Pfizer Settlement Includes Guilty Plea

[Arnold]

Pfizer will pay $2.3B to settle allegations of illegally promoting drugs

Pfizer Inc. and a subsidiary agreed to pay $2.3 billion to settle charges that it illegally promoted certain drugs. Missouri will get $22 million as its share of the settlement.

The U.S. Department of Justice said in a Wednesday release that the settlement with Pfizer and its Pharmacia & Upjohn Co. Inc. unit is the largest health care fraud settlement in the agency???s history. The agreement resolves criminal and civil liability of Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) in the case.

Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster said in a separate release that Missouri???s share of the settlement ???shows why it is so important to our state to stay focused on Medicaid fraud.???

Information about whether Kansas is party to the settlement wasn???t immediately available from the DOJ, the Kansas attorney general???s office or Pfizer.

The DOJ said in its release that Pharmacia & Upjohn agreed to plead guilty to violating the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act for misbranding anti-inflammatory drug Bextra with the intent to defraud or mislead. Pfizer withdrew the drug from the market in 2005. Pfizer promoted the sale of Bextra for several uses and dosages that the Food and Drug Administration wouldn???t approve because of safety concerns.

Pfizer will pay a criminal fine of $1.195 billion, the largest criminal fine ever imposed in the United States for any matter, the DOJ release said. Pharmacia & Upjohn will forfeit $105 million, for a total criminal resolution of $1.3 billion.

Pfizer also will pay $1 billion to resolve allegations under the civil False Claims Act that the company illegally promoted four drugs ??? Bextra; Geodon, an anti-psychotic drug; Zyvox, an antibiotic; and Lyrica, an anti-epileptic drug ??? and caused false claims to be submitted to government health care programs for uses that weren???t medically accepted and therefore weren???t covered by those programs.

The civil settlement also resolves allegations that Pfizer paid kickbacks to health care providers to induce them to prescribe these and other drugs. The federal share of the civil settlement is $668.5 million, and the state Medicaid share of the civil settlement is $331.5 million ??? the largest civil fraud settlement ever against a pharmaceutical company.

Pfizer acknowedged in a release ???certain improper actions related to the promotion of Zyvox??? but denied all other civil allegations.

Pfizer also agreed to enter into a corporate integrity agreement with the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services, that provides for procedures and reviews to avoid and detect similar conduct.

???Today???s landmark settlement is an example of the Department of Justice???s ongoing and intensive efforts to protect the American public and recover funds for the federal treasury and the public from those who seek to earn a profit through fraud,??? Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli said in the DOJ release. ???It shows one of the many ways in which federal government, in partnership with its state and local allies, can help the American people at a time when budgets are tight and health care costs are increasing.???

source

 

[Big Smoothy]

Thanks for the article, Prince.

Big Pharma gets caught for once.

I remember the lie that was spread by a "scientific study" that stated if you stop taking this cholesterol or high blood pressure medication after you started taking it, it could kill you.

And this study....was conducted by Pfeizer, which made the medicine. It was de-bunked, but the urban legend still floats around.

Big Pharma is a cancer.

 

[bandaidwoman]

I remember the lie that was spread by a "scientific study" that stated if you stop taking this cholesterol..medication...it could kill you.

Not a lie and not sponsered by pfizer.It is called statin rebound phenomenom. It is the PRISM trial Stopping statins may cause rebound that triples risk of death

It was a trial comparing blood thinners , but they did a subanalysis. My experience has been patients who stop their statins before surgery have higher rates of postoperative MIs. So I always knew this was true and surgeons used to make fun of me when I told them I wanted my patients on their statins perioperatively. They stopped laughing after this http://cme.medscape.com/viewarticle/569734_7

The theory is that statins reduce c reactive protein and increase release of nitric oxide form the arterial wall. This study showed any statin discontinuatin, not just lipitor, produced the same negative result. So if I were to stop a statin for no reason while a patient is hospitalized, especially for chest pain , and he gets a heart attack, he can sue my pants off.

further links on the mechanism of statin rebound President's Faculty R & D Grant

Effects of Statins on Endothelium and Signaling Mechanisms -- Endres and Laufs 35 (11 Supplement 1): 2708 -- Stroke

with that said, I have no love for big pharma either. I don't remember being offered any resort trips, all I get are the dinky free pens...

 

[Big Smoothy]

^ Thanks for the info and correcting me, BW.

I appreciate you knowledge.

What is your opinion (if I may ask?) on the Obama health care plan.

I know a doctor and she doesn't like it. It's very complicated and over my head.

 

[bandaidwoman]

^ Thanks for the info and correcting me, BW.

I appreciate you knowledge.

What is your opinion (if I may ask?) on the Obama health care plan.

I know a doctor and she doesn't like it. It's very complicated and over my head.

I am a member of the Physicians for National Health Plan and we vehemently oppose his "public option" because it is not a single payer plan. Not because he is going to turn our system "socialist".

I have enclosed a link written by them:

free of both right and left wing rhetoric

If there is one link you need to read of all the ones I enclosed, read the first one

http://www.pnhp.org/campaign/materials/Refuting the Public Option.pdf

this link is a good editorial article

http://www.pnhp.org/change/Public_Option_Myths_and_Facts.pdf


this link gives the facts

as for people equating single payer with socialized medicine our website writes a good article clarifying the differance.

Single-payer coverage already works in U.S. | Physicians for a National Health Program


For anyone who thinks the private sector can do a better job than medicare all one has to look at is the dismal failure of Medicare Advantage Plans and Medicaid HMOs, ( privatized medicare and medicaid)

Right now I have scores of private insured patients whose private plans "rescinded" them after I diagnosed them with a devastating cancer ( ie: Burkits lymphoma, stage 4 melanoma, cutaneous T cell lymphoma etc.). They are left with no coverage and I have to get them on medicare or medicaid to pay their life saving cancer therapy. IN other words, your corporate private insurers make sure they dump the financially devastating clients with very expensive diseases back into the public for us to support them. They keep their profit margins and medicare becomes bankrupted with a pool of elderly and disabled patients who eat up the most health care dollars. Every single one of my patients who were rescinded had no prexisting cancers but the insurance frank out lied and said they had say burkits lymphoma before i diagnosed them ( some of them I have been seeing for over ten years and know their history in fine detail)

Look up insurance and rescinsion practices. How Insurance Companies Hurt Policyholders - ABC News

Health Insurance Insider: 'They Dump the Sick'

I have never had a medicare or medicaid patient get refusal of lifesaving treatment for horrific cancers. The private sector does a healthy amount of this "rationing" that makes socialized medicine " rationing" horror stories seem like mother goose tales.

 

[Big Smoothy]

Thanks BW.

I appreciate the link and your opinion on this.

I hope you keep us posted as this develops (or doesn't develop).

 

[bandaidwoman]

For an example of how successful single payer can be we can look to my homeland, their medicine has always been fee for service much like ours.


CQ Politics | Taiwan: Surprising Lessons From a Small Island

“In Taiwan, we have no waiting lists,” says Hou. “In Taiwan, the doctor works on Saturday. They operate on Saturday afternoon.” Moreover, the government does not tell its citizens where they must go for care, he said. Sophisticated information technology is a part of the health system. Each resident of the country carries a “smart card” to entitles them to health care.

“With the smart card you can go to any clinic at any time without an appointment,” Hou said. And there is no “gatekeeper” denying access to specialists, a frequent complaint among Americans about U.S. managed care companies. ....

Hou says the single payer approach is key to keeping costs generally affordable because everyone is in the same insurance pool. That means premium money left over because of the relatively low costs of healthy people can be used to pay for the care of sick people. In a system of multiple smaller insurers, sicker people have a hard time finding affordable coverage because insurers try to make money by appealing to good risks and avoiding bad ones....

The Massachussets plan is a mini Obama plan and it is bombing...

 

[danzik17]

For an example of how successful single payer can be we can look to my homeland, their medicine has always been fee for service much like ours.


CQ Politics | Taiwan: Surprising Lessons From a Small Island






The Massachussets plan is a mini Obama plan and it is bombing...

That's the big advantage I see is the scale. The majority of people are relatively healthy and as you pointed out earlier, we already DO pay for the most expensive healthcare via medicare/medicaid when HMOs dump/rescind their most expensive policy holders because they affect profits too much.

The disadvantage that I see (and this is a BIG one) is that we need legislation to keep Congress' hands OFF of this money. I don't want to see the trillions that we spend on health care turned into IOU's like what happened to Social Security when it was lumped into the general fund.

 

[KelJu]

I had been paying close attention to this, because my mom and bother both took Vioxx, and my mother was switched from Vioxx to Bextra for treatment of arthritis a few years ago. She and my brother joined the class action lawsuit.

If a pharmaceutical company makes a drug that helps people, but it turns out to have long term consequences, I don't really blame drug companies. It is a crap shoot with anything you put in your body, and ultimately your responsibility.

However, it is total bullshit that pharm reps are allowed to pimp new drugs to doctors for kickbacks instead of doctors staying informed of new drugs via independent companies who run long term clinical trials. Plus, the FDA is a fucking joke, but I don't blame them either. If you test a drug too long, many people suffer or die while those drugs are approved. If you push them through too quickly, you end up letting bad drugs hit the market that are dangerous.

Maybe I have a bias because I have been on medication for years that has improved my quality of life. I like drug companies in the basic essence of developing new drugs to help people. But, I also have an awesome doctor who has never tried to push drugs on me for the sake making more money.



Here is a pretty good article about the lawsuit. The thing that pisses me off is how Pfizer blatantly pushed their reps to lie to doctors about Bextra, what it should be prescribed for, and at what doses.

Pfizer Whistleblower Tells His Bextra Story - NPR Health Blog : NPR


Also, I would like to hear bandaidwoman's opinion of these, since she knows worlds more about this than I do. And, if I am wrong, I would like to know.

 

[bandaidwoman]

Remember, when a doctor prescribes a drug, we get absolutely no money. In fact, I lose money on the paper I bought to write it on. The drug company does not pay me any commission. My fees for the visit come from the insurance and copays you have. I don't get paid more for prescribing a brand name than a generic. Now pharmacists do get a commission for switching from brand name to generic, something the public does not know.


I was never "pimped" beyond some cheap pens and an occassional lunch. Since I am a professor and am surrounded by medical students I always have to support my drug choices with data.

We usually try to prescribe a drug because the medical data fits the personal profile in front of us. Sometimes that means a generic, sometimes a brand name.

For instance, a patient who recieves a drug eluting cardiac stent, there is absolutely nothing generic that comes close to protectiing against restensosis than an expensive as shit drug like plavix,..... not asprin, not warfarin, (especially in the immediate placement.)If I were to put you on asprin after a stent only and you reinfarct and have another blockage, you can successfully sue my ass the data is so strong.

If someone has diabetic nephropathy and develops life threatening angioedema on the generic ACE inhibitors, I have to put them on expensive brand name ARB inhibitors since those are the only two drug classes that consistently show prevention of progression of diabetic nephropathy. ( In fact the data is much stronger with the brand name ARBS but we always try our patients on the cheaper generic ACEs).

I believe pfizer should be punished.

And remember, in our current environment, 80% of the current drug companies' research are not in innovative new drugs but patent extensions......, "me too drugs" (Nexium is just an left handed isomer of prilosec, exact same chemical compounds but mirror images) or adding a side chain so you have longer acting drug ( seroquel xr vs generic seroquel)..This is so they can satisfy the stock holder's thrist for quick profit returns..

And just remember, private health insurance companies do not fund any kind of innovative medical reasearch. The best stuff that has the greatest potential for ground breaking applications are still mostly from the NIH,.... yes, our tax money, well spent by the government to fund research without any corporate bias.

 

[Big Smoothy]

Thanks for the response and the info Bandaidwoman.

If you want to, in a nustshell of a couple sentences:

question:

What is the difference between the single payer, and the public option Obama plan that is similar to the Massachusetts plan?

Thanks if you answer, because I don't know the difference.

 

[bandaidwoman]

Thanks for the response and the info Bandaidwoman.

If you want to, in a nustshell of a couple sentences:

question:

What is the difference between the single payer, and the public option Obama plan that is similar to the Massachusetts plan?

Thanks if you answer, because I don't know the difference.

Think of the public option as a one stop shopping from which an uninsured can choose from hundreds of different plans. The proposed public option will provide three kinds of plans — “basic, enhanced, and premium plans” just like private insurance industy for a particular plan. They would have low or high deductibles, low or high copays just like the private market. And this is the kicker....., private plans can jump into this public option exchange! In essence, private insurance companies can masquerade as a "public plan" much like they did the medicaid HMOs and Medicare Advantage plans.

Sounds good in theory but it does not streamline the administrative tasks
for us doctors and hospitals ( Remember, administrative costs cost this country 85 billion a year) We would still need
need the complex cost tracking and billing apparatus that drives administrative costs.

When medicare and medicaid went from single payer to the hundreds of plans provided by private plans in medicare advantage and hmos, I would have had to hire a whole army of people just to deal with the administrative tasks. In fact, all the doctors in this county ( republican and democratic) opted not to take these plans ( even though they paid us better!)

Here is an interesting statistic, Duke University Hospital has 500 beds, and it has 500 coders! That is one coder per bed! That is a higher ratio than nurses per bed! What a waste! ( That is just coders, how many billers and collections persons did they also have to hire to deal with different plans!)

For intelligent articles that address this without either left or right wing politics, just go the phnp website, and search within the website for hundreds of articles that intelligently critisize the public option. ( written by doctors, economists etc.)

 

[Big Smoothy]

^ Thanks again, for the info, Bandaidwawoman.

That was an informative synopsis and I'll check the phnp site.