- Jurisdiction
- Vermont
I don't seen any threads about fraud at labs. I am a chemist and last year I had a supervisor who told me to run an ion chromatographer in a way that would not work for nitrite analysis in drinking water. Low levels would not be visible because of interference from carbonate at the eluent setting she wanted. I told her boss, the program chief, who ignored the issue. I then ran some standards to prove my point and was going to show it to the chief the next day, but I came down with the worst flu I ever had and could not go to work for a week. If the chief had continued ignoring the issue my plan was to not report nitrite results and to put an attachment on the results saying the nitrite could not be reported due to instrument configuration.
When I got back I found my coworker had been following orders and reported the bad results. I asked another chemist and he suggested going over the program chief to the QA manager, but I didn't want yo do that yet. Instead the coworker who reported the bad results agreed to approach the chief and show her the results from the standards I ran. The chief then saw the problem and ordered me to put the instrument settings back ti where it could see the nitrites. I thought she would order amended reports be sent out to customers who got the bad results but that didn't happen. Instead I got called into a meeting with my supervisor and she threatened to have to fired for disobeying her. I stood my ground and said I couldn't obey orders to commit lab fraud. She scoffed and said ethics are arbitrary. After that meting I reported everything to the QA manager and she said there would be an ethics investigation.
I thought they would do the right thing and send out amended reports to the customers. It was a slow week and there were only 12 samples that needed resampling and retesting. After a month I got called into a meeting with the QA manager and Division Director who was acting Lab Director. The word I got was that they were going to 'move forward' and just pretend bad results never got sent out. I hit the roof and yelled that it was the equivalent of dry labbing. I asked if they had an independent chemist look at the situation. They said no, but they planned to hire one. They never did. My supervisor finally did get demoted and then quit. My coworker who reported the bad results was very upset because our training tells us that what happened was criminal lab fraud and she never should have reported those results. She said she was going to retire before the audit and she did. We get audited by the EPA every 2 years and I thought they would certainly see that there was an ethics investigation and start asking questions. But when they came last week they didn't say anything to me and made no mention of an ethics investigation.
Lots of lab fraud never gets discovered. I don't know how much. It's almost always a whistleblower who reveals it, not a routine audit. There are other people in the lab who know what happened. Someone could say something. I wonder what my next step should be. Could I be in any legal jeopardy if someone else reports lab fraud? The lab manual says the most serious investigations are done by HR. I could report it to the head of HR.
When I got back I found my coworker had been following orders and reported the bad results. I asked another chemist and he suggested going over the program chief to the QA manager, but I didn't want yo do that yet. Instead the coworker who reported the bad results agreed to approach the chief and show her the results from the standards I ran. The chief then saw the problem and ordered me to put the instrument settings back ti where it could see the nitrites. I thought she would order amended reports be sent out to customers who got the bad results but that didn't happen. Instead I got called into a meeting with my supervisor and she threatened to have to fired for disobeying her. I stood my ground and said I couldn't obey orders to commit lab fraud. She scoffed and said ethics are arbitrary. After that meting I reported everything to the QA manager and she said there would be an ethics investigation.
I thought they would do the right thing and send out amended reports to the customers. It was a slow week and there were only 12 samples that needed resampling and retesting. After a month I got called into a meeting with the QA manager and Division Director who was acting Lab Director. The word I got was that they were going to 'move forward' and just pretend bad results never got sent out. I hit the roof and yelled that it was the equivalent of dry labbing. I asked if they had an independent chemist look at the situation. They said no, but they planned to hire one. They never did. My supervisor finally did get demoted and then quit. My coworker who reported the bad results was very upset because our training tells us that what happened was criminal lab fraud and she never should have reported those results. She said she was going to retire before the audit and she did. We get audited by the EPA every 2 years and I thought they would certainly see that there was an ethics investigation and start asking questions. But when they came last week they didn't say anything to me and made no mention of an ethics investigation.
Lots of lab fraud never gets discovered. I don't know how much. It's almost always a whistleblower who reveals it, not a routine audit. There are other people in the lab who know what happened. Someone could say something. I wonder what my next step should be. Could I be in any legal jeopardy if someone else reports lab fraud? The lab manual says the most serious investigations are done by HR. I could report it to the head of HR.
