In recent posts, I’ve discussed how silent problems can become whistleblower lawsuits. The few we hear about are generally high profile, with names like ADM, Toyota and Pfizer attached to them, which I discuss here, here and here. A few of the points I raise include:
- I’m convinced that whistleblower protections and rights will continue to gain in stature and strength under this administration.
- I believe the whistleblower will become a primary tool for law enforcement in the future. In effect, the whistleblower becomes the low cost alternative to the investigative task force.
- The whistleblowers role of exposing silent problems in organizations will grow in importance in the future.
Well, another high profile whistleblower suit surfaced today, this time aimed at Johnson & Johnson, a large pharmaceutical company. The Huffington Post reports, Federal prosecutors said Friday that health care giant Johnson & Johnson paid tens of millions of dollars in kickbacks so nursing homes would put more patients on its blockbuster schizophrenia medicine and other drugs.
In a complaint filed Friday, prosecutors said J&J paid rebates and other forms of kickbacks to Omnicare Inc., the country’s biggest dispenser of prescription drugs in nursing homes. Prosecutors allege Omnicare pharmacists then recommended that nursing home patients with signs of Alzheimer’s disease be put on the powerful schizophrenia drug Risperdal, which was later found to increase risk of death in the elderly.
The allegations are in a complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney in Boston, whose office has joined two whistle-blower cases. One was filed in 2003 by a former Omnicare pharmacist in Chicago, Bernard Lisitza, who alleges he was fired after he challenged the Risperdal kickbacks and other improper practices at the company. The other was filed by former Omnicare financial analyst David Kammerer in 2005, after he resigned from the company.
The source of most whistleblower lawsuits eminate from silent problems, which are problems that have been avoided, neglected, gone unnoticed or are being intentionally silenced. Unless these problems are caught and dealt with early, silent problems eventually become toxic and can become game changers. The potential impact on the organization - huge. Even large corporations like Johnson & Johnson are not immune from its wrath.
Bottom Line: As the economy rebounds, many companies will simply be unable to participate in the recovery due to the silent problems inside their organization.
