People & Power—Drug Money

A 23 minute TV expose on Big Pharma by ALJAZEERA (see video at bottom of this page)
This piece pulls no punches exposing the rampant fraud, fatal drug side effects, off label marketing, criminal practices  and “absolutely jaw dropping” payouts Pharma makes to psychiatrists/doctors.

• “There is so much money to be made in stealing from the United States Healthcare system,” says Patrick Byrnes, Taxpayers Against Fraud.

• Lewis Morris, US Department of Health states, “One of the things we are now looking at is going after the executives in these companies and holding them personally accountable.”

• Sharon Ormsky, FBI Financial Crimes Unit states, “Pharmaceutical fraud is one of our top three threats — everybody is touched by these frauds in the extent that when you look at the billions of dollars that go into healthcare for the United States, a good percent,  3-10% of that is believed to be siphoned off into fraud—that’s  money that  could be going to very needy patients.”

Now the U.S. government is fighting back.  In the last two years alone, the  government has fined six of America’s  top ten pharmaceutical companies for fraud.  Investigations are ongoing against another three.  In this period the industry has had to pay out over 5 billion dollars in fines, and topping the list is drug giant Pfizer, having recently settled civil & criminal charges resulting in $2.3 billion dollars —the biggest fraud case, the biggest criminal case, the biggest false claims act in U.S. history.   ALJAZEERA also exposes Pfizer’s “interesting way of doing business.  Witnesses in the case revealed just how the company persuaded doctors to prescribe its drugs. It entertained them in strip clubs, it told them that the blues teenagers feel when they don’t make the football team was signs of treatable depression and it paid them to endorse Pfizer drugs. One doctor received $150,000 in a year.
Also highlighted is the current scandal regarding antipsychotic drugs, including state law suits, dangerous documented side effects and how federal investigators are now looking into claims drug company Johnson & Johnson illegally marketed their antipsychotic drug Risperdal to children, paying “some of the most influential doctors in the field” in order to accomplish this.  And leading that pack sits none other than the  [now] infamous psychiatrist Joseph Biederman, who has been “credited” with the huge increase of children prescribed psychiatry’s most powerful/dangerous drugs, antipsychotics, while receiving millions in Pharma kickbacks that he failed to disclose.   Biederman is shown on tape being questioned under oath, and when asked “What rank are you?” Biederman responds, “Full Professor.” When asked “What comes after that?” Biederman responds, “GOD.”
This is a 23 minute expose well worth watching.

People & Power - Drug http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1TwdsYVHjGA