http://www.taf.org/False Claims Act Legal Center.
The companies making voting machines could likely be sued in this manner.
Below is an analysis for using the False Claims Act against pharmacutical companies.
A similar analysis could be made on voting machine manufacturers and other companies in the election business.
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The proposal is to sue drug companies for fraud under the False Claims Act.
To get a new drug approved by the FDA, a drug company is required to make claims, based on scientific research, that the drug is safe and effective. But, what the government often gets is phony science. Companies make dishonest claims that a drug is safe and effective when scientific research shows otherwise. They suppress or ignore unfavorable research findings and they exaggerate and amplify favorable findings. They then use these same dishonest and deceptive claims to market drugs that are dangerous or ineffective or both. The resulting fraud is in the sale of defective products which fail to perform as claimed. And the biggest customer is the U.S government in its Medicaid and Medicare Programs. So, why isn’t anyone using the False Claims Act to blow the whistle on corporate use of dishonest science. What is proposed has not yet been done by anyone because there are two objections to the proposed lawsuits.
Objection 1. The law suits proposed do not fit the predominate paradigm in which an ‘insider” blows the whistle on fraudulent overbilling by a government contractor.
Objection 2. The drug companies have a unique and overwhelming defense. They point out that the claims they make have been certified as true by the FDA.
Reply to Objection One: The suits proposed don’t fit the mold.
The False Claims Act was revived by Congress in 1986. The immediate problem to be solved was exorbitant overbilling by defense contractors - $1,000 toilet seats and $500 wrenches. The whistleblowers who came forward were employees of those defense contractors. Since 1986, most of the whistle blowing has been about pricing and overbilling and most legal actions have begun with evidence provided by insiders who are blowing the whistle.
Admittedly, the legal actions here proposed do not fit that mold. The proposal is not to sue over the exorbitant price of drugs and we do not plan to initiate a suit based on evidence from insiders. Nevertheless, what is proposed is a type of legal action that was provided for by the False Claims Act from the very beginning.
According to the Taxpayers Against Fraud website, www.taf.org,
“The False Claims Act…focuses specifically at government contractors. It was enacted (in 1883) during the Civil War when the Union Army was routinely sold
- guns that would not fire
- shoddy uniforms that fell apart in the rain
- broken down horses that could barely walk
- bags of sawdust masquerading as gunpowder”
Notice that the target of the False Claims Act was not overbilling but billing for defective products. And, notice that one does not need an insider blowing the>
whistle to prove that the gun won’t fire or that the horse can’t walk.
The proposed lawsuits against Big Pharma are also aimed at fraudulent billing for defective products. And, they are initiated with reference to honest science and not necessarily by an insider. (Note: there was at least one successful whistleblower suit in the ‘90s where the issue was misrepresentation of defective products. This was the case of FMC and the amphibious Bradley Fighting Vehicles that usually sank.)
A student of science who has access to the Internet can find the relevant good science and expose the fraud. Any ‘honest boy’ can blow the whistle on “the emperor who has no clothes”. No insiders are required. Then, once the litigation gets underway, internal documents can be obtained by right of discovery.
Reply to Objection 2: Objection 2 is that ‘the FDA defense’ is an insurmontable obstacle to successful litigation.
Let’s think again of the defense contractor abuses during the civil war – bad guns, old horses and sawdust. What if the contractor’s defense was that the Army Quartermaster’s Office had itself inspected and passed on all the deliveries? And suppose that was true – that high ranking officials in the Quartermaster Corp had looked the other way and were in on the deception. Then what? The answer is obvious.
We sue the corrupt officials as well as the drug companies.
And, that is how we overcome the FDA defense of Big Pharma. The drug companies provide defective products to the government – drugs that are not safe or not effective or both. Their defense is that officials at the FDA certified that those products were safe and effective. Like the honest boy who called out that the Emperor had no clothes, we must stand up and say that the drug companies are corrupt and that officials at the FDA are corrupt and that we are suing both under the False Claims Act for defrauding the government and bankrupting the country. (Now that we have the recent Senate testimony of scientist, David Graham, an FDA insider, suing corrupt FDA officials will not be difficult.)
Good medicine is a matter of life and death. Because medicine is corrupt, millions of Americans suffer or die unnecessarily.
Taxpayers Against Fraud, a non-profit in D.C. is an excellent source of information about the False Claims Act. See their website, www.taf.org. TAF helps whistleblowers find qualified legal representation.
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