Not the Onion

People want to see a conspiracy and a murder here, but it's well known that being a whistleblower can be incredibly stressful. The US government says:

Practice self-care and stress-reducing activities throughout your whistleblowing process. It is common to experience toxic forms of retaliation – from professional isolation to gaslighting (manipulating someone by psychological means into questioning their own sanity) – which can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, or even thoughts of harm.

https://whistleblower.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/whistleblower.house.gov/files/whistleblower_survival_tips.pdf

Research papers have shown the same thing:

About 85% suffered from severe to very severe anxiety, depression, interpersonal sensitivity and distrust, agoraphobia symptoms, and/or sleeping problems, and 48% reached clinical levels of these specific mental health problems. These specific mental health problems were much more prevalent than among the general population.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6604402/

I can't remember where I saw it, but a while ago I saw or read an interview with a representative for a group that was famous for working with whistleblowers, something like the ACLU or EFF or something. Even though you'd expect that they'd really encourage whistleblowers, they said the opposite. They said that being a whistleblower is basically going to destroy your life. It's going to ruin lifelong friendships. You're going to be incredibly stressed. You'll probably be blacklisted from your chosen field of employment even if your claims save lives and are proven to be true. So, they asked anybody who wanted to be a whistleblower to think about it and if they were absolutely sure to come back and talk to them again.