Two years ago, drugmaker Eli Lilly pleaded guilty to illegally marketing its blockbuster antipsychotic Zyprexa for elderly patients. Lilly paid $1.4 billion in criminal penalties and settlements in four civil lawsuits. But a doctor named as a co-defendant in one suit – for allegedly taking kickbacks to prescribe the drug extensively at nursing homes – never was pursued.
What irony. Detroit mother, Maryanne Godboldo, was just charged with child neglect for refusing to obey a Child Protective Services order to give her daughter Risperdal, a powerful psychoactive drug. Meanwhile federal and multiple state prosecutors are suing Johnson & Johnson for deceptively marketing the drug – including mismarketing its use on children – and hiding dangerous adverse effects. J&J now faces a potential $1 billion in damages.
Having earlier observed the drug’s dreadful effects on her child, Maryanne was correctly pursuing holistic treatment for the child instead when the legal battle began. The jury’s ruling, now handed down against the mother, is not only a travesty of justice, but a reflection of psychopharma’s vast propaganda machine.
Drug manufacturer Ortho-McNeil-Janssen is being sued by Attorney General Martha Coakley for illegally marketing Risperdal, an atypical antipsychotic medication. The complaint, filed this week in Suffolk Superior Court, further alleges that Janssen failed to disclose serious risks associated with Risperdal’s use, including the risk of excessive weight gain, diabetes and, for elderly dementia patients, an increased risk of death.
It’s getting personal now. In a shift still evolving, federal enforcers are targeting individual executives in health care fraud cases that used to be aimed at impersonal corporations.
The new tactic is raising the anxiety level — and risks — for corporate honchos at drug companies, medical device manufacturers, nursing home chains and other major health care enterprises that deal with Medicare and Medicaid.
Johnson & Johnson could be on the hook for about $1 billion to settle the government probe into its Risperdal marketing. Prosecutors are looking for a settlement about that size, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing sources. That would be the third-largest marketing settlement between a Big Pharma company and the U.S. government; only Pfizer and Eli Lilly have made larger deals with the feds.