Pharmaceutical Fraud and Sicko
I am feeling Sick-O. After being an attorney for the Department of Justice and always feeling like I was in the right, I moved over to the private sector to help people in civil areas of law. After a few years of general practice, I realized that I enjoyed personal injury law the most, so we (my wife and I) started to concentrate on handling only personal injury related cases. This was about the time that the Corporatist Party of American (formerly known as Republicans) came to power and began a campaign of hate and lies against personal injury plaintiffs and their lawyers. Certainly they had some ripe fruit to pick from. This area of the law is fraught with fraud. As a loyal Republican the attack on injured individuals and Plaintiff’s attorneys was a bit of a disconnect. Why are the perssonal injury attorneys so bad? Why are they hurting American business so greatly. Being in the industry, I just did not see it.
Of course everyone wants to rid the world of fraudulent personal injury cases. Those cases are the ones that make helping a truly injured person so difficult today. But the solutions being offered by the Corporatist Party of America were not aimed at stopping fraud. They were aimed at stopping lawsuits of value and significance. Fraudulent injury cases almost always settle for small sums of money. It is virtually impossible to sell a fraudulent injury case to a jury today. How, therefore, will “capping damages” help to cure fraud? It only caps the recovery for the most injured people! The real cases get hurt while the fraud cases go unpunished.
Meanwhile, under our noses, corporate America began an attack on the American stock shareholder and the American citizen taxpayer, which is unprecedented in our history. After working with hundreds of injured people and sifting through many hypochondriac jokers and having to kick some cases to the curb, I have come to the absolute conclusion that the true harm to the average American today is squarely in corporate fraud against our own government and against our own people. The worst thing about this is that our government is in on the plan. Our legislators and administrators are in bed with the corporate big wigs that cheat the little guy out of health and retirement plans, stock ownership or even savings.
The level of fraud in America today is sickening. There is no comparison between the fraud of corporate America and the fraud of fake injury “victims”. I guarantee you the damage done to the American economy, the American ideal and the American tax system from corporate fraud is 1000 times greater than all of the insurance scams put together. The fraud is so disturbing that it is actually hard to believe.
Coming this summer is a movie called Sicko. It is a documentary about the health and drug industry. I am almost certain it will document the conspiracy going on between doctors, drug manufacturers and the FDA.
As we speak (or rather, as you read) the drug lobby and their corporatist party lackeys are trying to make the FDA the final oversight of the drug industry and take away a injured victims right to sue if they are hurt by a drug. It is my prayer that this movie spurs politicians NOT to permit the drug lobby to have the FDA be there ONLY oversight. We must keep the drug companies honest and the only way they will be an honest broker is if they are held accountable through civil lawsuits. Is the system perfect? Certainly not. But it is far better than any other system out there. It is only through the power of the pocketbook that we can control the moral-less corporate beast.
So, you ask, why am I so “up in arms” about the FDA issue right now?
As an example, I read a recent article in the St. Petersburg Times about a new drug called Ketek. Ketek is an antibiotic for persistent colds and coughs. Aventis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (now Sano-Aventis) is the manufacturer of Ketek. The drug maker offered the doctors $400.00 PER PATIENT to test Ketek. Dr. Anne Kirkman Campbell, in Alabama was able to sign up over 400 patients. According to the article, she was able to sign up more patients than any other doctor in the entire nation by a huge margin.
In the past few years there has been a proliferation of lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies because of improper testing of their drugs. In this case Aventis hired an objective oversight company called Pharmacetical Products Development Inc. PPD was hired to oversee the study and doctor testing of their new blockbuster drug. The oversight company would review the doctor’s charts and information and determine if the results were realistic and in line with every other doctors results.
Once PPD figured out the obvious and outrageous amount of fraud Dr. Campbell was committing, the question is “What did Aventis do?” The answer is the exact opposite of what it should have done. Instead of investigating the fraud and discounting the data and firing Dr. Campbell from the study, Aventis tried to ignore the fraud. No one at Aventis reported the crime to the FDA. Aventis did not even throw out her improper data. In fact, they did more than just ignore the fraud. Instead they flew a team of people in to Dr. Campbell’s office to review her files and to coach her though the FDA’s questions. Aventis actually included the fraudulent data in their submission to the FDA.
So, you again ask, what did the FDA do if the fraud was so clear? Even after Federal agents found Dr. Campbell's fraudulent data, as well as many other problems at many other doctor offices, the FDA APPROVED KETEK!
Our system is simply completely broken. The fox is watching the hen house and the farmer is being paid off by the fox as well.
Ketek was given to patients on false and fraudulent data. Eventually evidence arose linking 53 reported cases of liver failure including two transplants and five deaths to Ketek. Due to the rising tide of evidence Dr. Campbell was finally charged with 21 counts of fraud and sentenced to 57 months in prison.
That is not enough. Dr. Campbell is only one third of the problem. The system is the problem. Nine other doctors in this study alone had exceptionally high enrollment and they all had problems in their data. No one is looking into their data. If at all possible the FDA and the Drug Company and the Doctors will all turn their heads and ignore negative data. To make money on the fraud they are all willing to risk human life and tragedy for the benefit of a buck. The system is broken and the FDA simply CANNOT be the final line of defense to protect the American public from harm.
Aventis made over $400,000,000 just during the initial launch months for Ketek. I pray the many lawsuits for the deaths of those poor individuals who were given this poison for the common cold and lost their lives far outweighs that amount. The only way corporations will learn that it is a good business decision to protect and care for the consumer is through this type of behavior modification – take away the profit motive to harm the public.
Click Here to read the St. Petersburg Times article. It will make you… Sicko.
