Story at-a-glance
- Drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has preliminarily agreed to a $3 billion settlement -- the largest federal drug-company settlement to date -- over the illegal and fraudulent sales and marketing practices of several of its drugs, including the diabetes drug Avandia
- The settlement is the culmination of a nearly decade-long federal investigation into GSK's business practices, including marketing a handful of its drugs for unapproved uses, influencing doctors, potential Medicaid reimbursement fraud, and illegal activity concerning the development and marketing of the Avandia diabetes drug
- GSK spent 11 years covering up trial data that showed Avandia was a risky drug for the heart; the company not only hid negative study data, but also manipulated study data to fit their agenda
- Despite engaging in felony criminal behavior, GlaxoSmithKline and other drug companies are only penalized with fines that amount to little more than a slap on the wrist; individuals involved in these crimes are not held accountable and thus the fraud continues
- Drug companies are among the biggest corporate criminals and felons in the United States; taking control of your health can help you avoid the need for their products and keep you safely out of their web of deceit
By Dr. Mercola
Drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline has preliminarily agreed to a $3 billion settlement over the sales and marketing practices of several of its drugs, including the diabetes drug Avandia.
This represents the largest federal drug-company settlement to date, surpassing the $2.3 billion paid by Pfizer in 2009 for illegally promoting off-label uses of four of its drugs.
The sum, though extraordinarily large by most people's standards, represents only a slap on the wrist to the drug giant, which assured investors the payments would be funded by "existing cash resources."
To put things into perspective, GlaxoSmithKline has a market value of more than $110 billion, according to the New York Times.
This massive financial clout essentially allows them to engage in criminal behavior that they can later buy their way out of – not unlike the way you might pay for a speeding ticket.
As Sidney M. Wolfe, director of Public Citizen's health research group, told the Washington Post:
"The size of the penalties, although large, are not as large as the money [the drug companies] make and so they keep doing it over again …
The only way this is going to stop, or get reversed, is to greatly increase the size of the penalties or to start sending some of the executives to jail, if appropriate."
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