How to Get Our Citizens Actually United

IMAGINE you’re the closest living relative of a child who just inherited $100 million after her parents died in a car crash. You’re a distant cousin, but if something happened to her, you’d be next in line.

She has juvenile diabetes. So you “adjust” her insulin prescription a bit yourself, doubling the dose. When that doesn’t work, you tell her a different drug works just as well, and when she’s reluctant, you offer her a trip to Disney World.

What would happen if you got caught? You’d probably be convicted of attempted murder and spend several years in prison.

Earlier this month, the Justice Department announced a settlement with the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline. The company had, among a host of criminal actions, helped publish falsified data in a medical journal, failed to report the dangers of a drug and used “favors” like trips to Jamaica to persuade doctors to use its medications for unapproved — and unproven — purposes on children.

These two fact patterns have a lot in common, except that instead of endangering the life of one child, the company endangered the lives of many, and instead of anyone receiving prison time, the company agreed to pay a fine — which it will no doubt pass on to its customers and shareholders — that is, to us.

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/14/how-to-get-our-citizens-actually-united/?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This opinion article starts out slow but ends up right on the money with an interactive.....