Pharmaceutical Company to Reimburse State $152,000 in Medicaid Fraud Settlement

HELENA – Montana will receive nearly $152,000 in Medicaid restitution and penalties as part of a settlement recently negotiated between the National Association of Medicaid Fraud Control Units and pharmaceutical manufacturer Parke-Davis, a division of Warner-Lambert. The Medicaid fraud settlement is separate from a recent consumer-protection settlement with Warner-Lambert.

Warner-Lambert will pay $152 million in damages and penalties to states' Medicaid programs as part of an agreement that resolves allegations of a massive "off-label" marketing campaign for the epilepsy medication Neurontin. "Off-label" describes a use of a medication other than the use for which the drug is approved. Although doctors may prescribe drugs for off-label purposes, it is illegal for manufacturers to promote those off-label uses.

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FDA Shields Drug Companies From Lawsuits

"A little-mentioned fact is that many FDA employees end up working for the pharmaceutical industry."


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Last month, the FDA revealed its latest protective policy for drug companies in a statement that said people who believe they have been injured by drugs approved by the FDA should not be allowed to sue drug companies in state courts.

"We think that if your company complies with the FDA processes, if you bring forward the benefits and risks of your drug, and let your information be judged through a process with highly trained scientists, you should not be second-guessed by state courts that don't have the same scientific knowledge," said Scott Gottlieb, the FDA's deputy commissioner for medical and scientific affairs.

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Cancer Cure and Bad Biotech

Stem cells were supposed to be a miracle, but all that has been proven is that the South Korean researcher lied and the majority of western institutions/researchers were of such low standards they were unable to detect the flaws and lies. Worst, they seemed more than willing to accept and promote the lie if they (too) could (share in the pie) receive billions of tax dollars for themselves to fund useless research. Useless research solves nothing and people die or are crippled with false hopes. Mrs. Nancy Reagan, they would misuse your dreams and good will in order to lie to use you for money and give back nothing in return (they would steal). That is the definition of bad scientists and universities: people who give deliberate false assurances to gain money for nothing except personal gain and why institutions which give FALSE SIGNED ASSURANCES for taxpayers'/federal monies must be held ACCOUNTABLE! This is especially RELEVANT in light of proposed FLU vaccines – you could die if a bad one is produced and no one is held ACCOUNTABLE and LIABLE. We are talking about the public TRUST and SAFETY. Institutions and researchers must be held to high standards and accountability. Read More...

Florida sues drug company for Medicaid fraud

Charlie Crist, Florida's Attorney General is taking three pharmaceutical companies to court for $25 million, accusing them of illegally inflating prices on generic drugs used to treat depression, schizophrenia, seizures and angina.

The lawsuit alleges that since1994, Sandoz Inc., Ivax Pharmaceuticals Inc., and Purepac Pharmaceutical Company, along with various parent and subsidiary companies, have overstated the prices of generic drugs in statements to the Medicaid program. Under the False Claims Act triple damages could be awarded and that would increase the state's potential recovery amount to $75 million.

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Patent Absurdity Ending a drug company scam

"You do not have the right to keep generic drugs off the market for frivolous reasons," President George Bush declared on Monday as he announced his administration's new effort to bust up complicated legal schemes devised to do just that. Drug manufacturers have been using loopholes in the 1984 Hatch-Waxman Act—which is aimed at promoting cheaper alternatives to brand name pharmaceuticals whose patents have expired—to prevent competition.

It's no wonder that brand name drug makers are worried. In 1984, when the law was passed, only 19 percent of prescriptions were for generic drugs; today the figure is 47 percent. That means patients have saved a lot of money. Generic drugs are just as effective as their brand name equivalents, and typically cost one-third as much.

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Patent Absurdity Ending a drug company scam

"You do not have the right to keep generic drugs off the market for frivolous reasons," President George Bush declared on Monday as he announced his administration's new effort to bust up complicated legal schemes devised to do just that. Drug manufacturers have been using loopholes in the 1984 Hatch-Waxman Act—which is aimed at promoting cheaper alternatives to brand name pharmaceuticals whose patents have expired—to prevent competition.

It's no wonder that brand name drug makers are worried. In 1984, when the law was passed, only 19 percent of prescriptions were for generic drugs; today the figure is 47 percent. That means patients have saved a lot of money. Generic drugs are just as effective as their brand name equivalents, and typically cost one-third as much.

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Massive medical fraud exposed: pharmaceutical company paid doctors to prescribe drugs and run sham clinical trials

Here's a must-read article for anyone interested in learning how the pharmaceutical industry really operates. It's a case of aggressive marketing gone bad, with a mixture of corrupt physicians, underhanded payola and a near-total disregard for patient health. And yet it's business as usual in the pharmaceutical industry: drug maker Schering-Plough, one of the largest drug companies in the world, has been outright bribing physicians to prescribe drugs and operate sham clinical trials.
Here's how it would work: doctors who prescribed the drug company's products and avoided competing drugs were paid "consulting fees" of tens of thousands of dollars. And what kind of consulting did these doctors do? The kind of consulting that requires nothing more than signing a blank sheet of paper and cashing the check, of course. And thousands of doctors participated in this criminal scam, collecting untold sums of money in exchange for hyping Schering-Plough's pharmaceuticals to patients. (Medical ethics, anyone?)

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