JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press

Updated 11:43 a.m., Monday, July 2, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) — GlaxoSmithKline LLC will pay $3 billion and plead guilty to promoting two popular drugs for unapproved uses and to failing to disclose important safety information on a third in the largest health care fraud settlement in U.S. history, the Justice Department said Monday.

The $3 billion fine also will be the largest penalty ever paid by a drug company, Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole said. The corporation also agreed to be monitored by government officials for five years to attempt to ensure the company's compliance, Cole said.

"Let me be clear, we will not tolerate health care fraud," Cole told a news conference at the Justice Department. He would not say whether any company executives were under investigation. The company's guilty plea and sentence have to be approved by a federal court in Massachusetts.

"For far too long, we have heard that the pharmaceutical industry views these settlements merely as the cost of doing business," Acting Assistant Attorney General Stuart F. Delery, head of Justice's civil division, said at the news conference. "That is why this administration is committed to using every available tool to defeat health care fraud."

Delery added, "Today's resolution seeks not only to punish wrongdoing and recover taxpayer dollars, but to ensure GSK's future compliance with the law." He noted that a similar recent settlement with Abbott Laboratories also included continuing compliance monitoring.

It is illegal to promote uses for a drug that have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration — a practice known as off-label marketing.

Prosecutors said GlaxoSmithKline illegally promoted the drug Paxil for treating depression in children from April 1998 to August 2003, even though the FDA never approved it for anyone under age 18. The corporation also promoted the drug Wellbutrin from January 1999 to December 2003 for weight loss, the treatment of sexual dysfunction, substance addictions and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, although it was only approved for treatment of major depressive disorder.

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Read more here: http://www.chron.com/news/article/GlaxoSmithKline-to-pay-3-billion-for-health-fraud-3678945.php

One could be cynical and say it is only a slap on the wrist. Yes, GSK made millions/billions more than the fine, however, the continued government monitoring is a step in the right direction, IMHO.

Let's see what da gubmint does about those executives, shall we?

Saw this on NBCNews on local cable and was scratching my head wondering what the purpose of this case is. Where is the catch? Never do Big Pharma company corporations get nailed for just lying, stealing and killing!

What's the false flag here and what is going on elsewhere....? Like Exon Mobile getting caught spilling oil - they went on and made a profit out of the saga.

Hmmm?

Ah so, grasshopper! Thanks for asking the question, Sky.

Just looky here! A whistelblower brought 'em down!

GlaxoSmithKline's (GSK) $3 Billion Whistleblower Settlement Has Paid for One Of America's Most Expensive Failed Corporate Internal Investigations, Qui Tam Whistleblowers' Attorneys Say


PHILADELPHIA, July 2, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- GlaxoSmithKline has just paid for one of the most expensive failed internal investigations in corporate history, qui tam whistleblower attorney Brian Kenney said today. His law firm, Kenny & McCafferty, P.C., represents the two whistleblowers who sparked the nine-year federal probe that ended with today's $3 billion payment to settle off-label drug marketing allegations involving nine prescription drugs.

"When our clients were forced out of their marketing positions, GlaxoSmithKline ('GSK') had proof of illegal off-label prescription drug marketing. Our clients properly reported those marketing misdeeds to management in 2001. An ensuing GSK internal investigation verified their allegations, but the company took no action, choosing hefty profits over compliance and patient safety," said whistleblower attorney Tavy Deming of Kenney & McCafferty.

"GSK could have saved hundreds of millions, perhaps a billion or more dollars of the $3 billion it paid today by following through on the combined Human Resources /Corporate Compliance investigation they launched. Instead they ignored evidence of improper marketing and physician kickbacks. When you look at the detail and accuracy of Greg Thorpe's written complaints distributed to the highest levels of Glaxo (See 'Document Links' Below) it's almost surreal that the company took no corrective action. Now more than a decade later, GSK is essentially admitting that Thorpe had been right in 2001," Kenney said. "It's been a very, very, very long 10 years for whistleblowers Thorpe and Blair Hamrick."

GSK's top management was aware of illegal marketing schemes involving the drugs, according to filed court documents. When the two Kenney & McCafferty-represented whistleblowers reported their concerns about illegal marketing practices they were witnessing in the field, GSK's top compliance executive, an attorney who now holds a similar position with another medical device manufacturer, became involved in and oversaw the ensuing internal investigation.

Instead of changing the illegal conduct, the Company retaliated against the whistleblowers and they became the first to file an off-label marketing qui tam whistleblower Complaint against GSK. The original Complaint is one of the first ever filed alleging prescription drug off-label promotion, Kenney said.

When the whistleblowers' Complaints were still under seal and being investigated by the government GSK allegedly falsified and concealed documents in connection with an FDA inquiry into whether GSK marketed the antidepressant drug Wellbutrin off-label for weight loss, a central allegation in the whistleblowers' Complaints. That led to the indictment of a GSK associate corporate counsel, said Deming. Federal charges against the former associate general counsel later were subsequently dismissed by the court. (U.S. v. Lauren Stevens, District of Maryland)

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Read more here: http://tinyurl.com/bwqbnym



See this link to note where their political donations in the US went: (note they are a registered BRITISH Company). Also note the years - all together now "Obamacare."

http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00199703

This makes me want to puke! How truly sad and pathetic these greedy ba$tard$ really are. BAH!

Equal donations to individual Congress criminals in Dem and Rep parties - buying votes and cooperation across the board. No discrimination here folks, no party lines, both sides equally culpable. If the politicians wouldn't take the money, there would be no buying support. Blame enough to go around equally to the company buying and the politicians bought.

But I think me sees a rope-a-dope here too Sky. Big stink, "oh what a good job we did stopping these evil-doers", (just don't look over there, where we are doing the really big bad stuff). When they put something in my face like this, I turn around and try to see what is going on behind my back, behind the scenes, so to speak. I suspect one thing they are trying to hide is the huge fraud perpetrated for decades with vaccines; there seems to be more in the news lately disclosing not just their ineffectiveness but acknowledgment of the real harm they do. Just one of the things we aren't supposed to see....

Alternative media blows the lid on Big Pharma's massive bribery network

Through exclusive interviews with pharma insiders, InfoWars and NaturalNews have done what the mainstream media refuses to do: grant a platform to credible whistleblowers who are exposing the systematic, criminal Big Pharma bribing of doctors who willingly accept kickbacks to write prescriptions for high-profit pharmaceuticals.

These revelations are surfacing on the heels of the drug industry's largest settlement in history: GlaxoSmithKline's $3 billion fine and guilty plea to committing felony crimes (http://www.naturalnews.com/036416_Glaxo ... nal_char...). NaturalNews editor Mike Adams (the Health Ranger) was able to connect with one of the key whistleblowers who initiated that nine-year DOJ investigation, and he went on the record with shocking allegations about off-label pharmaceutical marketing and the systematic bribery of doctors (http://www.naturalnews.com/036499_Glaxo ... ibery.html).

The video interview with Blair Hamrick is available at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_RJ9QPG70U
and:
http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=1FE64 ... A936722510

Blair was also interviewed by Adams on the Alex Jones Show (www.InfoWars.com), where he revealed additional information about Glaxo's activities such as the "coaching" of pharmaceutical sales reps to enroll doctors in elaborate kickback schemes. The video of that interview is available below.

Caller blows the whistle on the physician bribery underground
Following Blair's interview on the Alex Jones Show, a woman who identified herself as "Ally" called in to the show and described, in authentic language and tone, how she had worked inside a company that managed the "kickback" relationships between drug companies and doctors. On live national radio, she proceeded to describe details about how doctors would earn up to $6,000 a day as part of Big Pharma's speakers bureaus. In her own words, below, she explains how doctors and physicians lined up to cash in on the bribery payoffs, happy to sell their souls to Big Pharma while pimping out drugs that were often shown to be dangerous -- even deadly -- to the consuming public.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/036510_docto ... z21ERuWa5b