This just in from Peter Rost (personal communication):
We are a group of 7 honest AstraZeneca employees scattered around headquarters and field sales.
Our goal is for AstraZeneca to once again become an ethical pharmaceutical company.
We have been reporting unethical behavior to the Code of Conduct hotline 888 244-1769) for years. However, the company continues to violate policies developed under the HHS OIG Corporate Integrity Agreement. We are afraid that AZ is not properly notifying OIG of these reports, and have begun to copy OIG (800-447-8477)on everything we submit.
For the most part, the policy violations that we see come from management, and resistance from underlings is met with swift retaliation. Anonymity is essential.
Our main concern with the Mid-Atlantic Oncology Newsletter was actually
its directive to misbrand anastrozole by “selling against letrozole” without approved material, head to head studies or data in our prescribing information. The RSD’s statements were crude, but not illegal.
We would like to encourage all workers to stand up and report unethical behavior by managers to the Code of Conduct hotline. One of the first directives in our compliance policy is that you have a “duty to report” illegal activity.
File this under further fallout from the “Zubillaga Affair.” I’m looking forward to the AZ Group of Seven Blog!
zubillaga
