Shiv Chopra - Whistleblowing Incident

Whistleblowing Incident

In 1998 and 1999, Chopra, along with two co-workers: Drs. Margaret Haydon and Gerard Lambert, testified to the Canadian Senate Standing Committee on Agriculture and Forestry that they were pressured by senior supervisors to approve multiple drugs of questionable safety, including Bovine Growth Hormone (rBST) and Baytril, which in the words of Chopra, "is even more controversial. It's a critical antibiotic, one that produces cross-resistance against a critical antibiotic necessary for human use called ciprofloxacin. It's from the same class of drugs. When it is used in poultry, beef, turkeys, pigs, or whatever, then it causes cross-resistance in the intestines of those animals. Then those bacteria, like salmonella, campylobacter, or E. coli, get transferred to people and cause disease and death of immense order." Prior to the mad cow disease crisis in Canada, Chopra warned the government that the current handling of feed to cows was inadequate. Following this, Chopra, Haydon, Lambert and colleague Chris Bassude complained to the Public Service Integrity Officer (PSIO) office, a federal investigative body under the jurisdiction of the Treasury Board of Canada, indicating again that they were pressured by their seniors to pass a number of veterinary drugs, including Tylosin, Revalor H, Synergistin Injectable Suspension, Baytril, rBST, Carbodex and Eugenol, without proof of human safety. The PSIO case was initially dismissed in 2003, but the ruling was appealed to the Federal Court of Canada.

In June 2004, Chopra, Haydon and Lambert were fired from Health Canada. Health Canada denied that the trio was fired for speaking publicly about the pressure employed by their supervisors to approve the usage of a number of animal drugs, but did not reveal the exact reason, mentioning that the reasons were confidential and included in the letters of termination the three scientists received. Chopra's letter revealed that the stated reason for his dismissal was his "total lack of progress" in a current project.

Three weeks later, Chopra received a congratulatory letter and a gold watch from Deputy Health Minister Ian Green, declaring that his "years of service have not gone unnoticed" and that he had "earned praise and respect."

On April 29, 2005, the Federal Court of Canada quashed the previous finding of the PSIO, and found that the PSIO had inadequately handled Chopra, Haydon and Lambert's complaints. The Federal Court's decision called into question the credibility of the PSIO, citing a failure in the organization in protecting whistleblowers acting in good faith. As of 2009 it appears that the PSIO or its successors has still not issued a new ruling on the case, although Chopra's case is mentioned in a history of managing in ethics in public service issued by the human resources office of Canada's Treasury Secretariat (which oversees the PSIO).