{"id":213,"date":"2009-09-03T15:54:27","date_gmt":"2009-09-03T21:54:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/2009\/09\/03\/pfizer-agrees-to-a-record-fraud-fine\/"},"modified":"2024-07-14T05:43:45","modified_gmt":"2024-07-14T10:43:45","slug":"pfizer-agrees-to-a-record-fraud-fine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/2009\/09\/03\/pfizer-agrees-to-a-record-fraud-fine\/","title":{"rendered":"Pfizer agrees to a record fraud fine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Wednesday, 2 September 2009<\/p>\n<p><strong>US drugmaker Pfizer has agreed to pay $2.3 Billion\u00c2\u00a0in  the largest healthcare fraud settlement in the history of the Department of  Justice<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Pfizer illegally promoted four drugs and caused false claims to be submitted  to government healthcare programs for uses that were not medically accepted. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/stlouis\/stories\/2009\/08\/31\/daily54.html?surround=lfn\">Missouri<\/a> will receive $22 million as part of the settlement.<\/p>\n<p>The civil settlement also relates to allegations that Pfizer paid bribes to  healthcare providers to induce them to prescribe\u00c2\u00a0Bextra, an anti-inflammatory  drug, Geodon, an antipsychotic drug, Zyvox, an antibiotic and Lyrica, an  epilepsy treatment.<\/p>\n<p>Geodon is a newer atypical antipsychotic, generic name ziprasidone  hydrochloride, in the major tranquilizer category. Suicidal thoughts and  violence are among the possible side effects of such antipsychotics. <em>USA  Today<\/em> on May 2, 2006\u00c2\u00a0reported a study that showed at least 45 children died  between 2000 and 2004 from the side effects of this kind of antipsychotic drug.  Despite an adults-only FDA approval for these drugs, up to 2.5 million children  were prescribed them. As the FDA&#8217;s Adverse Drug Reactions reporting database  only collects 1% to 10% of drug-induced side effects and reported deaths, the  true child death rate could be between 450 and several thousand.<\/p>\n<p>It could be dangerous to immediately cease taking psychiatric drugs because  of potential significant withdrawal side effects. No one should stop taking any  psychiatric drug without the advice and assistance of a competent medical  doctor.<\/p>\n<p>Download and read the CCHR\u00c2\u00a0report\u00c2\u00a0<em>The Side Effects of Common Psychiatric  Drugs<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/documents\/The_Side_Effects_of_Common_Psychiatric_Drugs.pdf\">available\u00c2\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Recognize that the real problem  is that psychiatrists fraudulently diagnose life&#8217;s problems as an &#8220;illness&#8221;, and  stigmatize unwanted behavior or study problems as\u00c2\u00a0 &#8220;diseases.&#8221; Psychiatry&#8217;s stigmatizing labels,  programs and treatments are harmful junk science; their diagnoses of &#8220;mental  disorders&#8221; are a hoax &#8211; unscientific, fraudulent and harmful. All psychiatric  treatments, not just psychiatric drugs, are dangerous, and can cause crime.<\/p>\n<p>It is vital that you and your associates watch the video documentary  <em>Making A Killing &#8211; The Untold Story of Psychotropic Drugging<\/em>.  Containing more than 175 interviews with lawyers, mental health experts, the  families of psychiatric abuse victims and the survivors themselves, this  riveting documentary rips the mask off psychotropic drugging and exposes a  brutal but well-entrenched money-making machine. The facts are hard to believe,  but fatal to ignore. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cchr.org\/#\/videos\/making-a-killing-introduction\">Watch the  video online<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cchr.org\/#\/free-information\">request a  free copy<\/a> from CCHR International.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pfizer paid bribes to healthcare providers to induce them to prescribe  Geodon, an antipsychotic drug. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/2009\/09\/03\/pfizer-agrees-to-a-record-fraud-fine\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-muddy-river-newsletter","category-press-releases"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6NMpC-3r","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}