The case was initiated by a former employee and whistle-blower who sought penalties against the company. The NY Times elaborates on the nature of the crimes at their Puerto Rico facility:
This was GlaxoSmithKline’s premier manufacturing facility, producing $5.5 billion of product each year. But Ms. Eckard [the whistle-blower] soon discovered that quality control was a mess: the water system was contaminated; the air system allowed for cross-contamination between products; the warehouse was so overcrowded that rented vans were used for storage; the plant could not ensure the sterility of intravenous drugs for cancer; and pills of differing strengths were sometimes mixed in the same bottles.Instead of heeding FDA warnings about QA/QC inadequacies of the facility and their own internal people's advice, GlaxoSmithKline either ignored and/or dismissed concerns. Ms. Eckard, who was initially sent to lead "a team of 100 quality experts to fix problems," was stonewalled by management and then dismissed once she began to demand that products be recalled. She will now earn for her part in the whistle-blower case, "$96 million from the federal government, and she will collect additional millions from states."
The circumstances surrounding this particular case are unlike previous situations.
Nearly all previous cases against the industry involved illegal marketing. This is the first successful case ever to assert that a drug maker knowingly sold contaminated products.Whereas in the past, big-pharma was tagged for deceptive marketing and off-label sales tactics, GSK engaged in the willful and knowing dissemination of tainted, ineffectual, and potentially dangerous drugs to the public. This failure of both GSK and the American government to regulate the company is another indictment of the laissez-faire deregulatory approach that highlighted the conservative dogma prevalent in the Bush years. Furthermore, it decimates any specious arguments that importation of Canadian drugs are a threat to consumers.
Given that the profit sources for big-pharma are waning and that numerous lawsuits have been asserted against big-pharma for misleading patients and "defrauding federal and state governments" the entire health care bills pushed through by both the Bush and Obama administrations reeks of corruption. These companies are clearly unable to actually provide quality drugs that benefit people. So instead of ramping up their R&D base to find new drugs, they fire scientists and engage in legislative trickery to extend the patent life of their already questionable drug performers and push onto the market products that are ineffective and potentially lethal. These people are just evil. Sick and dying people shouldn't have to worry about whether their doctor is in collusion with the drug company to push a useless product upon them. Patients shouldn't have to worry if FDA "approved" medication is actually effective or instead going to make them more sick or even kill them.
Is this all America is about? Lying, cheating, and using the government to swindle dying people out of their life savings. While congress subsidizes big-pharma, agriculture corporations, the military-industrial state, and bails out the banking industry for the umpteenth time, what are you getting? Maybe you can find it in your bonus that comes in the form of less take home pay, less benefits, less social mobility, more hours working, or more of your taxes going to maintain the lifestyles of corporate lobbyists and the "masters of the universe"-crowd.
Wake up people!
Take the red pill people, and fucking wake up!
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This blog has previously dissected and listed other areas of fraud and corruption by big-pharma:
- Novartis fined $422 Million
- Big-Pharma, perennial fraud-mongers
- Pfizer on eminant domain and corporate welfare (NY Times)
- The corruption of university bio-medical research (NY Times)
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