According to a study by Public Citizen, the pharmaceutical industry is the biggest defrauder of the federal government. The study found that pharmaceutical cases accounted for at least 25% of all payouts under the False Claims Act over the last decade. This far exceeds payouts by the traditional leader, the defense industry. During the past 20 years, there were 165 settlement payouts by the pharmaceutical industry, comprising 19.8 billion in penalties, and 73% of the settlements and 75% of the payouts occurred during the last five years.
Two things stand out to me about this trend. The first is that the penalties and fines don't seem to be deterring illegal behavior. Secondly, CEOs of drug companies aren't getting fired willy-nilly even when their companies are paying BILLION dollar fines. Something is seriously wrong here.
Time for the marginally relevant video of the day: Bill Maher on big pharma.
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