re: #178 ~Fianna

Actually, it’s not this administration that was working with Pfizer. The blog post linked above doesn’t give quite the whole story.

First, this is the 3rd time Pfizer has been involved in this sort of litigation.
Second, some of that money is going to individual plaintiffs who were suing because of harm caused by Bextra.
Third, Pfizer created marketing materials and paid doctors to promote these off label uses without clearly defining them as being off-label - one reason why they don’t go after the doctors for this is that a large portion of continuing education for practicing doctors on new drugs and treatments come from conferences and materials provided and paid for by drug makers. The doctor may not know that they’re writing an off-label scrip.
Fourth, in order to settle similar allegations before, Pfizer entered in to an agreement [PDF file] with the DOJ in 2002 in which they agreed to crack down on these exact behaviors - which they obviously didn’t adhere to.

Big Pharma isn’t evil - but it is concerned about its bottom line over anything else. That’s how mega corporations operate and unfortunately one of the characteristics of a corporation is the many levels of insulation between a decision and the people it effects, which can create something like a mob mentality - I’m just a cog in the wheel, I’m not responsible; it’s for the good of the shareholders/the division; someone in legal can worry about whether this is right or lawful, that’s what they do, right?

I was making a sarcastic comment. I was imagining a make-believe situation (maybe). Big Pharma is not the bad boys, Obama was making secret deals with them, see, Obama is doing good, dealing with Big Good Pharma, not Big Bad Pharma.

Just some vague humor.