When former British Columbia health ministry employee Ron Mattson spoke to the media last week, he released his termination letter which said he'd improperly prepared to release data to researcher Bill Warburton.

Today, through his lawyer, Warburton made a statement. He had been working with the University of Victoria as a health economist on the Alzheimer's Drug Therapy Initiative which was to provide analysis to PharmaCare, it said.

The data was to come from the ministry. "Once the data set had been completed, the anonymized data would have been shared with those who were authorized to work on the ADTI contract.," Warburton said. "Each of the authorized individuals would have also been required to sign a pledge of confidentiality. I did sign such a pledge."

Mattson was working to get Warburton on the access list, Warburton said. "As I understand it, Mr. Mattson had submitted a request that I be added to the list of those authorized to access the data at the University of Victoria. As far as I am aware, that data set was never produced. I certainly never received it."

Last week Mattson, while telling the media about a wrongful dismissal and defamation lawsuit he'd filed against the province and Health Minister Margaret MacDiarmid, released a Sept. 6 letter he'd received from deputy health minister Graham Whitmarsh.

"On June 28, 2012, and in response to a request by a University of Victoria researcher, you arranged for Bill Warburton, an unauthorized contractor, to receive a disc containing confidential data," the letter said. "Mr. Warburton had not been approved to receive this data and, in fact, his pledge form was not received by the Ministry until approximately two weeks after your attempt to provide him the disc. I note that to date Mr. Warburton has not been approved to receive this data."

Following is Bill Warburton's complete statement, released today through Victoria lawyer Catherine Boies Parker:

"In response to the matters raised in Ron Mattson’s Notice of Civil Claim, I was hired by the University of Victoria to act as a health economist on the Alzheimer’s Drug Therapeutic Initiative (ADTI). The ADTI research project seeks to provide information that will allow PharmaCare to make decisions regarding who is eligible to have their drugs covered (in order to target Alzheimer’s drugs to those who will benefit from them), and to provide B.C. cost-effectiveness data.

"At the time that I was hired to work on the ADTI, as I understand it, the Ministry was in the final stages of producing an anonymized data set in accordance with a contract between the Ministry and the University of Victoria.  Once the data set had been completed, the anonymized data would have been shared with those who were authorized to work on the ADTI contract. Each of the authorized individuals would have also been required to sign a pledge of confidentiality. I did sign such a pledge.

"As I understand it, Mr. Mattson had submitted a request that I be added to the list of those authorized to access the data at the University of Victoria. As far as I am aware, that data set was never produced. I certainly never received it.

"My own contract with the Ministry was terminated in July, 2012. Despite my requests, the Ministry has not provided me with any particulars about its reasons for terminating my contract; hence I have not been given any opportunity to respond to any concerns the Ministry might have."

Andrew MacLeod is The Tyee’s Legislative Bureau Chief in Victoria. Find him on Twitter or reach him here.