Tag Archives: fraud

Grassley: Are high prescription rates a sign of fraud?

A Miami doctor wrote nearly 97,000 prescriptions in 18 months for mental health drugs. An Ohio physician wrote more than 100,000 prescriptions in two years. A Texas doctor wrote more than 14,000 prescriptions for the anti-anxiety drug Xanax. These alarmingly high prescriptions numbers for mental health drugs covered by Medicare and Medicaid have prompted Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) to call for an investigation, the Associated Press reports.

$257 Million Lawsuit Award Against Antipsychotic Drug Maker: One of the largest in the history of the state & expected to set nationwide precedent

The award came late Thursday evening in a case involving the drug Risperdal, a popular antipsychotic administered for the treatment of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder manufactured by Janssen, a division of Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc., which is part of Johnson & Johnson. The jury, which has been hearing the case for almost two months, found the firm misled Louisiana doctors about the possible side effects of the drug.

Psychiatrist pleads guilty to 15 counts of fraud in Paxil clinical trials for kids

Dr. Maria Carmen Palazzo was a clinical investigator for SmithKline Beecham doing business as GlaxoSmithKline. Prosecutors say that during those studies she included psychiatric diagnoses inconsistent with patients’ psychiatric histories; prepared multiple psychiatric evaluations on study patients which contained different diagnoses and reported symptoms she knew the study subject did not demonstrate.

People & Power—Drug Money

One of the best TV exposés on Big Pharma we’ve seen, “People & Power —Drug Money” produced by Aljazeera. This piece pulls no punches exposing the rampant fraud, fatal drug side effects, off label marketing, criminal practices and “absolutely jaw dropping” payouts Pharma makes to psychiatrists/doctors. Sharon Ormsky, FBI Financial Crimes Unit states, “Pharmaceutical fraud is one of our top three threats — everybody is touched by these frauds in the extent that when you look at the billions of dollars that go into healthcare for the United States, a good percent, 3-10% of that is believed to be siphoned off into fraud—that’s money that could be going to very needy patients.”