Pfizer also has a checkered past with Health and Human Services (HHS) Corporate Integrity Agreements (CIA) that are essentially promise to "sin no more."
While Pfizer was under a 5-year CIA* with HHS for withholding $20 million in Lipitor rebates owed to Medicaid in 2002, it was already marketing Neurontin for off-label indications which earned it a second CIA in 2004. Undaunted, Pfizer proceeded to market Lyrica, a drug similar to Neurontin (sometimes called "son of Neurontin") off-label while under its second CIA, earning it a third. CIAs are quite the deterrent!
Before its COVID-19 "good guy" makeover, Pfizer was linked to some of the most notoriously unsafe drugs that have come down the pipeline. It bought Warner-Lambert in 2000 knowing the company's marketing practices were under criminal investigation and its Rezulin (mentioned below) had been withdrawn. Then Pfizer bought the hormone maker Wyeth knowing it carried the baggage of the diet drug Fen-Phen's heart valve suits and cancer lawsuits from its hormone replacement drug.
It is no surprise that company with such a long rap sheet would unethically churn to Covid-19 fears for profit.
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