Forest Pharmaceuticals pleads guilty

Forest Pharmaceuticals, an Earth City, MO drug maker, has agreed to plead guilty to federal criminal and civil charges and pay more than $313 million to resolve allegations that it made drugs without FDA approval, marketed an antidepressant for pediatric use, and gave kickbacks to doctors for prescribing these harmful drugs.

Forest Pharma, a subsidiary of New York based Forest Labs, signed a plea agreement to settle, among other charges, the illegal promotion of the antidepressant Celexa for children, and causing the submission of false insurance claims for the antidepressants Celexa and Lexapro.

The settlement alleges that Forest misled doctors and consumers by failing to disclose a European medical study that determined Celexa was ineffective for pediatric use. Lexapro is the company’s main money maker, with sales of $2.3 billion in fiscal year 2010.

Celexa (citalopram) and Lexapro (escitalopram oxalate) can cause suicidal thoughts or actions in children.

Recognize that the real problem is that psychiatrists fraudulently diagnose life’s problems as an “illness”, and stigmatize unwanted behavior or study problems as  “diseases.” Psychiatry’s stigmatizing labels, programs and treatments are harmful junk science; their diagnoses of “mental disorders” are a hoax – unscientific, fraudulent and harmful. All psychiatric treatments, not just psychiatric drugs, are dangerous.

Click here for more information about the harmful effects of Celexa and Lexapro.

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