Drug companies engage in massive health care fraud, but are never held accountable

[Guest guest]

> Sat, 9 Oct 2004 15:00:43 -0400

> Drug companies engage in

> massive health care fraud, but are never held

> accountable

>

>

> Saturday, October 09, 2004 commentary:

>

> Drug companies engage in massive health care fraud,

> but are never held

> accountable

>

> http://www.newstarget.com/001867.html

>

> U.S. pharmaceutical companies are finding clever

> ways to avoid the

> consequences of a 1996 law that mandates their

> exclusion from federal health

> care programs such as Medicare and Medicaid if they

> are convicted of felony

> health care fraud. According to news reports, since

> 2001 at least four major

> drug companies have been convicted of felony health

> care fraud but have been

> able to avoid the penalty of being banned from

> government health programs by

> constructing creative settlements with prosecutors.

>

> In one case, a guilty plea was offered by an

> inactive subsidiary of a major

> pharmaceutical company that has no employees and

> sells no products. Even

> though this subsidiary pleaded guilty, and it alone

> cannot sell products to

> Medicare and Medicaid, it never sold any products in

> the first place, and

> its parent company is free to continue selling

> products to the federal

> government without any real consequence. Another

> company, Pfizer's

> Warner-Lambert division, agreed to $430 million in

> fines due to its alleged

> fraudulent marketing of the drug Neurontin. The

> company claimed that it was

> illegally marketing that drug only through August

> 20, 1996. The new law

> kicked in on August 21, 1996, and that's the day

> Pfizer claimed it stopped

> illegally marketing the drug.

>

> The bottom line is that these pharmaceutical

> companies are structuring their

> fraud settlements with the federal government in

> order to avoid exclusion

> from federal health care programs. It's not that the

> law has taught them to

> stop committing fraud -- it's just that the law has

> forced them to get more

> creative in finding ways to simultaneously commit

> fraud while continuing to

> sell products.

>

> So what does all of this mean? It means that the

> pharmaceutical industry is

> engaged in business as usual. They will go after

> profits using any means

> necessary, including fraud, criminal activities,

> deceit, lying to the

> public, hiding information from the FDA, bribing

> doctors, and so on.

> Regrettably, there are no consequences for these

> actions -- it's as if the

> entire nation has given the pharmaceutical industry

> an unlimited stack of

> " get out of jail free " cards and told them they

> could engage in any

> practices no matter how criminal or unethical, as

> long as they keep making

> money.

>

> Part of the problem here, of course, is that many

> U.S. citizens remain

> invested in pharmaceutical companies. Virtually

> every mutual fund has some

> stock in at least one pharmaceutical company, and

> people seem to be quite

> pleased with the idea that they're making money,

> regardless of how many

> other people are being killed by pharmaceuticals or

> harmed by their

> dangerous side effects. People don't seem to have

> the capacity to look in

> the mirror and say, " Yes, today I may be $10 richer

> due to my stock

> ownership, but I'm also sicker because I'm on

> antidepressant drugs, and I'm

> on statin drugs that are making my muscles hurt and

> are giving me brain fog,

> and I'm on all sorts of other toxic drugs that are

> altering my body

> chemistry, reducing my lifespan, and worsening the

> quality of life I

> experience on a daily basis. "

>

> But this is a choice that American consumers have to

> make on their own. Yes,

> you can make money by being invested in a company

> that sells extremely

> profitable, ridiculously priced products to the

> public, even when those

> products cause untold harm, but as a whole, we are

> not better off, and until

> we start holding pharmaceutical companies

> accountable for the death and

> destruction they are causing, and until we stop

> being so greedy that we will

> look the other way as long as we're making a buck,

> then this situation will

> not change.

>

>

> Related Reading:

>

> The government has yet to use its power to bar major

> drug companies that

> commit fraud from doing business with federal

> programs such as Medicaid and

> Medicare.

> A 1996 law mandates exclusion from federal health

> care programs for those

> who plead guilty to, or are convicted of, felony

> health care fraud after

> Aug. 21, 1996.

> But since 2001, at least four major drug companies,

> including two recently,

> avoided that penalty under settlements with

> prosecutors.

> The guilty plea was entered by an inactive

> Schering-Plough sales subsidiary

> with no employees where the fraud occurred.

> · In May, Pfizer's Warner-Lambert division agreed to

> $430 million in fines

> and pleaded guilty to illegally marketing the drug

> Neurontin " through at

> least August 20, 1996 " --- one day shy of the law's

> trigger date for

> mandatory exclusion.

> Prosecutors alleged the misconduct occurred later,

> too.

> " The settlements are structured very carefully to

> avoid mandatory

> exclusion, " says John Bentivoglio, a former Justice

> Department lawyer who

> represents health care companies.

> " We cannot exclude them, we're dependent on them, "

> says Timothy Jost, health

> law professor at Washington and Lee University.

> He says big fines might be a better way to punish

> wrongdoing.

> The 2003 settlement of medical device maker Abbott

> Laboratories shows how

> creative settlements can be.

> Abbott, as did the other companies, denied the civil

> charges in its fraud

> case.

> " At some point, they're going to have to pull the

> trigger to show they'll do

> it, " says Patrick Burns of Taxpayers Against Fraud.

> Source:

>

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-08-15-pleas_x.htm

>

>

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