The FDA Spied On Its Own Scientists

retroworks writes "The New York Times has an interesting article about efforts by the Food and Drug Administration to locate a source of 'leaks' within the agency. The search became a slippery slope involving trojans, keyloggers, screenshot captures, and an investigation that eventually became an allegory for management overkill. The article describes how the investigation of one employee expanded to five, and how the investigation of five led to other staff (including the interception of correspondence to President Obama). The Agency struggled with the gray area between protecting trade secrets of drug companies (which had applied for FDA approval) and censoring researchers with legitimate questions about the Agency's approval process."

Comments

"protecting important secrets"

[harvey the nerd]

The FDA has to protect many important pharma secrets, like payoffs for the bosses and the new drugs that maim and kill. Really. Of course they want to keep an eye on the grunt scientists, one might get disgruntled and spill the beans, again.