GlaxoSmithKline to pay $3bn in US drug fraud scandal

Thrugelmir

Can we trust any business ? Not just the preserve of the banks to commit fraud.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is to pay $3bn (£1.9bn) in the largest healthcare fraud settlement in US history.

The drug giant is to plead guilty to promoting two drugs for unapproved uses and failing to report safety data about a diabetes drug to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The settlement will cover criminal fines as well as civil settlements with the federal and state governments.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18673220

joe_blotts

There's money in pushing drugs to kids you know, more than half a million kids in the Uk are on ritalin, which is amphetamine.

grizzly1911

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Can we trust any business ? Not just the preserve of the banks to commit fraud.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18673220

No.

We worry about bankers tweaking interest rates by a few basis points but are at the mercy of commodity brokers directly affecting the cost of anything from fuel, food and raw materials on a daily basis.

I wonder whether there is any truth in oil tankers anchoring offshore waiting for the price to move in their favour?

Thrugelmir

grizzly1911 wrote: »

I wonder whether there is any truth in oil tankers anchoring offshore waiting for the price to move in their favour?

Moored in Torbay regularly.

Joe_Bloggs

Three billion and no jail time. I guess they are going to pass on the costs to the rest of their remaining customers throughout the world!
J_B.

grizzly1911

Joe_Bloggs wrote: »

Three billion and no jail time. I guess they are going to pass on the costs to the rest of their remaining customers throughout the world!
J_B.

Makes up for the tax the no doubt minimise.

John_Pierpoint

grizzly1911 wrote: »

No.

We worry about bankers tweaking interest rates by a few basis points but are at the mercy of commodity brokers directly affecting the cost of anything from fuel, food and raw materials on a daily basis.

No we are not, the person owning the commodity by and large has to sell it promptly, especially if it is food as it will go out of its best before date.

If we don't like the price of something, we can substitute something cheaper. That will soon bring the price down and nobody cried for the bankrupted speculator; in the meantime the solution to high (food) prices is high (food) prices as the producers respond to the price and increase the quantity supplied.
The alternative is to have government messing about with prices and the money supply, that eventually guarantees empty shelves in the shops.

In the mean time there are many, many container loads of goods being bought and sold as the container ships plough along at 20 odd knots towards (say) Rotterdam; just watch the expression of a speculator operating out of a basement office, when he knows he has 48 hours in which to take delivery of the box or pay expensive "demurrage" penalties. The speculator badly needs to get the bill of lading endorsed over to a party that really wants the product.

Wookster

It really does seem that there is a gross failure of ethics.

What I'd really like to see are people go to prison for these acts rather than a big rich corporate pay a fine which it can easily afford.

Thrugelmir

Wookster wrote: »

What I'd really like to see are people go to prison for these acts rather than a big rich corporate pay a fine which it can easily afford.

Customers pay the fines. Not the executives in charge. Directors of large Corporations should become personally liable.

malkie76

Mostly happened in the 90s - those responsible have long since left the company. Current directors played no part, yet are dealing with the consequences.

Customers haven't directly paid this bill; shareholders have as the fine was paid from cash reserves.

Scandal is the $3bn in cash going from a UK company in the pocket of the US government. The investment potential of that money into UK science would have been fantastic.

CLAPTON

sadly this is another massive failure of the government and EU regulators

how is it possible for a drug companies to carry out say 20 clinical trials and publish the results for only say 3? (amazingly all favourable)

why aren't the results of all clinical trials freely available by law?

what are the regulutors actually doing?

like the banks it's the system that wrong and blaming CEOs etc only diverts us from the real issues.

why don't we have a whistle blowers charter like USA? (apparently they can get 25% of the claw back i.e. $750 million goes to the whistle blowers)