Federal Insider: Did FDA remove scientist's name from article and invention in retaliation?

Retaliation against workers in federal agencies takes a variety of forms – dismissal and demotion among the most feared.

For Dougbeh Chris Nyan, it was denial.

He has accused the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of denying his professional contributions to a scientific research paper and the development of a medical test. Nyan, an infectious disease physician, is not in this fight alone. He has a key ally in Congress, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. Nyan was not an FDA employee, but was an Oakridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) research fellow in FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.

Smith is probing Nyan’s case and demanding information from the FDA. In a March 17 letter to FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf, the chairman instructed the agency to preserve a broad range of documents dating back four years “to better understand the extent to which retaliation has occurred in relation to the Fellow.” The letter indicated that officials within FDA’s Division of Emerging and Transfusion Transmitted Diseases (DETTD) denied Nyan his accomplishments, while crediting them to others.

In his letter, Smith says information obtained by his committee indicates FDA officials “retaliated by removing the Fellow’s name from a scientific research paper to which the Fellow contributed substantially, removing the Fellow’s name as the first inventor on a patent for a medical test developed by the Fellow, and ultimately removing the Fellow from his position at the agency.”

FDA did not answer Federal Insider questions about Nyan. “We are reviewing the issues raised in the letter and are in the process of gathering information in order to respond,” the agency said in a statement. “Once we have gathered the information requested, we intend to respond directly to the Chairman.”

Chairman Smith said the retaliation against Nyan followed the doctor’s testimony to a congressional hearing. “[T]wo scientists in management positions in the DETTD were apparently concerned about potentially damaging effects to the FDA due to the Fellow’s congressional testimony,” Smith wrote.

Nyan, in an interview, said he was never told what about his testimony got him in trouble with FDA officials. He testified before a House Foreign Affairs Africa subcommittee hearing on the Ebola crisis in September 2014. When subcommittee Chairman Christopher H. Smith, (R-N.J.) introduced Nyan at the hearing, Smith made it clear the doctor was not speaking for FDA. Nyan, Smith said according to the meeting transcript, “is testifying here in his capacity as the head of the Diaspora Liberian Emergency Response Task Force on the Ebola Crisis, a conglomeration of Liberian professionals in Diaspora organizations, in the fight against the Ebola outbreak in Liberia and in the region.” Nyan is a U.S. citizen of Liberian birth.