Top 10 Fraud Recoveries All Came from Health Care Companies

Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Every one of the top fraud settlements reached last year by the federal government involved health care, including eight cases involving pharmaceutical companies. The largest amount recovered was $600 million from Allergan for illegally marketing Botox. Other drug makers who got busted were AstraZeneca ($520 million for illegally marketing the anti-psychotic drug Seroquel); Novartis ($423 million for unapproved promotion of Trileptal); and Forest Laboratories/Pharmaceuticals ($313 million for marketing the thyroid drug Levothroid without government approval and unlawfully promoting two antidepressants, Celexa and Lexapro, for pediatric use).
 
Taxpayers Against Fraud has calculated that the Department of Justice recovered $3.1 billion in Fiscal Year 2010 thanks to the False Claims Act and whistleblowers which means that it is bringing in $15 for every $1 it spends on investigations.
-David Wallechinsky
 
FY 2010 False Claims Act Settlements (Taxpayers Against Fraud)

Comments

Daniel Haszard 14 years ago
Eli Lilly Zyprexa saga They called it the *Five at Five* (5 mg at 5 pm to keep nursing home patients subdued and sleepy) and *VIVA ZYPREXA* (Zyprexa for everybody) campaigns to off label market Eli Lilly Zyprexa as a fix for unapproved usage. A New York Times report reviews what has been accomplished by multiple civil and criminal lawsuits against Big Pharma companies that have relied on fraud to market industry's worst pharmaceuticals--antipsychotic drugs--which have become industry's most profitable cash cow. "The new generation of antipsychotics has also become the single biggest target of the False Claims Act, a federal law once largely aimed at fraud among military contractors. Hundreds of millions of dollars or is currently under investigation for possible health care fraud." Only 9 percent of adult Americans think the pharmaceutical industry can be trusted right around the same rating as big tobacco. No Wonder! --- Daniel Haszard Zyprexa victim activist http://www.zyprexa-victims.com

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