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Whistleblowers help the government recoup funds and prevent additional wrongdoing. The HHS Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG) developed several video resources to help someone report wrongdoing related to a grant or contract, or even retaliation as a result of making such a report or filing a complaint:
- HHS-OIG Whistleblower Training Video for NIH Grants and Contracts Recipients
- 5 Things to Know About Whistleblowers
If you have information about waste, fraud, abuse, misconduct, or whistleblower reprisal, please report it to the HHS-OIG Hotline.
To report NIH-related research misconduct, harassment, and peer review integrity violations, please see our Report a Concern page.
DO NOT BE BAMBOOZLED BY THE NIH INTO BLOWING THE WHISTLE. You will suffer the consequences. If you have insider information it will likely be against your institution or people who work there. Institutions do not look favorably on whistleblowers of NIH grant fraud or abuse because they face the burden of an investigation and can possibly lose NIH grant funds. Institutional leaders do not appreciate looking bad in the eyes of the NIH and do not like losing NIH funds. They WILL retaliate, perhaps not overtly, but will definitely make your life at the institution miserable. The NIH will not lift a finger to protect you from institutional retaliation. Sadly, if you complain about retaliation to the HHS OIG they will either not investigate, do a perfunctory investigation and dismiss, or believe the lies the institution feeds them and say they didn’t retaliate. And then, you will face even more retaliation from the institution for filing a retaliation complaint. Trust me, you will regret ever blowing the whistle.