The US Food and Drug Administration conducted thorough surveillance on its own scientists in an effort to stop leaks of sensitive information pertaining to approved medical devices that the staffers feared were capable of damaging public health. While the FDA was previously known to capture screenshots of emails sent by its staff, newly public documents show that the probe was much wider, with more than 80,000 pages of information collected from the computers of scientists working within the agency. The documents also listed names—including 21 FDA staff members, members of Congress, journalists, and external researchers—of people the FDA claimed were colluding to spread negative information about the agency.
The dispute between the FDA and its own scientists started in 2008 when members of a review committee complained to members of Congress that the agency approved some cancer screening devices against the advice of the committee, which had warned that the ...
