Thursday, September 3, 2009

Corruption is in Column A


The biggest businesses in the world are Armaments, Oil, Illegal Drugs and Pharmaceuticals.

With that much cash flowing, there's bound to be skulduggery at every level.

Big Pharma, one of my favorite whipping posts, has been caught again. Good.

Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drug maker, will pay a record $2.3-billion (U.S.) civil and criminal penalty over unlawful prescription drug promotions, the U.S. Justice Department announced Wednesday. This is the largest criminal fine in American history.

No sweat.

This is the fourth such settlement with Pfizer in 10 years. Clearly the company simply views these inconveniences as a part of doing business.

The fines come from, among other detestable activities, providing doctors with free golf, massages and resort junkets. This is what we call bribes.

Know in the comfort of your barcolounger that your doctor has been giving you medicines based on how much he has enjoyed his recent escape to St. Lucia.

Play this story against the background of President Obama struggling to provide 50 million of his fellow citizens with health insurance that they don't have and that they will never have if the Republican scare-mongers and Fox News gets its way.

3 comments:

albruno said...

no way that can't be possible that's terrible

Anonymous said...

Big pharma gets it's hands slapped, but doctors continue to prescribe without consequence.

Norm Farrell said...

My comment on the G&M article by Spector where he praises Campbell for coming clean:

Spin masters spend every day trying to create their own version of reality. Particularly as the beard lengthens and the hair turns grey to white, they become confused. They remember who signed the checks in days gone by and the Pavlovian reaction kicks in reliably, even if they can't remember why. Mr. Spector is bi-lingual, he speaks Liberal and Conservative, but always with a conservative accent.