Big Brother is watching Big Pharmaceuticals too

A pharmaceutical company marketed four drugs to doctors. The drugs had been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for specific medical conditions—like rheumatoid arthritis, schizophrenia, and neuropathic pain—but the company promoted the drugs for other uses as well—like post-operative pain, dementia, and migraines—and sometimes in larger doses than the FDA allowed. In some cases, the company even paid kickbacks to doctors to prescribe the drugs for these other uses.

What this company did is known as off-label marketing of prescription drugs, and it’s both illegal and potentially harmful to consumers. After an investigation involving the FBI and our federal and state partners, the company pled guilty to misbranding the drugs and agreed to pay $2.3 billion to settle criminal and civil violations…the largest U.S. health care fraud settlement ever.

At the FBI, we take our health care fraud responsibilities seriously as the primary investigative agency with jurisdiction over both federal and private insurance programs. But with total health care expenditures in the U.S. expected to reach $2.26 trillion by 2016 according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the opportunity for fraud will continue to grow—so will our workload. That means we have to find ways to leverage our resources.

http://www.fbi.gov/page2/june10/fraud_062810.html

I am having a hard time recognizing that this society now has so many people who want to do away with this kind of regulation.

$45 and you'll be set :)

BTW, the company's name is Pfizer. It's only the biggest pharmaceutical company in the country if not the world at this point.

somewhere. Apparently they have had enough fines to be a focus of the Government.