Whistleblower protection granted to government doctors

By Scott Files

Published on May 03, 2006

Overturning an earlier ruling, the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board argued that the so called "Title 42" workers should retain the same protections guaranteed to other types of employees.

The decision supersedes an earlier 2004 ruling by an administrative law judge that excluded government doctors from these types of protections.

In a related case, Dr. Jonathan Fishbein alleges he was fired for blowing the whistle on government safety procedures in AIDS research. He cited comments he made about hostile work environments and shoddy and unsafe research among vulnerable AIDS patients led to his termination.

Fishbein's lawyer on Monday said the new decision closed a "dangerous loophole" that could have kept researchers with knowledge of wrongdoing from coming forward.

Fishbein was hired in 2003 under Section 42 by NIH, the nation's premier medical research agency, to help improve AIDS research practices at a salary of $178,000, or slightly more than Cabinet secretaries made at the time.

The whistleblower protection law was passed more than 10 years ago to help protect federal workers who raise allegations of federal wrongdoing.

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