"Feds found Pfizer too big to nail" This is a Must Read!

[Lyric]

By Drew Griffin and Andy Segal, CNN Special Investigations Unit
April 2, 2010 4:44 p.m. EDT



(CNN) -- Imagine being charged with a crime, but an imaginary friend takes the rap for you.

That is essentially what happened when Pfizer, the world's largest pharmaceutical company, was caught
illegally marketing Bextra, a painkiller that was taken off the market in 2005 because of safety concerns.

When the criminal case was announced last fall, federal officials touted their prosecution as a model for
tough, effective enforcement. "It sends a clear message" to the pharmaceutical industry, said Kevin Perkins,
assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Investigative Division.

But beyond the fanfare, a CNN Special Investigation found another story, one that officials downplayed when
they declared victory. It's a story about the power major pharmaceutical companies have even when they
break the laws intended to protect patients.

MORE: http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/04/02/pfizer.bextra/index.html?hpt=T2

---------------------------------------

Dear god. I read this and couldn't believe it. For the record, I am pleasantly shocked to see something
like this on CNN. Not the kind of story I'd usually expect from them because it's incredibly substantive.
Basically, the feds caught Pfizer marketing off-label uses for a dangerous drug at TWICE the approved
dose, and because Pfizer is SO enormous and makes SO many important medications for Medicaid and Medicare
patients...they couldn't bust them. They instead "busted" a shell company that Pfizer created, and Pfizer
was left with nothing more than a fine that cost them 3 lousy months' worth of profits from that ONE
medication.

We are well and truly OWNED, my friends. They might as well start tattooing our babies with brand names.

[elehhhhna]

1. I would NEVER tattoo little Similac and Propeica with brand names! That's sick!

[postulater]

2. They'll never tattoo my little C. Alice. n/t

[elehhhhna]

10. My husband, Nyqil, would never forgive me.

[pundaint]

3. Why do we have government again?

[girl gone mad]

7. Maybe this will help explain it..

http://www.businessinsider.com/wall-streets-big-growth-sector-is-helping-the-government-hurt-taxpayers-2010-3#ixzz0jz6fqwrz">Wall Street's Brand New Growth Sector: Helping The Government Screw The Taxpayers (Business Insider)

[damntexdem]

4. But if a corporation is a person ...

then this is like sending a clone to prison for something the original did.

"I will call him Mini-Me."

;-)

[DesertDiamond]

24. They should send the corpration to prison so it can't do business for 5-7 years.

[unblock]

5. ah yes, the beauty of sub-corporations

many gargantuan companies are actually just holding companies that have ownership of other corporations. the rest of us would think of those other corporations as divisions, but they can be set up in such a way that they are immune from each other in terms of bankruptcy or liability. all that connects them is ownership, and owners' liability is usually limited to their investment. and profits they already sucked out previously are safe (except in a few cases, where they can be deemed a fraudulent conveyance, e.g.)

so you'd think that when you sue a ginormous company, they have deep pockets and can pay whatever the liability is, but in fact, the entity that did damage to you was one of these subsidiary corporations, which only held limited assets and funneled any profits up to the parent corporation.

that's the design.

lovely, huh?

[slipslidingaway]

6. knr - also see this posted in the PV forum with additional links ...

CNN: Evidence Big Pharma Owns The U.S. Government
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=442526&mesg_id=442526

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io7x8p2GwZI

[pscot]

26. Now wait just a damn minute

I thought the bankers oned the U.S. Government, and by extension, us. Or maybe they just own the Senate. I get so confused.

[hunter]

8. Nationalize them.

Transfer all their drug research to public universities and open source all their products and research.

Let further drug research be directed by medical necessity, not by potential profit.

The only thing influencing the cost of drugs would be the difficulty of the synthesis.

Pharmaceutical corporate executives would have to find real jobs after they are released from prison, maybe something like shoveling shit at an Alaskan chicken farm, hiding out from all the people they screwed over and the families of those they killed.

Nope, they'll say as they wipe the cold sweat of fear from their brows, I was never the CEO of a Pharmaceutical Company. I've always been a chicken shit shoveler. Why do you ask?

I hate these unethical corporate bastards and I support a corporate death penalty.

Try them, convict them, take away their charters, and nationalize them at 50 cents on the dollar. Make their CEOs do a perp walk wearing orange suits and handcuffs as they are marched away into obscurity.

[Enthusiast]

22. We can't do that!

The Republicans would call Obama a socialist!

[L0oniX]

30. +1

[eridani]

9. Just in case anybody ever wondered why we couldn't get drug reimportation

--or bulk purchasing in the so-called "health care reform" bill, now you know.

[laughingliberal]

16. There was never a doubt in my mind

When one of the best chances we had for saving health care dollars (allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices like every advanced nation in the world) was 'negotiated' away before Congress even started work on the legislation, things became pretty clear for me.

[Enthusiast]

23. I agree.

We should be very pissed off about this. This is legitimate outrage.....or it should be.

[defendandprotect]

11. Small government means THEY have better and MORE lawyers than we do -- !!!

[Hannah Bell]

12. exactly. that's one of the reasons they want it -- but they really want big corporate government,

minus *anything* that benefits the masses.

[defendandprotect]

14. You are right --- !!!

Sadly . . .

:)

[Nikki Stone1]

18. That's what "smaller" government is all about.

It's about "bigger" corporations being above the law.

[walldude]

13. Christ... this is fucked up, K&R.

[slipslidingaway]

15. kick nt

[jmowreader]

17. We're already tattooing our babies with barcodes on the wrist, Secretary Not Sure

So no, I will NOT tattoo a brand name on my baby. Signed, Tylenol Jones.

[amborin]

19. Big Pharma rules K&R

[Enthusiast]

20. "We are well and truly OWNED, my friends."

Yes we are. Too big to fail and too big to nail. Look forward. Is it fascism yet?

[Blue_Tires]

21. ttt

[jody]

25. Article said if Pfizer failed Medicare & Medicaid would cause Pfizer collapse.

Why? Because any company convicted of a major health care fraud is automatically excluded from Medicare and Medicaid. Convicting Pfizer on Bextra would prevent the company from billing federal health programs for any of its products. It would be a corporate death sentence.

Prosecutors said that excluding Pfizer would most likely lead to Pfizer's collapse, with collateral consequences: disrupting the flow of Pfizer products to Medicare and Medicaid recipients, causing the loss of jobs including those of Pfizer employees who were not involved in the fraud, and causing significant losses for Pfizer shareholders.

[Raineyb]

27. What rot! Considering the number of jobs Pfizer ended up disposing of anyway?

They're claiming to give a damn about the people who work(ed) for Pfizer?

Trust me they didn't give a damn about any of us.

I didn't work at a plant that manufactured Bextra but they still closed the plant where I used to work.

My grousing aside, the FDA works for the manufacturers not the public. It will bend as far as it can to accommodate manufacturers. So this story doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

[jody]

28. Agree and how many corporations are in prison for murder? Zero while kids serve time for marijuana

possession.

[L0oniX]

29. We only want kids to take legal drugs ...silly!