When It Comes to Nothing

When It Comes to Nothing

As it faced newly mandated blood testing expenses of more than $1 million a year, the Blood Bank of Alaska announced in 2008 that it would construct a modern Anchorage facility to consolidate its operations and allow space for in-house blood testing.  The building cost, which would eventually run to $45 million, would be paid, management planned, with government grants, private contributions, and the sale of its existing building.

In 2012 – when the building was still four years from completion – Robert Scanlon was hired as BBA’s CEO, and Linda Soriano began working as a consulting grant writer for the company.  BBA’s employment level then began a steady decline, dropping from 120 to 80 in 2016.  Hit by Alaska’s oil-impacted economy, fundraising was not going well, so in 2015 BBA arranged for an $8.5 million loan to cover the final construction costs.  The loan threatened the strapped nonprofit with $450,000 in annual interest costs until it could be paid down; still, it was necessary at that point.

Blood banks occasionally arrange to sell units of blood to other operations rather than let them expire, but BBA went further.  Serving hospitals across the state as the only blood bank in Alaska, in 2015 the company contracted to sell to southern California-based LifeStream one-sixth of its weekly blood collections.  Now an employee, Soriano was skeptical of the arrangement, especially given the low blood stocks that she observed in BBA’s inventories and the company’s urgent calls to blood donors.

Also questionable for Soriano, in light of BBA’s difficult financial situation, was the misleadingly optimistic budget she was given to provide to potential granting foundations.  She informed the CEO that false reports would be fraudulent, and she refused to participate in such deception.  The information seemed to her to confirm the company’s reluctance to be transparent in its communications.

Soriano took her concerns to a BBA board member, staff at a foundation, the Alaskan Director of Public Health, and, finally, the Alaska Journal of Commerce, which published an article in July 2016.  Rather than addressing the problems, management retrenched and attacked those who were critical, she thought.  The following month she sent her complaint to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which oversees blood banks.

Soriano’s story presents many familiar aspects of the whistleblower’s experience.  Like HomeFirst, BBA was a company under pressure that cut some corners; like me at HomeFirst, Soriano was an individual unhappy with her workplace who identified possible problems; she took her concerns to senior management, to authorities, and then to the media.  She was unusual in that she collaborated with other employees to compile her complaint.  Also unusual, she resigned shortly after sending her letter to the FDA and before she was identified by management as a whistleblower.

HomeFirst’s board quickly dismissed my complaints, and a special investigating committee of the BBA board concluded that Soriano’s allegations were without merit.  When the FDA conducted its annual audit of BBA operations in March 2017, it found no irregularities and no support for Soriano’s claims.  Authorities reported that HomeFirst broke no rules after allowing the company time to fix its licensure and food handler card problems; my other complaints were dismissed or ignored.

The whistleblower begins his project by identifying suspected a misdeed.  The value of his stepping forward is cast in doubt when his accusations are not found convincing – whether because of biased investigators or insufficient evidence of a violation.  Why he put himself through the painful ordeal and whom he really hoped to benefit then become unclear.  It is little wonder that friends and family abandon him if they suspect that his charges are probably groundless, just as his accused suggests.

Although Soriano’s complaint described dubious business practices, it did not clearly call out current criminal acts.  As a result, Alaska’s limited whistleblower protections might well have left her vulnerable to attack if she had remained an employee.  Her subsequent public notoriety exposed her to the danger, common even to whistleblowers protected by law, that she would be unable to find a new job in the small Anchorage market.

Soriano’s gamble that her act – her disclosure – would amount to nothing is one that we all take all the time.  But whistleblowing makes that risk obvious to an array of people who are not our friends.

Whistleblowers can usually point to the scars from retaliation as proof of our fearlessness.  Whatever legal wins we achieve seldom compensate us fully for our losses.  Soriano gave up that slim chance of vindication and bet all on being right in her claims.  Then, it seems, she lost that wager, and the world moved on.

The whistleblower’s challenge remains how to stand up despite our justifiable fear – even our expectation – that nothing will come from our complaint and we will suffer as a consequence.  The narrative that belongs to us is not that of the hero who triumphs over evil but of Camus’ dogged Sisyphus.