that the federal govt will back scientific treatments based on the best possible data. There is no room for anti-scientific treatments. Only with solid, transparent trials of treatments, backed by the best possible treatments, and with solid whistleblower protection, can we move forward. Medicine is based on truth. It is time to end the dark ages, and protect all medical whistleblowers. 

Genuine federal whistleblower protection is on the verge of becoming law. Both the House and Senate held hearings in the last month on the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2009 (WPEA), documenting painful lessons learned from the gutted Whistleblower Protection Act – the only legal recourse for federal whistleblowers. The record is in our favor, and the support from Congress and the Administration for strengthening the law is at an unprecedented high. With our momentum, however, has come increased opposition from the internal power structure and federal management.

That means we can not ease up now. We are in the stretch drive of passing credible rights that would protect federal employees from retaliation when they expose abuses of power that betray the public trust. We expect the key congressional committee votes later next month, after the July 4 recess. Until then, we need to lock in credible reform by voicing our support for H.R. 1507, the House WPEA version that protects all taxpayer-funded federal employees, with rights enforced by access to jury trials.

Here’s where you come in. In response to President Obama's campaign promises to promote a more transparent and open government, the White House created an Open Government Directive, comprised of three phases for citizen participation; Brainstorm, Discuss, Draft. We called on the whistleblower community to support <click here Whistleblower Protection during the “Brainstorming” phase. Thanks to your response, it made 2nd place under “Transparency: Open Government Operations”! We need your voice again in the “Discussion” phase, to ensure that federal whistleblower protection is part of any credible dialogue on open-government. The deadline to post a comment is this Friday, June 20th. We will contact you when the "Drafting" phase begins as well.

How to Participate:

1. Register <click here style="font: normal normal normal 10px/normal 'Times New Roman'">here and create a user name

2. Once you log-in, we suggest commenting on the blog entitled “<click here class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium">Transparency: Open Government Operations.”  To comment, scroll to the bottom of the page and under the option to “submit a comment,” voice your support for federal whistleblower protection

3. Recruit your coworkers and friends to join us in this effort. For guidance, here is an easy-to-edit message for you to build on that captures our campaign in the endgame

“Doctors and other whistleblowers are our nation’s first line of defense against waste, fraud and abuse. Yet, they remain the only group within the labor force that has second class due process rights to protect them from retaliation when they make the difficult decision to blow the whistle. HR. 1507, the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2009, would offer full access to court, enforced by access to jury trials, for all employees paid by the taxpayers, just as President Obama promised in his campaign.  I support H.R. 1507 for these reasons, and I expect the President to deliver on his commitment to whistleblowers and the public by making this reform a cornerstone of any transparency measure until it is passed.”