Illegal Marketing of Drugs: Pfizer’s Record Fine

This is the VOA Special English Economics Report, from voaspecialenglish.com The world’s largest drug company has agreed to pay almost two and a half billion dollars for illegal marketing of medicines. The settlement between Pfizer and the United States Justice Department was announced in September. The settlement is the nation’s largest ever in a case of health care fraud. It also includes the largest criminal fine ever in any case in the United States, more than one billion dollars. Pfizer agreed to pay another billion dollars for violations of a civil law, the False Claims Act. Pfizer, based in New York, had sales last year of forty-eight billion dollars. A Pfizer division, Pharmacia & Upjohn, agreed to plead guilty to a criminal violation over the painkiller Bextra. Pfizer pushed sales of Bextra for several uses unapproved by the government because of safety concerns. It also pushed for use in unapproved amounts. Pfizer withdrew Bextra from the market in two thousand five because of links to heart attacks and other problems. Pfizer also faced civil charges over Bextra as well as three other drugs. Officials said Pfizer paid health care providers to prescribe these medicines for conditions other than the ones for which they are approved. This is called “off-label” use of a drug. Doctors are permitted to try off-label uses to treat their patients. The idea is that a doctor might find other ways that a drug is effective. But federal law bars drug companies from marketing …