The Government of British Columbia has settled two lawsuits related to a scandal that erupted in 2012 when the Ministry of Health fired a number of pharmaceutical researchers.

“Drs. Rebecca Warburton and William Warburton have resolved their respective lawsuits against the Province and Dr. MacDiarmid,” said B.C. deputy attorney general Richard Fyfe quoted in a media release.

“The Province of British Columbia recognizes that there were flaws in the investigation which had been identified in the Marcia McNeil report. Dr. Rebecca Warburton and Dr. William Warburton acknowledge that they did breach some rules and procedures,” Fyfe continues. “The Province recognizes that such breaches were motivated by their intention to further the research goals of the Ministry of Health, and not for their own personal gain.”

The Warburtons were among eight researchers fired from their positions or saw contracts cancelled with the health ministry after the government alleged some staff had accessed data for research purposes without proper authorization.

In the months and years that followed, researchers filed lawsuits claiming wrongful dismissal. The government previously settled five of those claims without disclosing details. The Warburtons are numbers six and seven. The eighth, Roderick MacIsaac, committed suicide in December 2012.

Some of the more prominent researchers have subsequently resumed work with the ministry, including Dr. Malcolm Maclure and Robert Hart.

The lawsuit filed by William Warburton alleged the provincial government and Dr. Margaret MacDiarmid, the health minister at the time, attempted to halt medical research in order to protect donors to the B.C. Liberal Party.

“The Province's acts against Dr Warburton are part of a bad faith program by the Defendants to end the investigation of harmful effects of drugs which risk leading to diminishing payments to their political contributors,” the court file read.

It noted that Warburton was investigating “harmful side-effects, including mortality, and risk assessment of drugs purchased by the Province through its programs,” and that his findings “had the potential of disrupting financially significant payments to large pharmaceutical companies, many of whom were major contributors to the Liberal Party”.

None of those claims were ever proven in court. Today (December 29) the province issued two media releases related to settlements reached with the Warburtons. Neither provided any details.