Can Whistleblowing Be a Career?

All right, I'm not exactly a big fan of big-time corporations, especially when they violate laws for the sake of profits. So it was good news to me that Walgreens had to pay $35M to 42 states to settle claims that it illegally switched brand name drugs for their generic counterparts. However, I'm not naive and realize that the $35M is a pittance compared to the pocketed difference; a suspension of Medicaid eligibility would probably be more of a deterrent.

Here are the lawsuit and settlement.

Under the Federal False Claims Act, a private individual can file qui tam claims alleging fraud against the government by federal contractors; for their trouble, a whistleblower generally receive between 15 and 30 percent of the amount recovered by the government. Here's where it gets interesting, according to Pharmalot, the whistleblower in this case, Bernard Lisitza, was also involved in a $50M settlement with Omnicare (a pharmacy for nursing homes) and a $37M settlement with CVS/Caremark. The story goes that he was first fired from Omnicare after voicing concerns over the drug-swapping scheme, and subsequently could only find work as a temp pharmacist for CVS and Walgreens. So three multi-million whistleblower lawsuits within 2 years, not bad.