Join GAP's Food Integrity Campaign (FIC) in welcoming former client and whistleblower Renee Dufault for an informative presentation on how nutritional and environmental factors (such as mercury exposure) interact with genes to affect a person's metabolism, potentially leading to obesity and the development of type-2 diabetes.

Mercury Exposure & Your Changing Metabolism

Friday, December 21
12:30pm - 1:30pm

Location: GAP Office, 1612 K St. NW, Suite 1100, Washington D.C. 20006

Lunch will be provided. The event is free, but space is limited. Please RSVP to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

(Washington, DC) – The Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) decision to withhold agency data regarding the sale of antibiotics for use in food animals is unlawful, the Government Accountability Project (GAP) said in a lawsuit filed today.

Drug companies are required to report basic information about antibiotic sales to the FDA under the Animal Drug User Fee Act (ADUFA). Such information includes how much of each drug is sold; whether the drugs are formulated for use in feed, water, or by injection; and the animals for which each drug is approved. FDA publicly releases a limited summary of ADUFA data each year, but withholds almost all of what companies report.

The monthly recap below appeared in FIC's December e-Newsletter. If you would like to receive monthly updates and other urgent alerts via email, please sign up here.

Great news! A week after Thanksgiving, President Obama signed the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA) into law, providing federal government employees with the power to speak the truth.

Check out FIC’s piece in the Huffington Post on the significance of the new law to the more than 110,000 USDA and FDA employees who were previously unable to safely speak up if they saw something wrong along the food supply chain.

After a 13-year battle, several loopholes that prevented adequate defense against whistleblower retaliation have finally been overturned with this new legislation. Now, a public health veterinarian who reports to his/her USDA supervisor that a slaughterhouse repeatedly violated humane handling regulations has solid whistleblower protections. Another action protected under the law would include an FDA inspector who tries to expose falsification of Salmonella records at a cantaloupe farm.

'Tis the season for giving thanks, counting blessings and reflecting on the year past. While many Americans may not be aware, we can all now be grateful that on Nov. 27, President Obama signed the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA) into law, providing federal government employees with the power to speak the truth … which consequently gives all consumers the gift of safer eating.

How? Because now, more than 110,000 USDA and FDA employees enjoy solid whistleblower protections, and can feel more secure to speak up when they see something wrong with the food we eat.

Retaliation against truth-telling public servants is an all-too-common scenario, and has caused would-be whistleblowers to keep public health concerns to themselves for far too long. After 13 years of fighting for better protections (including previously losing this battle to an anonymous 'secret hold' by a Senator at the last minute in 2010), whistleblower advocates like my group, the Government Accountability Project (GAP) are ecstatic to see this positive step forward.

Millions of Federal Workers Affected

Today, the Government Accountability Project's (GAP) Food Integrity Campaign (FIC) is praising President Obama for signing into law the strongest federal whistleblower protections in history. The Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA) passed the House of Representatives in late September and the Senate earlier this month. This long overdue legislation overturns many loopholes and provides critically important upgrades to weak, current protections.

This law's enactment plays a significant role in food safety oversight, as it better protects those workers charged with enforcing food safety laws – including U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) veterinarians and inspectors, as well as Food and Drug Administration (FDA) employees. Over the past several years, FIC has heard from countless federal whistleblowers who desperately want to expose food industry wrongdoing or threats to public health, but chose to stay silent for fear that existing whistleblower protections will not effectively shield them from retaliation.

Good news surfaced last week when the Department of Labor announced a settlement resulting in compensation for foreign student workers who faced labor abuses at a Hershey candy company packing plant. Three companies, including Hershey contractor Exel Inc. (which oversaw the plant), agreed to pay $213,042 in back wages to more than 1,028 students in the J-1 visa Summer Work Study program. In addition to the back wages, the settlement also requires two of the companies to pay $148,000 in safety and health violation fines.

FIC blogged last summer about the students' brave disclosures, including meager wages and harsh working conditions, amidst the threat of deportation – a far cry from the fun cultural experience they were promised.

A week before many American families eat their turkey dinner for Thanksgiving, retired poultry inspector Phyllis McKelvey made a trip to the nation's capital to raise the alarm about a pending threat to chicken and turkey safety.

On Wednesday morning at the USDA Headquarters, Phyllis delivered more than 177,000 petition signatures and about 13,000 comments opposing USDA's proposed inspection rule that would threaten proper oversight of chicken and turkey processing. Not only would it hand government oversight duties to the poultry companies themselves, but the rule would also increase line speeds so that inspectors only have 1/3 of a second to look at each bird for problems.