The notorious whistleblowers in AstraZeneca's "Group of Seven" have announced that they are going into hibernation after blowing the whistle on a variety of scandals in AstraZeneca's oncology sales division.
"We see that the company is making an effort to clean up their act and want to give them a chance to do so. To their credit, there has been no 'witch hunt' to discover our identities or retaliate against us. It's time for Congress, the Senate and the OIG to investigate what we've reported."
When asked if they would ever resurface in the media again, they replied:"If AstraZeneca responds appropriately to its internal Code of Conduct Hotline, you'll never hear from us again. It won't be necessary for us to go to the government, Fortune Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Congressional Quarterly or, most importantly, Dr. Peter Rost. Peter will be the first one to hear from us. He has our utmost respect and trust."
And with that the world's blog readers cried; not only because it seemed so noble what the "Group of 7" had done, but also because they gave AstraZeneca credit in their last public statement; and most of all, because we already miss them.
As for me, I'm crying because now they're gone forever and I will never find out who they really were. Question Authority will not be the same without them.
But they will live on in our past posts and memories as the group that changed both the blogging world and the corporate world forever, that long, sunny spring in the year 2007, which was so filled by internal newsletters, audio tapes, slide presentations and other gloriously revealing documents.
3 comments:
Say it aint so!
Was it really a group or one clever whistleblower? If it was a group of 7 obviously very good frieneds, the question is; are they going to stay tightlipped forever?
I really respect their approach. They followed all internal protocol. When that failed they pursued more aggressive paths, and were prepared to play as much hardball as AZ might throw at them. Through their diligence-- and AZ's surprising compliance this time with both the law and company policy-- they were apparently able to accomplish the internal changes and compliance that was needed (subject to what OIG and Congress find-- hopefully THEY'LL be diligent too)-- and hopefully have helped take the company at least a few inches closer to respecting patient safety as an issue that matters. And, after accomplishing this-- which was something that was never about them, but about patient safety and the law-- they were willing to just walk away quietly (having also, fortunately, not lost their jobs) back to their jobs and regular salaries.
I have serious doubts that they've really changed the industry; but I am heartened that it appears that perhaps they have helped to change their little corner of Astra Zeneca-- and to the patients affected, that's just as big as having changed the industry.
Thank you Magnificent 7 and Dr. Rost for making cancer patients a little safer! And thank you Astra Zeneca for (for whatever reason) complying with the law and your own policy, not carrying out a witch hunt and retaliation, apparently working to actually correct the improper conduct, and setting an example that your fellow industry mates should have employed years ago!
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