It is so important to admit when you’re wrong. So here goes…
When I wrote that Astra-Zeneca paid the biggest corporate fine in American history ($520 million) for the off-label marketing of Seroquel, an atypical antipsychotic [I wrote that here]; I was wrong.
(NOTE: off-label marketing is the promotion of a drug – whether amongst patients, doctors, or other professionals – for uses that are not FDA-approved)
CORRECTION:
In early 2009, Eli Lilly paid an even bigger corporate fine — $1.4 billion — for the illegal off-label marketing of its star atypical antipsychotic, Zyprexa. Off-label marketing is quite the trend these days; fines since 2004 total over $7 billion (and growing), yet pharmaceutical companies continue the practice unabated.
This chart contains a list of some of the worst offenders of recent years. Note the surprising number of drugs with applications in the mental health field (both on- and off- label). Actually, if you were to include the number of drugs which address psychosomatic symptoms of PTSD like auto-immune responses, fibromyalgia, and Irritable Bowel Syndrome, mental health drugs would be in the majority.
There’s an unwritten business plan. They [pharmaceutical companies] are drivers that knowingly speed. If stopped, they pay the fine, and then they do it again.
(Lon Schneider, University of Souther California professor and off-label marketing researcher)
This aptly titled Washington Post piece, “When drug makers’ profits outweigh penalties,” explores the issue in a bit more depth — essentially the fines amount to only a fraction of pharma’s profits, and seem to be operating more as bribes than fines. I guess if you’re powerful enough, it pays to misbehave. Never mind that others are paying with their lives.
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