"Any pharmaceutical company that intentionally inflates the cost of prescription drugs with elaborate pricing schemes robs states and beneficiaries nationwide of millions of Medicare and Medicaid dollars," said Daniel Levinson, HHS Inspector General.
"We will not tolerate any company abusing programs intended to benefit our most vulnerable citizens," he stated
About six months later in March 2006, in a new case involving the same old behavior, Paxil was back in the news when Glaxo paid $14 million to settle another lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Spitzer on behalf of 49 states, alleging the company fraudulently tried to delay competitors from marketing a generic version of Paxil by filing frivolous patent infringement lawsuits.
In a statement, another state Attorney General involved in the case, Jay Nixon from Missouri said: "GSK used the courts to hold onto a monopoly for a popular drug and the end result was that consumers - including Medicaid - paid more than they should have."
The settlement reportedly covered the cost of Paxil purchased by state and federally funded Medicaid programs but as usual Glaxo denied any guilt. "We made the decision that settling was appropriate," it said, "to avoid the expense and distraction of protracted litigation."
The next month, on April 17, 2006, the Sun Herald announced that a $3.5 million multistate antitrust settlement had been reached with Glaxo concerning the drug Augmentin, once again to settle charges that Glaxo fraudulently delayed generic competition.
In another case a few months later, in August 2006, Glaxo agreed to pay more than $70 million to settle a number of lawsuits alleging that the company over charged patients, health care plans and insurers for pharmaceuticals for more than a decade.
This litigation involved more lawsuits filed by New York Attorney General Spitzer and other state attorneys general claiming that Glaxo overcharged customers by hundreds of millions of dollars and accused the company of consumer fraud, commercial bribery, and false statements to government health plans.
Mary Anne Rhyne, spokeswoman for Glaxo, said the settlement would cover a class action filed by individual consumers, health-care plans, and insurers, according to Bloomberg News on August 11, 2006.
She said the company had also settled overpricing litigation or investigations by the attorneys general of New York, California, Connecticut, Montana, Nevada and Arizona and potential claims from 34 other states, including New Jersey, Delaware, and the District of Columbia, she said.
"Our lawsuit helped stop a long-standing practice that inflated the cost of drugs for people suffering from cancer and cheated the Medicaid system," Mr Spitzer said in the Bloomberg article. "Today's settlement provides significant restitution for consumers and the Medicaid program."
It is worth noting that this settlement with state governments came less than a year after Glaxo agreed to pay the $150 to settle the same charges in the lawsuit filed under the False Claims Act by Federal health care programs.
But last month, the government hit the jackpot with Glaxo. On September 12, 2006, the Huffington Post reported that Glaxo had agreed to pay more than $3 billion to settle charges by the IRS that the company under-reported profits to avoid paying US taxes.
However, here too, in true Glaxo form, the company denied any guilt and said it only paid the $3 billion to settle the case to avoid protracted litigation.
Families seeking justice for infants born with Paxil related birth defects can contact the Baum Hedlund Law Firm at: (800) 827-0087; http://www.baumhedlundlaw.com/
More "science" in science fiction than meets the eye
After reading the section of your report describing severe agitation in Paxil test subjects, I wondered if Joss Whedon had heard about the situation when he wrote the script for his movie Serenity (spoiler warning: the connection is a major plot point).
Well, keep posting to OpEdNews--can't stop the signal.
by
khedges1 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 19 comments)
on Saturday, October 14, 2006 at 4:45:19 PM
