Government Accountability Project
Encyclopedia
The Government Accountability Project (GAP) is a leading United States whistleblower
Whistleblower
A whistleblower is a person who tells the public or someone in authority about alleged dishonest or illegal activities occurring in a government department, a public or private organization, or a company...

 protection organization. Through litigating of whistleblower cases, publicizing concerns and developing legal reforms, GAP’s mission is to protect the public interest by promoting government and corporate accountability. Founded in 1977, GAP is a non-profit, non-partisan advocacy organization in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

.

Mission statement

GAP is a nonprofit public interest group that promotes government and corporate accountability by advancing occupational free speech, defending whistleblowers, and empowering citizen activists. They pursue this mission through their Nuclear Oversight, International Reform, Corporate Accountability, Food & Drug Safety, Environmental Oversight, and Federal Employee/National Security programs. GAP is the nation's leading whistleblower protection organization.

Gary Aguirre

Gary Aguirre
Gary J. Aguirre
Gary J. Aguirre is an American lawyer, former investigator with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and whistleblower. After working in a law firm briefly, he became a public defender, then worked as a trial lawyer in California. Having reached his professional and financial...

 is a former Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer who investigated a politically sensitive insider trading case involving Pequot Capital Management
Pequot Capital Management
Pequot Capital Management was a multi-billion dollar hedge fund sponsor founded in 1998 by Arthur J. Samberg that was forcibly terminated by order of the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2010. The firm's investment funds invested in a range of markets through a variety of strategies...

. At first, his supervisors had supported his inquiry. But when he sought to subpoena the CEO of Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley is a global financial services firm headquartered in New York City serving a diversified group of corporations, governments, financial institutions, and individuals. Morgan Stanley also operates in 36 countries around the world, with over 600 offices and a workforce of over 60,000....

, John Mack
John J. Mack
John J. Mack is the current Chairman of the Board at Morgan Stanley, the New York-based investment bank and brokerage firm. Mack announced his retirement as Chief Executive Officer on September 10, 2009, which was effective January 1, 2010. Former Co-President James P...

, who had briefly served as chairman of Pequot, Aguirre’s supervisors refused to allow him to issue the subpoena, claiming that it would be difficult because of Mack’s powerful “political connections.” Aguirre was then fired, only eleven days after he had received a two-step pay raise and his supervisor had praised his work on the Pequot investigation.

Aubrey Blumsohn

Dr. Blumsohn was a senior medical faculty member specializing in bone health at Sheffield University in England. In 2002, he agreed to conduct research for Procter & Gamble
Procter & Gamble
Procter & Gamble is a Fortune 500 American multinational corporation headquartered in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio and manufactures a wide range of consumer goods....

 (P&G) to determine how the osteoporosis drug Actonel prevents bone fractures. He collected data but was prevented from analyzing his findings by P&G. In 2004, P&G allowed Blumsohn to review what the company purported to be the actual data set. In reviewing the data, Blumsohn realized that numerous graphs (illustrating Actonel’s effectiveness in preventing bone fractures) omitted 40 percent of a data set, apparently manipulating results to suit P&G’s marketing objectives. P&G officials told Blumsohn that if these additional data were included in the results, the study would have favored a competitor’s drug – Merck’s Fosamax. He was then suspended by the university for speaking out about the issue to BBC. In 2006, he succeeded in pressuring P&G to release the full data set which, as he anticipated, failed to support P&G’s claim that Actonel is as effective as industry leaders in treating osteoporosis. See also Slate report, AAAS reference, and Blog for further description of this incident.

David Graham

Dr. David Graham
David Graham (whistleblower)
David J. Graham, M.D., M.P.H., is an American epidemiologist who is currently the Associate Director of the Food and Drug Administration's Office of Drug Safety....

, an FDA
Food and Drug Administration
The Food and Drug Administration is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, one of the United States federal executive departments...

 scientist, discovered that the pain-reliever Vioxx increased risk of cardiovascular problems. Despite threats from the FDA, Graham testified to the dangers of the drug and succeeded in convincing the FDA to require large warning labels on Vioxx packaging.

Victoria Hampshire

Dr. Hampshire was an FDA scientist who uncovered the dangers of an FDA-approved heartworm medication that had killed hundreds of dogs. The drug’s producer, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, tried to counter Dr. Hampshire’s claim by attacking her character. The then-acting FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford
Lester Crawford
Lester Mills Crawford is an American veterinarian and former Commissioner of Food and Drugs.Crawford resigned as head of the Food and Drug Administration in September 2005 after a stormy two-month stint...

 granted Wyeth a private meeting in which the company presented him with “information” about Dr. Hampshire. Following this meeting, officials at the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine
Center for Veterinary Medicine
The Center for Veterinary Medicine is a branch of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that regulates the manufacture and distribution of food, food additives, and drugs that will be given to animals. These include animals from which human foods are derived, as well as food additives and drugs...

 removed Dr. Hampshire from the study of Wyeth’s product without explanation. She was then subjected to an FDA criminal investigation. Dr. Hampshire sought help from GAP, and the Veterinary Medicine Advisory Committee then voted to take the heartworm drug off the market. She was completely exonerated in the FDA’s internal investigation, and received an award for her work. Senator Charles Grassley soon launched an investigation into the actions of both Wyeth and the FDA.

James Hansen

James E. Hansen is the top climate scientist at NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

, who in late 2005 released data showing that 2005 was the warmest year in a century and gave a lecture calling on U.S. leadership to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...

. He then received messages from NASA officials threatening “dire consequences” if such statements continued. Restrictions were placed on his ability to speak publicly about climate change research, including a requirement that public affairs staff review his lectures, papers, and web postings before releasing them. News media were repeatedly denied interviews with Hansen by his supervisors, and drafts of his reports are severely edited before publication.

Rick Piltz

Rick Piltz worked for years as an associate with the U.S. Climate Change Science Program. In June 2005 news reports, documents that Piltz obtained showed that a White House official with no scientific training was editing climate change science program reports in an attempt to confuse and obscure the perceived human impact on global warming. That official, previously a lead lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute
American Petroleum Institute
The American Petroleum Institute, commonly referred to as API, is the largest U.S trade association for the oil and natural gas industry...

, was hired by ExxonMobil
ExxonMobil
Exxon Mobil Corporation or ExxonMobil, is an American multinational oil and gas corporation. It is a direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil company, and was formed on November 30, 1999, by the merger of Exxon and Mobil. Its headquarters are in Irving, Texas...

 mere days after leaving the White House (on the heels of the story). Piltz is currently the director of Climate Science Watch, a GAP program that holds public officials accountable for how they use climate science.

Andrew Thomson

In late 2004, Andrew Thomson
Andrew Thomson (UN Doctor and Author)
Andrew Thomson is a New Zealand born UN doctor and co-author of the international best seller "Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures"Graduating top of his year from Auckland School of Medicine in 1983, Thomson has dedicated his life to humanitarian aid. He has worked as a medical officer in...

 was fired from the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

 for publishing a book that was highly critical of the international body for mismanagement of its peacekeeping operations. In March 2005, his termination was reversed and he was promoted after Secretary General Kofi Annan
Kofi Annan
Kofi Atta Annan is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the UN from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006...

, in an unprecedented decision, permitted public whistleblowing by U.N. employees. In January of the following year, the United Nations issued a new standard of whistleblower protection in an anti-retaliation policy, on which GAP was consulted.

GAP and Paul Wolfowitz

In early 2007, GAP was responsible for exposing fraud and abuse at the highest levels of the World Bank
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...

. In May 2007, World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz
Paul Wolfowitz
Paul Dundes Wolfowitz is a former United States Ambassador to Indonesia, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, President of the World Bank, and former dean of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University...

 left the international organization in the wake of wide-ranging scandals based on multiple releases of documents over the previous two months by GAP.

GAP released evidence or exposed information showing that: Wolfowitz’s companion, Shaha Riza
Shaha Riza
Shaha Riza, , is a World Bank employee currently on external assignment at the Foundation for the Future, a "semi-independent foundation to promote democracy" in the Middle East and North Africa...

, received salary raises far in excess of those allowable under Bank rules; Riza received a questionable consulting position with a U.S. defense contractor in 2003 at Wolfowitz' direction that has resulted in State and Defense Department inquiries; Juan José Daboub
Juan José Daboub
Juan Jose Daboub, Ph.D. is the Founding Chief Executive Officer of the Global Adaptation Institute and former Managing Director of the World Bank . He has taught at Princeton University and is a member of several Boards of Directors....

, Bank Managing Director and Wolfowitz-hire, attempted to remove references and funding for “family planning
Family planning
Family planning is the planning of when to have children, and the use of birth control and other techniques to implement such plans. Other techniques commonly used include sexuality education, prevention and management of sexually transmitted infections, pre-conception counseling and...

” in Bank projects; Wolfowitz’ office was responsible for weakening a “climate change” strategy document; Bank Senior Management delayed reporting to Bank staff that a fellow staffer had been seriously wounded in a shooting in Iraq; World Bank lending to Africa during Fiscal Year of 2007 has plummeted; and Wolfowitz was trying to broaden the Bank’s portfolio in Iraq over Board opposition.

External links

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