It Must be a Slow Summer for Whistleblowers if the Best You Can Do is Cite CafePharma Discussions!

It must be a slow summer for whistleblowers when the best source of insider information you can muster are posts on CafePharma!

Peter Rost -- chief pharma whistleblower and blogger other bloggers love to link to and be linked from -- includes a couple of "insights" picked up from Cafepharma and easily overblows the significance of same.

His latest posts attempt to put Novartis in the hot seat (e.g., "Novartis - HR from Hell?" and "Novartis - The next whistleblower story?").

Rost merely offers links to Cafepharma discussion threads, including "Another Lawsuit Employment Retaliation Complain (sic)", which starts off promising enough:

"David Olagunju v. Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation

"Employment retaliation complaint stating plaintiff was terminated for refusing to alter safety data from the clinical trials for the drug Tasigna and for objecting to exaggerated reports on the drug. Paid download"

Several Cafepharma posters asked "Where can I get more info re: this case? Thanks!" and "How or what URL do I need to review this case.....does the FDA have wind of this????" All went unanswered as of this writing.

You can do a Google search and you won't find anything about such a case -- at least I didn't.

I did find out that Olagunju is a real person of some stature at Novartis:

David Olagunju Global Director, Statistical Reporting and Standards Novartis Pharmaceuticals Telephone: 862.778.3802

[Let the phone calls begin!]

He has also been a presenter at several pharmaceutical conferences.

But, is this a real whistleblower case or just a short-seller seeding seditious sallies against a drug up for review at the FDA?

Anyone serious about following up such issues to make a case for whistleblowing could easily determine if this case were real by examining SEC statements and other public corporate documents from Novartis, which must mention any legal actions that would affect the market for its stock. Of course, I am too lazy to do that, but I have an excuse. I am not a whistleblower blogger and I don't give a rat's ass amount of credibility to anonymous Cafepharma posts!

I guess I'm back on Peter's sh*t list!

P.S. I'm not ;-) See Peter's response and further inquiries: "The Novartis whistleblower story - is it for real?"