A Pfizer Whistleblower Tops Business Ethics List
26 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // December 18th, 2009 // 4:44 pm
The most influential person in the world of business ethics is someone who blew the whistle on Pfizer. John Kopchinski, a former sales rep whose lawsuit led to the record breaking, eye rolling, jaw dropping $2.3 billion settlement, was given this honor by the Ethisphere Institute, a think tank that is dedicated to what it calls “the creation, advancement and sharing of best practices in business ethics, corporate social responsibility, anti-corruption and sustainability.”
The choice, of course, would appear to be a determined reminder for Pfizer, and the pharmaceutical industry, in general, that corporate behavior matters. Kopschinski exposed the drugmaker’s illegal sales and marketing efforts to promote its Bextra painkiller. Federal prosecutors, you may recall, announced the settlement in September (here is the lawsuit, a link to exhibits and Justice Department statement).
In reaching its decision, Ethisphere placed Kopchinski in the ‘media and whistleblower’ category, and the think tank then decides whether an individual raised awareness on a critical issue or exposed corruption. “Kopchinski blew the whistle on Pfizer’s marketing activity and received $51.1 million of the penalty that Pfizer paid for illegally marketing some of its drugs. Four other whistleblowers received some of the award as well, but Kopchinski earned the largest piece of the pie for his role. Officially turned whistleblowing into big business,” according to Ethisphere.
Keep reading to see who else made the list…
At No. 5, was Neelie Kroes, the European Union’s Commissioner for Competition. In her last year in this post, the EU remained a leader in the antitrust and cartel-busting world, going after a few industries, including pharma for so-called ‘pay-to-delay’ deals in which brand-name drugmakers allegedly find ways to compensate generic rivals in order to delay lower-cost copycat drugs from reaching patients (see here).
At No. 16 is Chuck Grassley, the Iowa Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, who is probing conflicts of interest among drugmakers, academic researchers and physicians.
And No. 22 is Delos Cosgrove of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, who required all of its physicians and researchers to publicly disclose relationships with drug and device makers as part of the Clinic’s “transparency initiatives involving the conflict of interest and managing innovations processes.”
At No. 57 is Jacqueline Brevard, Merck’s chief ethics and compliance officer, who was placed in the ‘corporate culture’ category for being the longest standing chief ethics and compliance officer of a major company. In 2009, she was active in a number of compliance and ethics initiatives and membership organizations and “set a strong leadership example within the compliance and ethics field.”
At No. 91 is Rich Blumenthal, Connecticut’s Attorney General, who was cited for being one of the leading AGs when it came to protecting consumers against leading issues. For instance, when swine flu became a major story, he investigated the largest pharmacies - CVS, RiteAid and Walgreens - for allegedly inflating prices of Tamiflu after that drug was promoted as a leading anti-flu med.
Whistle courtesy of Flickr Aweinstein
Blowing into the wind
These whistleblowers are heros and deserve what they got in rewards. They needed that for most would not be working anymore in Bigpharma or any biz for that matter. No one wants the WB around and they are disliked by almost everyone, not only the corrupted ones. That is a strange phenomenon and may indicate that we as people are pre-wired for crime and if we don’t do it, at least we turn the other way. The big pharma corps know that WBs are rare and that the road to prove misconduct is long and hard one, and that is why they do what they do in terms of using unethical, illegal/criminal activity in their approach to market. Usually in combination for when you combine legal and illegal the return is far higher. In case of Pfizer, offlabel promo brought in billions in extra sales. Where are the bribes to docs, fake trials, lies, etc etc. The list is endless. Once any miscoduct is exposed, they fine another one. They have taken this to an art form. And they do it even after exposed once as in this Co’s case.They do in US where you have strong laws like FCA etc. Imagine what they do in other countries, especially in third world. In those countries you can’t blow the whistle for no one would listen or you could just disapear. Even in advanced country just north of US, you can’t WB for no one would listen either. The government has no laws agains big pharma misconduct, only some toothless industry reg. bodies give you a fine of 5-10K which amounts to…nothing. Do you think that Pfizer and all other US based Cos that have affiliates in Canada did not do the same things there? Yes they did and no one even spoke about it, let alone WB and had them punished. One of the biggest one (not Pfizer and has not been exposed in USA yet) has done so much miscondut and there is so much of hardest evidence that it was so, and yet no one would listen or make a move to investigate and punish. Yet they took in in one of their many scheme over 100 million. That would be like 1 billion in USA.
Yes the WB was just blowing into the wind, up here.
patrons99
Very well stated, Blowing into the wind.
As a physician and former whistle-blower, I can tell you, from first hand personal experience, that Big pharma knows only too well how to use FEAR, fear of lawsuits, and “peer fear” against W-Bs. Extortion is an essential part of their enterprise.
Most W-Bs pay a tremendous price, both personally and professionally, simply for having “done the right thing” in following the Oath of Hippocrates. Quite often, they are irreversibly “slimed” and made to feel like idiots (quixotic), outcasts, pariahs.
Taking the high ground, morally and ethically, can come at a very high price, especially if the W-B is abandoned by his or her peers, professional societies, state and federal regulators, state and federal courts, and their retained legal counsel.
Where were their peers to be found during their decade of torture? Where were the regulators to be found during their decade of torture? They turned the other way. The cynics amongst us might say, whistle blowing - “why bother?”
Evelyn Pringle
Whistleblowers are HEROES!!!!
Blowing into the wind
It’s nice to see a doctor comment and agree with what is going on. There are still few uncorrupted ones that can and do say no to bigpharma(fia) when offered money and other benefits in return for Rxing their drugs, promoting offlabel and God knowns what else they come up with in illegal activity. Why only God knows? Simple, for the illegal stuff they insert, blend, combine with,make it integral part of overall approach to market so the crime they do is most often invisable to the naked or untrained eye. That is a reason that collecting and filing evidence is so hard. They make a deliberate and utmost effort to prevent this. So the WBer must have many talents including one to see and collect the evidence. Couradge, determination and sense of doing the right thing being also up there. As the doc says WBing ain’t popular in general. Even the top of the governmental power would treat WBer as pariah or traitor. That is why it is rare especially in cases where WBing would not set you for life, so to speak. Otherwise you’d be starving in every way. Perhaps this is why many say “why bother” or “don’t want to get involved” etc. When you take this in account Ms. Pringle is right, these people are Heroes, perhaps the unsung ones.
ps: Evelyn wrote a very good article on Pfizer’s offlabel promo of Neurontin and big fine they got for it. It was used to make a point to Canadian authorities how they don’t do anything about misconduct of this country’s bigpharma. They just dismissed it as if it were Soviet propaganda. Yet I personally know that Neurontin was promoted for depression in Canada too. Someone close was put on this completely useless and unapproved drug for depression. We have to ask a cardinal question: Will it ever stop or we just have to live with it while bigpharma is getting rich way beyond deserved.
Santa
patrons99 - a physician and former whistle-blower: your nom de plume includes an anagram of P Rost. What would ‘an’ and ‘99′ mean I wonder?
Ho ho ho
patrons99
Does anyone have a clue what this dude (a.k.a. Santa) is talking about? He doesn’t sound rational.
Anon
What about FDA reviewers. We know they’re out there.
patrons99
Maybe so, Anon. It’s pretty common for someone to resort to ad hominem attacks when they don’t like what you stand for. If you google patrons99 you’ll find about a 100 or so legal filings posted at the scribd website. There are a lot more than that in various locations. One day, perhaps, the court of public opinion should weigh in. The U.S. attorney knows all about the case and controversy. For reasons completely unknown to me, DOJ and OIG have chosen not to act.
patrons99
I was physically assaulted by a physician in 1999, in Tucson, Arizona (USA). This assault and battery took place on May 11, 1999, in the workplace, after I had blown the whistle to FDA on this physician, a perfect sociopath and pharma-shill, who had hired me to act as his clinical research subinvestigator for a company called “Vivra” in Tucson, AZ performing literally dozens of studies for nearly all of the major pharma companies. I place a great deal of the blame not just on the sociopath who assaulted me, but on the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (“PDUFA”) that encouraged his misconduct (fraudulent clinical research). While I am not an attorney, I feel strongly that this statute violates our right to Equal Protection under the Fifth Amendment and our right to Equal Treatment before the Law under the Ninth Amendment. I raised these issues before the U.S. Supreme Court, however, certiorari was denied.
The “endangered and dead” victims referred to in Davidsons’ Petition for Writ of Certiorari before Judgment (U.S. Supreme Court Docket Case # 04-537, certiorari denied on January 10, 2005), Issue # 2, at page 17, paragraph 1, had to collectively shudder when Judge Zapata dismissed Davidsons’ federal causes of action (CV-03-00110-FRZ and CV-03-00580-FRZ). A foreseeable consequence of his abdication of federal jurisdiction, is that the harm (intentional endangerments and deaths) made possible under color of the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (“PDUFA”) will continue unabated and evade review. To date, no federal court has ever reached the constitutionality of the Prescription Drug User Fee Act.
Justice in MI
For anyone interested, there is a fairly “dark” book on whistleblowing by Professor Fred Alford of U-Maryland, entitled, _Whistleblowers: Broken Lives and Organizational Power_.
It echoes many of the comments made here, especially by Patrons and Blowing.
Codes R not us.
Here is something you might find interesting on the issue of WB. It is encouraged and often required by those in power or supposedly honest side. However, the question is, why? Is it they want to know the offence and do the right thing to correct it and punish the offender? Or is it something else? Here is a real life situation in the bigpharma Co by the name Novartis. In their codes of conduct, they not only encourage but insist that every emloyee must come forward if they know of any misconduct (their term for anything against their rules, be it internal or external offence). They even use the words “whistle blowing and whistle blower” and how they must come forward as their absolute duty to the company and it’s wellbing, etc. etc. Then they detail all the protection and security that WB-er would be entitled to, and give utmost assurance that no one in the company should feel afraid for their security and future in the Co would be absolutely assured. Well, that is on paper and in theory. What happens in reality, you come forward but only internally (no going outside of the company with your knowledge and evidence), tell your story and surrender your evidence to the internal security function called BPO, I believe. Once they are satisfied you are done and they are done with you, you would be done. Meaning your days within the Co are numbered. It may happen immediately or in short or longer time. But you are finished, period. So one can conclude with certainty that the encouragement to WB is motivated by the Co’s must know what is going on and their fear that WB may go outside of the Co before they are able to find out and cover up the whole thing, internally.This approach is especially done in cases of Co’s illegal activities like offlabel promotion etc. which is done deliberately and with approval from the very top. If some “smart” employee gets ideas to collects the evidence, they want them to come to BPO or management at any level, WBlow what management actually knows is going on but want to know if anyone else knows who potentially may WB externally thus get the Co in trouble. You see when you work for Co like this (and Pfizer et al) you are expected to be loyal and keep your mouth shut about the illegal goings on that help the Co do better. You are not expected to collect and file evidence of this and if you do, they want to prevent you by all means to go outside. It is simple as that. Of course in cases of rouge employee cheating or stealling, the WBing has an entirely other meaning and purpose.
FDAer
Codes,
You are absolutely right. If I were in a private company I would never do that. I would instead hopefully find info for a Qui Tam case and go to a lawyer and go to the justice department. However I would only WB if it were a matter of life and death.
Being a Federal employee is entirely different. You can’t file a qui tam case and the procedures are entirely different as compared with the private sector. In FDA to the only way to generate evidence is to report things to FDA management and thus create a paper trial. Yet by doing so you know that you are ending your career. Thus I believe it’s only worth it if the safety issue is overwhelming and of huge proportions.
At the FDA for years we were supposed to go to the FDA Office of Criminal Investigations (OCI), however they report to the FDA commissioner and they would simply investigate and prosecute the whistleblowers. Andy Mosholder who blew the whistle on pediatric suicides with antidepressants is simply the most blatant example. But there are many other examples in the press not counting the cases that never became public. Because of this the responsibility for internal criminal investigations was given back to the HHS Office of the Inspector General, (OIG). Those who went to OIG found that even they twisted evidence and reported back to the FDA even though this is prohibited by law.
As an aside it’s noteworthy that Andy Mosholder was investigated after going to Rep. Waxman and his office leaked his evidence to the press. I know of other cases where FDA reviewers went to Waxman yet refused to turnover the evidence for that very reason and within a matter of days FDA management was sniffing around and warning people that they could be prosecuted for removing any documentation. From the timing and the specifics it was clear that either Waxman himself or someone in his office was in cahoots with FDA management and informing on the whistleblower.
Then there’s the Office of Special Counsel, which is supposed to be the ultimate place to go. Yet they consistently refused to investigate things and Scott Bloch the SC was himself fired for possible obstruction of justice for destroying computer files sought by investigators in a probe into whether he retaliated illegally against whistleblowers in his own office.
People talk about FDA transparency yet it’s a total joke. If you go through FDA public documents there is clear evidence of felonies by FDA officials in the FDA public files yet no one goes through them and there is no one to report them to.
The pharmaceutical industry has in effect forced out or intimidated virtually anyone who was ethical and placed there own people throughout the FDA. I don’t know to what extent Obama is engaged with Pharma, however I do know that Bush was extensively engaged and reviewers were threatened that certain companies would go to the White House and on multiple occassions FDA management made it clear that the White House was supporting illegal activities with the FDA.
Pres. Obama only took an interest when he stated that tainted peanut butter might effect his own family. Well I know of a lot more dangerous things than peanut butter being covered up by FDA officials and that are much more likely to harm his family.
patrons99
Bravo FDAer. You ought to go public with this. The public doesn’t know that there’s any wrong with FDA.
When you state, “However I would only WB if it were a matter of life and death.” That statement seems a bit extreme. Why do you draw the line there?
What about clinical research fraud that results in hospitalization? What about clinical research fraud that results in improper study subject enrollment? What about clinical research fraud that recklessly and/or intentionally endangers a study subject(s)? What about unblinding of the principal investigator in a double blind placebo controlled study? What about serial extortions upon the clinical research staff to drive up study subject enrollment?
We can certainly all agree that matters of life and death ought to be reported. Amen to that one! My conscience is clear. The regulators (OIG and DOJ and BOMEX) dropped the ball on that one.
Oh, by the way. Life and death is very much at stake. See an article I wrote titled “Was Asthma Clinical Research Study Subject “Ghosted”?” on November 29, 2009, for OpEdNews.
Santa
patrons99 - this dude isn’t irrational, just very busy at this time of year, so perhaps a little weary. As you might recall there was another whistleblower, also a physician, by the name of P Rost who was a poster on here. Your screen-name does include those 5 letters hence a possible anagram. We haven’t heard from him for a while so who knows?
Hope you get what you’re wishing for!
S
patrons99
Santa. I stand on my previous statement. You sound irrational. Too much holiday cheer, perhaps. Either that or you are really not so busy that can’t find time to analyze for anagrams(?). What master, exactly, do you serve? pharma?
Codes R not us.
What I personally have seen, what I see here and what I wave seen elsewhere reported/discussed I am completely convinced that we live in the society (that includes USA, Canada and all other so called free econonies/democracies) that allowes some degree of crime (as an illegal, immoral and unethical enterprise) to be done by all those who know how to do it in concert and/or combination with the perfectly normal, legal, ethical, moral etc. The so called “real” crime but especially Organized Crime is labeled by society as such and is outlawed. Thus we go after them whenever and however we can. The crime used and practiced by corporations and institutions especially is in fact organized, approved by corporate and other authority, tolerated and rarely looked into by those who are in fact responsible to do so. That is why we who are not in agreement with such state of affairs have so much trouble proving things and getting them done by the authorities. Those who practice this “paralell” crime know this very well and thus do it more or less with impunity. On occasion we do win but most often we lose or are not even able to detect this crime to even react. The question is, this crime, is it a spontaneous phenomenon or is it something much more sinister, like Organized as in Organized Crime, but done by different wiseguys? Wiseguys that work in and manage our corporations, institutions and maybe even goverments. Yes, from what we have seen at many levels one can believe that this kind of crime does exist and we can simply call it Organized Corporate Crime, or OCC for short and less scary.
The orders to promote Neurontin offlabel did not come from some lone rouge person. They came from top of this Co and filtered down along their management foof chain. Someone designed promo material and came up with “sales story” for its use in depression, someone gave orders to sales reps to go out and do it, and so on. Completely organized and well run operation that came down to doing the crime, OCC that is. Perhaps there are few major differences between the OC and OCC. One I can think of quickly and have seen it. The corporate wiseguys are otherwise perfectly normal and honest even church going people. Would not hurt a fly as they say. But ones they are in their corporate environment they turn into OCC wiseguys and do their thing. Very interesting and almost strange if you think agout it, but that’s the way it is. Example: a nice younge man from rural Manitoba who grew up on farm with all the values one gets by living a perfectly honest life. Children, nice wife and good family. Once in his office as senior brand manger for a promoted drug, he would come up with illegal promo. stuff that would boggle your mind.In one memo he would ask/order all the reps not to do anything that is not legal and in another the same day he would give instructions/orders how to promote unapproved indication. However, this was never ordered as an order to break the law. No just as if the unapproved indication was in fact approved. And this is another difference, those who carry out the orders (sales reps, scientists etc.) are never told to “whack” somebody as they would in OC, just go out and sell, research, promote etc. this thing this way.
OCC the best kept secret that everyone knows but few do anything about it.
Justice in MI
Interesting discussion. Here are some excerpts from the speech CEO Kindler recently gave in Boston, and which Ed reported on here (including a link to a video with the whole talk):
“Across society people believe that the rules meant to bring order to society instead are being manipulated to benefit the rule-makers. It has become so widespread that having questionable ethics is often seen as the norm. In fact, doing the right thing now seems quaint and old-fashioned when so many people seem to get away with doing the wrong thing.
People have had enough, and the backlash is real. Its fueling demands for more restrictions on businesses and on governments…
Now sometimes this criticism is warranted; sometimes it’s not. But when the majority of people don’t trust you, they will find a way to force you to change. So this is where we are. And it’s up to us to earn back the trust that we’ve lost…..
So what are we doing about this at Pfizer? Well, we’ve begun to change. We know we need to be straight with people. No one has any tolerance any more for corporate spin….”
For the most part, Kindler put pharma’s problems in the context of societal corruption more generally (using Madoff, Gov. Blogo., et. al. as examples) and emphasized the impact of lost trust on responses (like price controls) that would destroy innovation, etc.. He also did take note of the $2.3 B bust, but did not note that the “unapproved uses” promoted had been specifically rejected by FDA in significant part because of safety considerations.
So what do we make of this? I would genuinely be interested in the perspective of folks from within industry.
FDAer
Things will come out in time. Kopchinski et al’s stories did not come out publicly for years.
Doc
Whistleblowers are critical to exposing underhanded marketing and sales schemes that actually do patient harm.
Unfortunately the companies look at these fines as simply a business cost. They typically make multiples in profit from these schemes compared to any fines they pay.
Because of the structure of the system, the Federal Govt will never do the ultimate and bar them from federal programs for several years, it would put the company out of business.
What they CAN do is take the internal emails, memos etc, uncovered in their investigations and start jailing and personally fining the marketing and sales execs that push these schemes.
If a director or vp or two, did jail time or had to pay a million of more in personal fines - you WILL see behavior change.
Codes R not us.
Kindler maybe talking with the proverbial fork tongue, or maybe not. In any case he knows what is the right thing to say at this time on that subject. Does he mean it? Will they do the right thing in the future? Hard to say but he sees that the critical mass is building on the side of the people and maybe it is time to do something about it. However, they have always done things like that when it comes to resolving and covering up of the misconduct. Are they going to really change or go further underground and invent misconduct that is much harder to detect and report? I have seen this over and over again. In the mentioned Novartis Canada affiliate, a major WBing did happen (internally) and it exposed major misconduct dealing with anything from offlabel promo, to bribery to fraud against their public health care and more. It is known that WBer got thrown out very soon after the event. Only one of the management was also gone(maybe fired most likely on their own). Others involved in invention, planning, approval and implementation of miscoduct, not only stayed but many were PROMOTED. Since them the company has become so careful that any and every action that is not 110% kosher, must be only dealt verbally. No evidence what-so-ever, ever. Did they clean up their act as you and I would expect? No. They “cleand” it up to suit them so they can continue with their dark activity, unhindered. So the cover up and moving further underground took place. What they should have done, if they were to think same as Kindler (if he means it): fire all the crooks, clean up the operation and keep the WBer as a proof that what they say in their codes of conduct, they mean it.
So we are no further ahead, for now.Nothing changed.Here is an old saying, “It is not what you say but what you do” (that will prove if you are honest or a crook).We can wait, do nothing and see nothing changed. Or continue with demands that authority everywhere do something that would hurt them. Jail time of good lenght for those who do it could be a good start.
Bob
Hmmm. I wonder if there are any whistle blowers among journalists and the like? I think one would find them to be as bad as, if not worse than any other institution. At least pharma saves lives and makes people better, while journalists simply look to sell newspapers and get more eyeballs on the ads they carry - at the expense of anybody in their way. It’s a shame what journalism has become: see what’s happening to Time, Newsweek, and others. They say it’s the varied media that has caused their demise. Maybe everyone can now subconciously see through their real interests.
Former Pharma MD
I used to work in Big Pharma, but then decided that the corruption was too much to bear. As a physician first, I couldn’t turn my back on off-label promotion and safety cover-ups that can harm patients. If we have integrity, we must speak up, but then beware. As encouraged by my former company, I did the right thing and objected to corrupt marketing tactics. Problem was that top executives were aware and had approved of the activities simply to make their numbers. I was then trashed and terminated. In addition, I believe that these executives have black-balled me and I haven’t been able to locate an equivalent position. In the meantime, the criminals laughed all the way to the bank and haven’t been held accountable for their actions. It’s the same old story in Big Pharma - if you are honest, have integrity, and do the right thing, they don’t want you. You’re a threat to their big game!!
Codes R not us.
Many doctors work in Bigpharma and are part of the system, that is nothing but Organized Corporite Crime and that makes Bigpharma,more like Bigpharmafia. Former Pharma Doc, could not take it for too long and got pushed out as it usually happens when and once you make waves. In real mafia we know the only way out is….well you are REALLY finished. At least these bigpharma wiseguys, let you leave in one piece, but would not let you in again into any of the other OCC corps. So the best time to whistle blow is when you don’t need them ever again. You are either finished with work (retire) or your WBing would make you rich enough to never need them again.Many have commented on BP sins but few on medical professionals’ that are also part of the problem. Doctors, especially specialists of reputation that BP needs and likes in pushing their drugs, contribute in numerous ways to advance the goals of BP that include illegal, unethical and immoral activity. For that they are paid very well in many ways, from cash to trips to who knows what. But paid they get and they like it. It was not always like that. In the last 20-25 years especially the BG has been busy enrolling docs into their organization by relentlessly offering $$$$$ for being part of their schemes. How long could they resist? Some did but many went along. From that point of view, the biggest crime of the Bigpharmafia is the corruption of our most important part of health care, our doctors.Can they be stopped?
Ex-rep
I worked 12 years for 2 extremely ethical big pharma companies; to promote off-label, etc was to get fired before the day ended, which I personally witnessed.
Then I joined Amgen; started out fine but dove ethically once Sharer came in 1992.
I tried to do the right thing (despite the movie, ‘Silkwood’, scaring me to death). I sent solid proof of several illegal doings to the FDA; TAF; NY Times; and DOJ-New York (and resent them a few years ago). I didn’t send enough info I guess, because none of the above contacted me except a ‘thanks’ from the NYTimes the 2nd mailing.
I sent written proof of Amgen instructions to dialysis customers for:
- committing Medicare fraud(bill for free overfill); including various non-FDA approved Amgen-Home Office-issued “Financial Impact Analyses” (FIA’s) on overfill profits);
-off-label promotional aids including written instructions and non-FDA approved computer spreadsheets (raising hematocrit above 36, to even 39-”you’ll get paid, just document you are decreasing the dose”), and again FIA’s for bringing everyone’s hematocrit to at least 36, if not higher, (medically necessary or not).
The final straw that made me send the info was the National Sales Meeting (’93, maybe ‘94) where upper management freely discussed preliminary clinical findings on a Quality of Life study (one of several bogus ‘trials’ used as sales tools/financial incentives rather than valid clinical trials in our sales territories) for the higher hematocrits.
-Not only was no QoL benefit shown, but a trend toward cardiovascular risks was noted. We were told to abandon any QoL promotional activity, and just do the FIA’s instead. That was the day I knew Amgen had no soul anymore.
I’d always quietly refused to do unethical and/or illegal things with my accounts, and my manager hadn’t forced me to in the past. My sales were great-I won awards-with appropriate Epogen use…but never good enough for Amgen.
SOMETHING happened, not long after my mailings. My life was made miserable by my district manager despite excellent sales and previously excellent-TOP SCORE, 200 out of 200 possible points awarded-evaluations. For all objective ratings on the evaluation, I dropped 2 levels…people asked me at first what was wrong, why my DM wasn’t happy with me, and offered their support-and then not long after that, I was treated like I had the plague by all but my closest co-workers…
So, PLEASE DO SOMETHING fellow WB’s, but I would like to second extreme caution, gathering as much info as you can, and sending it to the CORRECT contact(s)- a trusted lawyer perhaps???
I won’t see a penny for my attempted WB or the wrongful termination, but at least I know I tried to do the right thing long ago.
Money is one thing, but human lives are truly priceless. Not sure how Amgen execs sleep at night.
Imagine how happy the headlines latelymake me-not just one lowly rep, but 15 companies are after justice from Amgen now!
Ex-rep
Oops- not 15 ‘companies’, but ‘15 states are after justice from Amgen now’.
somaie
This post was very helpful for me to look at the big picture. I often get lost in the small details and forget about the long-term plan. Thanks for the info!
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