“It seems like a work of fiction: a David-and-Goliath story about a whistleblower fighting a Big Pharma company over a prescription drug. But the story, presented by Kathleen Sharp in Blood Feud: The Man Who Blew the Whistle on One of the Deadliest Prescription Drugs Ever, is true,” writes Sarah Hann for the Saturday Evening Post.

Mark Duxbury was a drug salesman for Johnson & Johnson company Ortho, tasked with selling the performance-enhancing drug Procrit as an alternative to blood transfusions. Duxbury’s belief in the drug, combined with his natural charm, allowed him to become one of the best Procrit salesmen in the country.

And that’s when things started to fall apart.

To read the full review, click here.

I enjoyed my interview on the Leonard Lopate Show on WNYC Radio when I was in New York on December 9th.  We discussed my book, Blood Feud, and Mark Duxbury, the drug sales rep who risked it all to blow the whistle on one of the deadliest prescription drugs ever.

Click to listen below.

First, 60 Minutes produced a segment on why the DOJ hasn’t indicted any executives in the financial meltdown of 2008. Assistant U.S. Attorney General Lanny Breuer, a former Covington & Burling partner, had little to say.

This is the same Breuer who earlier he had written an inaccurate letter to Congress about the “Fast and Furious” operation. That’s the controversial DOJ-approved program that allowed truckloads of firearms to slip into the hands of Mexican drug cartels, which killed a federal agent.

Now, Sen. Chuck Grassley is calling for Breuer’s resignation, saying he exhibited a “complete lack of judgement” about that gun-tracking program.

Grassley has good reason to clean house. The DOJ is supposed to wield the law to retrieve stolen federal dollars. But neither Breuer nor his boss Eric Holder have been aggressively pursuing pharmaceutical whistleblowing cases. Maybe that’s because they intend to return to Covington & Burling to defend the same companies accused of health-care fraud….

Amy Bingham reports for ABC News a real David versus Goliath story.  A 63-year-old wheelchair-bound Medicaid patient took on the multi-billion-dollar healthcare giant Maxim Healthcare. And he won. The House Oversight Committee heard the saga of how Richard West exposed Maxim’s widespread Medicaid fraud and helped government officials reclaim millions for the cash-strapped program.  Here’s Amy’s story in full.

C-SPAN provides video of the House Oversight subcommittee taking testimony from Richard West. Click Here.

Michael Jackson’s doctor was criticized for practicing “horrible medicine” because he was more concerned with his high salary than with his patient, according to Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor.

But hasn’t that been the modus operandi for many doctors for years?

Dr. Conrad Murray had been treating his client, the late Jackson, for insomnia. The jury found that the doctor gave the singer a fatal dose of Propofol, which is used in hospital settings and has never been approved as a sleep aide. The singer died in June 2009.

Such off-label dosing is rampant among cardiologists and other American doctors. So are obscene drug payments that lift high salaries. Indeed, many doctors are feted at pharmaceutical-sponsored banquets while simultaneously being quoted as experts in national publications.

Take oncologist and New Yorker contributor, Dr. Jerome Groopman. For years he was paid handsomely by a division of Johnson & Johnson for touting a risky anti-anemia drug, Procrit. He wasn’t alone either, as I detail in Blood Feud. American doctors have been on the take for years, prescribing dangerous medicine and off-label uses.

Yet we don’t condemn them for “failure of character” in serving their patients. Is this a double standard or willful ignorance?

In the November 20th issue of the New York Time’s business section, I write about women and their increasingly prominent role in union politics. Some people found the word “boss” in the title “Redefining the Union Boss” offensive for some reason, but so what?

I profile three female leaders: Sandy Pope, the first woman to run for the presidency of the Teamsters, against the powerful, three-term incumbent, James P. Hoffa; Rose Ann DeMoro, of National Nurses United; and Mary Kay Henry, of the Service Employees International Union.

The ascendance of these women has rekindled hope that organized labor could stage a comeback. These agitators have also helped inspire the likes of Occupy Wall Street. “Some of these women might even make unions relevant to the average American again,” said Steve Early, a labor journalist and union organizer. Read the full article.

I enjoyed my interview with Dori Smith of Talk Nation Radio, a great show. We discussed companies like Amgen, Johnson & Johnson and their dangerous and illegal marketing tactics that included patient trials using high dose, off-shelf protocols for the anemia drug Epo, also known as Procrit and Aranesp.

The interview covers the efforts of corporate whistle blower Mark Duxbury to try to stop Johnson & Johnson’s illegal marketing of Procrit. I also discuss revelations about patient deaths, physician pay offs, Medicare and Medicaid fraud investigations, FDA concerns, and an illegal dose of Procrit given to a man who subsequently died.

You’ll learn how sales teams from J&J’s division, Ortho Biotech, visited doctors offices, reviewed confidential patient files, and enrolled patients in mini-trials and marketing studies without their knowledge or informed consent.

For the drug companies, the goal was profits, and finding more off label uses for drugs like Procrit would provide vast amounts of income. The doctors involved were getting $550 for every patient enrolled up to five. It is a frightening, behind-the-scenes look at our dysfunctional healthcare system.

Click Here Now to Listen to Kathleen Sharp on Talk Nation Radio

Having written about Mark Duxbury and his whistleblowing lawsuit brought against Johnson & Johnson over the illegal marketing practices of the prescription drug Procit (not to mention the lawsuit against Amgen and its shady marketing practices with Aranesp), I hear from legions of readers. They say they have a whistle to blow, too, and ask: Will I write about them, too?

I wonder if they’re ready to become a real whistleblower. Consider the physical challenge. Most federal and state False Claims Acts require that you bring forward claims that are new and haven’t been disclosed yet, either in court or in the media. Second, it’s not enough to suspect that something is wrong: you have to prove it. That’s why the characters in Blood Feud are so rare: They had e-mails, financial records, documents and other records to bolster their case.

If you bring a case to the government and if you can can show that a company has been billing the government for fictitious services or products, then proceed. After a few years, the government may join your case and, if your case is successful, it may even recover stolen funds. The payoff is that you do right — and earn about 10 percent to 20 percent of those recoveries.

But the tough part is calculating the psychological and emotional toll of such a case. Are you willing to lose your job and friends? Do you have the stamina to fight for ten years? Are you the sort of person who can’t sleep at night knowing that someone out there is robbing taxpayers of public funds?

If you can answer yes to all of the above, congratulations! You’re a WB.

In  Blood Feud, I put readers in the shoes of Mark Duxbury, a top sales rep for Johnson & Johnson who filed a whistleblower lawsuit exposing the illegal marketing of the drug Procrit. This true story, which is still winding its way through Federal Court, provides readers with a view of the personal and professional toll whistleblowing suits can take on the brave individuals who dare to take a stand against corporate America.

Another book, The Corporate Whistleblower’s Survival Guide, offers a practical guide to this growing sector. Published in association with the Government Accountability Project, it is written by Tom Devine and Tarek Maassarani, two men who’ve long championed workers’ free speech rights.

When a former commissioner of the FDA, Dr. David Kessler, recommends a work, I take notice.

“…As commissioner, I relied on whistleblowers like Jeffrey Wigand to learn the inside story about the deceptive practices of the tobacco industry. Later I became a whistleblower … The Corporate Whistleblower’s Survival Guide draws on GAP’s vast experience to capture what happens when someone blows the whistle, and it distills it in plain English. I highly recommend it.”– Dr. David Kessler, former Commissioner, Food and Drug Administration

Who are these people who sacrifice so much to alert us to problems in our food and drug products? There’s no single profile of a whistleblower, but we should all be grateful that their numbers are growing.

One of the most compelling quotes regarding the Penn State University sex scandal was reported by Diane Stafford of the Kansas City Star.

“It’s amazing what people will tolerate or deny in order to not put themselves on the line,” said Leigh Branham, a Kansas City human resources consultant. “That’s the object lesson from the Penn State situation — to see the horrific results when people don’t intervene.”

For years, I’ve devoted my journalistic career to detailing the bravery it takes to become a whistleblower. No matter the well-meaning policies adopted to protect them, whistleblowers often suffer retaliation either in the form of harassment, job loss, strain on their relationships with colleagues, friends and family.

As a result studies have shown whistleblowers are at a greater risk of depression, divorce, foreclosure, bankruptcy and suicide.  Doing the right thing can come at a high price.

But we must never lose sight of the price paid by the victims.  Can what they suffer be quantified? When does our silence cross the line to complicity?