# How come the largest helthcare fraud settlement doesn't even get a thread? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 6, 2009, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-the-largest-helthcare-fraud-settlement-doesnt-even-get-a-thread/509105 "2009-09-06T22:37:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2009, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-the-largest-helthcare-fraud-settlement-doesnt-even-get-a-thread/509105/21 "2009-09-07T13:23:49Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > The FDA makes sure that drug companies do not market drugs except for purposes for which the drugs have been deemed safe. How any drug is prescribed is up to the physician. Given the volume and success of off-label use, you would have a lot of unhappy, unhealthy people if it were banned. **Mosier** , you’d really be surprised at how often drugs are used off-label. It’s common, accepted practice, done typically with years of evidence that the drug helps the indication in question. If the drug companies were required to go off and go through the FDA testing cycle (on a drug that’s already been FDA approved, just not for that particular disease) for every new indication before a doctor could prescribe it for that, drugs would cost a hell of a lot more than they already do. For instance, at one point I was on [amitriptyline](http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/meds/a682388.html#other-uses), FDA approved as an antidepressant, as a migraine preventative. It’s also used for pain from shingles and as a treatment for eating disorders. Check the link - that’s a NIH website, listing its other uses and suggesting that if you’re a patient, you can ask your doctor about it. The [Wiki page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amitriptyline)’s approval section shows that the migraine indication is officially approved in some European countries but not in the US. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2009, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-the-largest-helthcare-fraud-settlement-doesnt-even-get-a-thread/509105/22 "2009-09-07T13:30:38Z")
This part made me perk up: > [@](#): > > Pfizer reported a 90% drop in profit to $268m in the fourth quarter of 2008, because of the $2.3bn legal settlement, indicating that the company was aware they would be paying this sum before the terms of the deal with the Department of Justice were announced. Just going to pick that out: 1. Pfizer reported a 90% drop in profit 2. to $268m 3. in the fourth quarter of 2008 That sounds like a decent profit to me. Fwiw, I’d completely forgotten about [Pfizer’s behaviour in Nigeria](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer#Nigeria): > [@](#): > > In 1996, an outbreak of measles, cholera, and bacterial meningitis occurred in Nigeria. Pfizer representatives traveled to Kano, Nigeria to assist in treating the affected population. An experimental antibiotic, trovafloxacin, was administered to approximately 200 children. Local Kano officials report that more than 50 children died from infection, while many others developed mental and physical deformities.[24] In 2001, families of the children, as well as the governments of Kano and Nigeria, filed lawsuits regarding the treatment[25]. According to the lawsuits, Pfizer administered the trovafloxacin (now marketed as Trovan) without parental consent. The lawsuits also accuse Pfizer of using the outbreak to perform unapproved human testing, as well as allegedly under-dosing a control group being treated with traditional antibiotics in order to skew the results of the trial in favor of Trovan. Pfizer denied these claims, and subsequently produced an approval letter for testing from the Nigerian Ethics Committee The phrase ‘human guinea pigs’ isn’t far from my lips. _Paging Mr Godwin_ ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2009, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-the-largest-helthcare-fraud-settlement-doesnt-even-get-a-thread/509105/23 "2009-09-07T21:05:25Z")
The reason the fraud did not get a thread, was that it is just business as usual. In some perverted and twisted logic, we accept that corporations will do anything they can to make money. Regulation and environmental concerns are anti business. A proper corp will fight and cheat to make money. It is our job to stop them. Of course some fools think if corporations are left without regulation ,they will just naturally do the right thing. These people like Greenspan. are part of a economic philosophy called "thieving idiots and their enablers’. The people interests are served by fighting them as hard as we can. and to regulate and police them thoroughly. We are just so used to reading about corporations breaking the law that it feels like yesterdays news. It is yesterday, todays and tomorrows if we don’t clamp down on them. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2009, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-the-largest-helthcare-fraud-settlement-doesnt-even-get-a-thread/509105/24 "2009-09-07T21:09:17Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > The reason the fraud did not get a thread, was that it is just business as usual. Or because maybe people who get annoyed enough to post “omg why hasn’t anyone posted a thread on this?!” are the ones who should be posting that thread in the first place, and all the other latest outrages have threads because other people are shouldering the workload for them. I don’t remember seeing a list of assigned thread-posting jobs around here. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2009, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-the-largest-helthcare-fraud-settlement-doesnt-even-get-a-thread/509105/25 "2009-09-08T00:04:11Z")
> [@Ferret\_Herder](#): > > Or because maybe people who get annoyed enough to post “omg why hasn’t anyone posted a thread on this?!” are the ones who should be posting that thread in the first place, and all the other latest outrages have threads because other people are shouldering the workload for them. I don’t remember seeing a list of assigned thread-posting jobs around here. I’m grateful you want to make the thread to be about me but I ought to mention the reason I left it 5 days was to see if there was any reaction. Now, hopefully back to the issue. Btw, with 2 million in prison the US prison population is 10 times that of the European average; are things right when people get sent to prison for possession of x quantity of grass and executives face no personal penalty at all for corporate fraud on an historic scale? I mean, if you’re going to lock up so many people . . . ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2009, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-the-largest-helthcare-fraud-settlement-doesnt-even-get-a-thread/509105/26 "2009-09-08T14:27:50Z")
You show me a rich, fat guy who dumps his Pfizer stock, and I’ll show you the wife of a fat, rich guy who has a lot more time for gardening. What’s truly important in this whole mess is that the boner pill gravy train doesn’t dry up. ---
**Author:** ![Strassia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e8c25b/32.png) [@Strassia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strassia)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2009, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-the-largest-helthcare-fraud-settlement-doesnt-even-get-a-thread/509105/27 "2009-09-08T21:30:39Z")
This reminds me of why I don’t like the way our drug approval process works. The classic example is Prozac (read all the details in this [book](http://www.amazon.com/Talking-Back-Prozac-Doctors-Controversial/dp/0312956061/ref=sr_1_1/175-9004870-6109032?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252442938&sr=8-1)). Long story short the only way it got approved was by repeatedly submitting the same data set but filtering out any group that had a lower success rate. They basically took multiple studies that showed it was less effective than a placebo and turned them into one study that showed it barely worked. I told this to a psychology professor in class once. He didn’t believe me. He thought the doctor who wrote the book just had an axe to grind. I went to check the actual studies submitted. Unfortunately, the FDA did not have that available online. They did have an administrative letter addressing a application to approve Prozac for pediatric usage. It stated that this was the second application using data showing that Prozac was not effective on children. I just checked again, and it is now approved, but the original descrpencies are referred to [here](http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/nda/2003/18936S064_Prozac%20Pulvules_admindocs.pdf). What scares me is the that drug companies pay for these studies, only publish successful ones ([cite](http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2008/01/23/an-analysis-of-not-publishing-negative-drug-studies/)), and then can repackage the data and add to until they get the results they want. It is truly frightening. Jonathan ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Awesome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a698b9/32.png) [@Captain\_Awesome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Awesome)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-the-largest-helthcare-fraud-settlement-doesnt-even-get-a-thread/509105/28 "2009-09-09T00:06:45Z")
The serotonin hypothesis is scientifically unproven and unsupported. All SSRIs are [flawed](http://www.badscience.net/2008/01/washing-the-numbers-selling-the-model/). Big Pharma make $16.9 billion per annum from them whilst the facts are swept under the carpet. Meanwhile the media & public think a simple chemical solution exists. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-the-largest-helthcare-fraud-settlement-doesnt-even-get-a-thread/509105.md?page=1)