USA Today

Drug giant pleads guilty, fined $3B for drug marketing:

WASHINGTON–Prescription drug giant GlaxoSmithKline will plead guilty and pay $3 billion to resolve federal criminal and civil inquiries arising from the company’s illegal promotion of some of its products, its failure to report safety data and alleged false price reporting, the Justice Department announced Monday.

My heart bleeds for The Three Stooges, Glaxo -Smith – Kline. They must have one hell of a bankroll to pay that kind of penalty and not blink an eye.

This just goes to show how these mega-corps view their customer; as guinea pigs. They could care less about the safety of their products and the adverse effects it has on their customers as long as the bottom line is black.

Not only did they misrepresent the quality of their products but their sales force bribed physicians to prescribe GSK products using every imaginable form of high priced entertainment, from Hawaiian vacations to paying doctors millions of dollars to go on speaking tours, to a European pheasant hunt, to tickets to Madonna concerts. Possibly the people that accepted the gratuities are just as bad as The Three Stooges knowing that the drugs were not safe.

Naturally the bad guys never admit they are wrong; only after the fact but they plead guilty just for the sake of conversation.

In a statement, GlaxoSmithKline said it disagreed with some statements the Justice Department made in court papers. For example, the company said its settlement with the government does “not constitute an admission of any liability or wrongdoing in the selling and marketing of Lamictal, Zofran, Imitrex, Lotronex, Flovent, Valtrex, Avandia or Advair products. The government also made allegations about Paxil, Wellbutrin that the company did not admit.”

This type of activity is very common among the giant drug companies and they will continue their deceit hiding in the shadow, hoping not to get caught.

I am sure they do the math ahead of time. If the fine is 1 billion and they make 7 billion, they are 6 billion ahead. What are a few casualties here and there? They label it collateral damages.

I personally think that the “head cheese” of these organizations should be brought up on criminal charges.  After the discrepancies were brought to their attention, they continued to sell the products and cover up it’s deficiencies.  That is criminal.