In late November it was announced that the head of FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigations (OCI), Terry Vermillion, would be resigning in December after leading the unit for almost two decades. Vermillion, who spent twenty years in the Secret Service prior to joining FDA, has faced criticism in the last several years from House and Senate Republicans who questioned OCI’s prioritizing of drug-abuse cases, generally agreed to be the jurisdiction of DEA, over broader violations by large companies.

In September, Republican Senator Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, brought to light the allegations of an anonymous whistle-blower who criticized the deficiencies in a recent report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) regarding their investigation of OCI, and provided additional information to Grassley’s office that was not contained in the GAO report. The whistle-blower alleged that Director Vermillion had begun running OCI operations by telephone from his home in Virginia, had used government support staff to do personal work for him, and directed that disparaging information regarding fellow Secret Service retirees be removed from reports prepared by OCI’s Office of Internal Affairs. Additionally the informant reportedly alleged that Vermillion authorized a payment for government contracting training and promotion of an employee described as his “Office Mistress” and routinely had conferences and training exercises held in Dallas, TX, enabling him to visit family.

FDA has declined to comment on the circumstances of the Director’s resignation and has not named a successor. It has however been speculated that FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg may use this development as an opportunity to make major revisions to OCI’s policies and procedures, and recruit someone from outside the agency to help “clean house.” Changes such as these may be exemplified by greater levels of enforcement and harsher punishment for offenders, including misdemeanor charges filed against responsible corporate officers.