Big Pharma's Crime Spree: Drug Makers Pushing Products For Unapproved Uses

Bloomberg:

Pfizer and Lilly lead a parade of U.S. companies that have paid $7 billion in penalties after promoting drugs for uses not approved by the FDA. This unlawful behavior may not end until prosecutors force a drugmaker into bankruptcy.

Read the whole story: Bloomberg

Comments

[Runruff]

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history of cannabis as medicine.

[amazinggrace]

I'm shocked, totally shocked...­..........­.....this has been going on forever using their drugs off label to make more $'s.

Must generate a ton of money which they seem to feel offsets the "colleteral "damage, namely the loss of lives. Sick way to do things.

Greed is one of the seven deadly sins but it does not have to mean other people's deaths.

[grandma58]

I winder when the foster care system is going to stop using these drugs on foster kids?

[Henk]

Okay let's look at this rationally, the AMERICAN way: Profits vs. Dead People, Dead People vs. Profits. If you are a REAL American you know the answer.

[Roseberry]

When are we going to stop letting the drug companies advertise on TV? Hmmm???
The US and Australia are the only countries that let them do it, anyway. And why???

[mikebarden]

Ambien: Take this drug and you may want to sleep forever.

[mikebarden]

What don't kill ya,
they'll end up charging ya a lot of money for.

[Elizabeth44]

It seems to me that it is high time that a bunch of Pharma's executives spend some serious jail time. That, along with those felony convictions of the companies, should take care of the problem.

[traveling1]

My thoughts exactly - if they know - KNOW - they will spend time in jail, they may think about that they are doing,

And it's up to us as patients to ask our doctors what they are prescribing. My doctor gave me a "sleeping pill". It's bad enough the side effect sheet said it may cause sleeplessness (WTF??) but I found out later, after getting a letter from my health insurer, that the pill was actually for depression and they wanted a followup to make sure I was taking it properly for my depression!! I called the insurer and discontinued the pill immediately - it wasn't working anyway.

[oxygen]

sorry! read second post first

[Zipzop]

Just say no to drugs. It's outrageous how many people are on prescriptions and it's scary that so many kids are getting drugs to straighten out their "defective" brain chemistry. Doctors aren't good gate keepers when it comes to dispensing drugs.

[oxygen]

meanwhile in afghanistan your government is killing innocent people calling them terrorists in a country known for it's excellent indica hashish, a product so profoundly useful and beneficial the only thing we should be doing in afghanistan with our government is making sure they have a good free market pipeline of the stuff for any and all americans to buy without any "governmental interference" partly because it is none of their business and partly because it is really good for you - in other words the government should help, but not hinder, your health

those are the only u.s. government personnel that should be in afghanistan, the troops should all be welcomed home to a new society in which government actually has grown a brain with new neurons and all and is creating jobs and logical productive endeavors for it's citizenry in a peaceful coexistent and sustainable way
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6630507.PN.&OS=PN/6630507&RS=PN/6630507

[jackbutler5555]

The Afghanistan peace plan. The warlords, Taliban, Al Qaeda, the government forces could sit around a bong and put their differences in perspective. And it'll prevent cancer, too. It doesn't get better than this.

Legalization and importation into the United States would be the public option for our drug riders.

[MIVOTE]

My 87 year old uncle takes chemo 5 times a week for prostate cancer. I ask "why?" His life isn't being prolonged. What about the quality of his He's sick and can't eat, very weak. from the treatments. He feels this jokers know something, but it's not like he's 25 years old.

Whose making out on those treatments and pharmaceuticals. Certainly not my uncle

[jsgaetano]

Yet more proof of how Big Pharma and Big Insurance is literally killing Americans.

[foxisms]

Sure...but let me push pharms for unapproved use, just once, and I'm doin' some hard time in a cell with a guy named "Bubba" that wants to teach me the NR-17 rendition of the Tango for a few years.
You gotta love the even handedness of a democracy.

[MIVOTE]

Yes, but this gap needs to close pushing drugs is pushing drugs, period.

[foxisms]

I agree. No Gap.
Either no one can do it or everybody can.
"Karate do. Karate no do. Stand in middle, get crushed like grape." ~Miagii~

[jsgaetano]

This is the same as it's always been.

If you run a multi-billion dollar corporation, you are literally above the law, no matter what happens.

[comebackid]

Sell a pound of coke they put you in prison, sell a boat load and they make you president!

[tabbyday]

The last time I saw my family dr, I laughed when he handed me a script that was stamped with the drug name/dosage, and not handwritten. Ya thanks a lot doc, bet your looking out for me.

If we need money for healthcare so bad, Obama could stop making deals with Big Pharma and start suing the hell out of them. They need to bring these bastards down like tobacco (and put a stop to the damn tv commercials) Ouch. My restless legs...probably a side-effect from some other drug.