Scientists suing the FDA after covert surveillance

Is Big Brother lurking at the US Food and Drug Administration? Six scientists and doctors are now suing the FDA for intercepting their private emails and installing spyware on their computers, after they blew the whistle on problems with the approval of medical devices.

In 2008, four of the six plaintiffs told the US Congress that they had been pressured by FDA managers to alter their conclusions that computer-aided detection devices, used to interpret mammograms and other radiological scans, were not effective.

The covert surveillance, detailed in documents obtained using the Freedom of Information Act, began in January 2009, after the four scientists and doctors repeated their concerns in a letter to the incoming administration of Barack Obama. Two other experts, who subsequently joined the whistleblower group, were placed under similar surveillance.

Republican senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who warned the FDA in 2009 that the whistleblowers' communication with Congress was legally protected, says he intends to pursue the issue. "Retaliation of this kind is intolerable by any federal government agency," he says.

The FDA says it does not comment on ongoing litigation.

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