Major pharmaceutical companies have paid $33 billion in financial penalties for their illegal activities – NaturalNews.com

PLACE OF MEDICAL CRIMES: Major pharmaceutical companies have paid $33 billion in financial penalties for their illegal activities

A 2020 peer-reviewed article published in the Journal of the American Medical Associationwhich studied both the types of illegal activities and the financial penalties imposed on Big Pharma companies between 2003 and 2016, found that 85 percent (22 of 26) of them received financial penalties for illegal activities. They were collectively fined $33 billion.

The illegal activities included manufacturing and distributing counterfeit medications, deceptive marketing, failing to disclose negative information about a product (for example, significant side effects, including death), bribing foreign officials, fraudulently delaying competitors’ entry into the market, pricing and financial violations, and kickbacks. (Related: Follow the Money: Most Young Doctors Are Financially Enslaved by the Drug Industry, and It’s Destroying America’s Health Care System.)

The largest total fines were paid by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) (nearly $10 billion), Pfizer ($2.9 billion), Johnson & Johnson ($2.6 billion) and other household names including AstraZeneca, Novartis, Merck, Eli Lilly, Schering-Plough, Sanofi Aventis and Wyeth. The study further found that many Big Pharma players are repeat offenders.

Beating Big Pharma is not an easy task

Drug cases can drag on for years and require financial resources to get a favorable verdict. Worse, if a case is won – Big Pharma takes the case to a higher court.

One example is Pfizer’s $35 million settlement after 15 years of legal maneuvering in a Nigerian case, which alleged the company had experimented on 200 children without their parents’ knowledge or consent.

Every now and then a case comes along that lifts the lid on these corporate strategies, revealing the influence of pharmaceutical companies and the lengths they are willing to go to make a profit. The Australian Federal Court case of Peterson v Merck Sharpe and Dohme (MSD), involving the manufacturer of the drug Vioxx, is another example.

Vioxx was introduced in 1999 and has been used by 80 million people worldwide. It was marketed as a safer alternative to traditional anti-inflammatory drugs with their nasty gastrointestinal side effects.

Peterson argued that the Merck companies were negligent in failing to withdraw the drug from the market until 2004. By failing to warn of the risks and make promotional offers to doctors, they committed misleading and deceptive conduct within the meaning of the Commonwealth Trade Practices Act 1974.

According to Graham, a Merck-funded study before the drug was approved showed a seven-fold increase in heart attacks. Despite this, the drug was approved by regulatory agencies, including the Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (FDA) in the US and the Therapeutic goods administration (TGA) in Australia.

In 2013, a settlement was reached with class action participants, resulting in a maximum payment of only $4,629.36 per plaintiff. MSD waived its claim for legal fees against Peterson.

The pharmaceutical giant is said to have sponsored journals with well-known scientific publisher Elsevier, including a publication called Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint MedicineThese journals were made to look like independent scientific journals, but reportedly contained articles attributed to doctors and ghostwritten by Merck employees. The company earned more than $2 billion a year in sales before Vioxx was finally pulled from pharmacy shelves in 2004.

Visit BigPharmaNews.com for similar stories.

Watch as former President Donald Trump pledges to investigate Big Pharma and hold them accountable for defrauding patients and taxpayers.

This video is from the Thrivetime Show channel on Brighteon.com.

Beating Big Pharma is not an easy task

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