How would you feel if your doctor were bribed to give you a drug?
by Jon Rappoport
April 27, 2017
Hello, Novartis. The pharmaceutical giant has just been fined $50 million by the government of South Korea for bribing doctors to prescribe the company’s drugs.
FiercePharma reports: “Last year, prosecutors in the country [Korea] raided Novartis offices to gather documents and account books. South Korean officials later indicted a half-dozen Novartis execs, as well as more than a dozen doctors and five medical journal heads…The Korea Times says the criminal trial is now underway.”
A Novartis spokesperson called the crime “in violation of our policies and inconsistent with our culture…”
Really? There’s more.
FiercePharma continues: “Outside of Korea, Novartis faces separate bribery claims in Greece, where an official earlier this month said ‘thousands’ of people could be implicated.”
“The company faced other allegations in Turkey, which it now considers ‘unsubstantiated,’ and paid $25 million to U.S. authorities last year to settle a bribery investigation in China.”
Sounds like bribery might be central to the culture of Novartis.
You walk into a doctor’s office. He makes a diagnosis and writes out a prescription for a drug. Unknown to you, he’s been paid off to tell you to take the drug.
In the case of Novartis, do law enforcement officials in Korea, Greece, Turkey, and China release the names of the bribed doctors and inform their patients of these crimes? If not, why not? The patients ought to know, and they ought to be able to sue the drug company.
Let’s take this whole business out on to a wider stage. Do you think doctors who take money from drug companies (e.g., for speaking fees and consulting) might be prone to altering their prescription habits? If so, consider this nugget from NPR (3/17/16): “Nationwide [in the US], nearly 9 in 10 cardiologists who wrote at least 1,000 prescriptions for Medicare patients received payments from a drug or device company in 2014, while 7 in 10 internists and family practitioners did.”
Then there is this bombshell from Business Insider (1/9/15)—wait for the punch line in the last sentence: “Companies pay doctors millions of dollars to promote not their most innovative or effective drugs, but some of their most unremarkable.”
“In the last five months of 2013, drug makers spent almost $20 million trying to convince physicians and teaching hospitals to give their freshly-patented drugs to patients, but many of them are near-copies of existing drugs that treat the same conditions.”
“A hefty portion are also available as generics, chemically identical copies that work just as well at a fraction of the price. And still others have serious side effects that only became apparent after they were approved by the FDA.”
Doctors paid by drug companies. Doctors prescribed those companies’ drugs. Some of those drugs have serious side effects.
Medicalbillingandcoding.org (5/25/11) follows the money. According to their analysis, between 2009 and 2011, these drug companies paid doctors the following amounts: Merck, $9.4 million; Johnson & Johnson, $10.6 million; Pfizer, $19.8 million; AstraZeneca, $22.8 million; GlaxoSmithKline, $96.4 million; and Eli Lilly, $144.1 million. For speaking fees, consulting fees, etc., and who knows what else? Does this cast an ominous cloud over the companies and their favorite doctors? Is the Pope Catholic?
Medicalbillingandcoding,org goes on to publish fines that have been levied against drug companies (2007-2010) for engaging in illegal activities with doctors. The fines are, of course, a drop in the bucket, considering the profits of these corporations:
Forest Laboratories, $313 million; Allergan, $600 million; AstraZeneca, $520 million; Cephalon, $425 million; Pfizer, $2.3 billion.
Paying a fine is having to say you’re sorry, and then you walk away.
The next time you talk with a doctor, you might apprise him of these matters, just to liven the conversation.
(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, Exit From The Matrix, click here.)
Jon Rappoport
The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.
If I were a cynical person I might say that these fines are simply a backdoor tax that is probably written off by Pharmaceutical Corps. The bigger question to my mind is whether the authority (read CORPGOV) that levies and collects these fines is also a direct or indirect stockholder in those same companies. Inquiring minds would like to know…
Now THAT also is truly a curiousity. But once all particulars are known – can anyone stand responsible? It’s madness – isn’t it…? ????
I was working for a market research company in London in 86-87 and had to interview certain doctors (who had agreed to be interviewed via snail mail) over the phone, about what medications they were handing out. Turns out they were getting free two week holidays to Italy and even new cars being handed over to these so called “professionals,” for dishing out their toxic candy…….
Fanx for all that you do, Jon, and all the best – Al
Being blessed with a keen analytical mind, Jon, is also a curse: We’d rather not make some of the discoveries.
About eleven years ago we discovered that our son in a state mental hospital was being used as a guinea pig for drug testing. We managed to get a court order for his release, and learned this practice is widespread nationwide.
IMNAHA, I understand that you are correct. CODB = Costs of doing business are included in the exorbitant prices charged for pharmaceuticals. EXCELLENT article, Jon!!!
Big Pharma does payoff American Docs here’s how. If Doc X writes a lot of scripts for drug Y Pharma tells the DR X we’ll pay you and pay all your expenses to speak at a medical conference in Las Vegas. The speech will take one hour and we”ll pay for a three day stay. In the end of course the cost is passed on to consumers.
MURDER HEALTH CARE SYSTEM KILLING MY FAMILY ,
MEDICAL EXAMINERS OFFICES ACROSS THE COUNTRY FALSIFYING MEDICAL RECORDS DUMPING TENS OF THOUSANDS OF BODY’S EVERY YEAR NO INVESTIGATIONS .
MEDICAL EXAMINERS OFFICES CONTROLLED BY THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY .
I’m feeling little sympathy for people involved in the medical world, it’s like a cult. People are shocked and upset when told that given the right nutrients the body can heal and rebuild. I think there is also an element of fear considering the number of prominent natural health doctors who end up silenced forever. Maybe it’s a cult and a mafia.
The pharmaceutical industry spends about $40,000 a year PER DOCTOR. Every year again. To make sure that the doctors prescribe their products. Any doctor who accepts gifts of any kind is bribed. Though many might not even realise it. The only objective doctors are those who refuse to talk to or accept gifts from pharm reps. But they are pretty rare.
Some months ago at an appointment with a General Practioner, a discussion developed along these lines whereby she stated unequivocally “Most Doctors are simply salesmen for pharmaceutical companies.” Once I had balanced myself back on the chair, we continued and I departed with some dietary advice, including some recipes downloaded off the internet.The down side is she was a visiting locum whom I’m unlikely to encounter again. But it was a glimmer of hope shining from the dark recessess of a Health Dept clinic.
As a former research scientist with a large international not for profit working with the likes of Novartis, GSK, Merck, and Welcomme Trust, I cannot dispute anything in this article. I will though, note that there are many dedicated physicians, and research scientists and public health practitioners who work for these companies, myself included, will caution, do not throw the baby out with the bath water. Many medicines, when used correctly, do continue to save lives. This does get over-shadowed in the anti-pharmaceutical rhetoric. We strongly support the complementary medicine movement.
Jon – again – bull’s eye- every one of your subscribers should be passing on this information to their social networks. NPR’s article which includes a link to Dollars for Docs’ https://projects.propublica.org/docdollars/ should be spread far and wide. It is a great tool for empowering patients and the public to hold their medical practitioners accountable. Great work! AB
Thank you so much, Jon.
My husband had stent placement in 2005. At the time, a specific “coated” stent was highly encouraged, but within a year, there were all kinds of articles discouraging their use. He has been basically healthy since, but his Cardiologist retired and he has had no follow-up for around 10 years. Recently, he was seen by a different one, essentially to have a cardiac work up. Passed all tests with no issues. However, as soon as the doc came in with his results, he DEMANDED to know why my husband wasn’t on statins. He explained he tried different meds, but couldn’t tolerate them, and hadn’t taken any for over 10 years. Husband called insurance and asked for a different cardiologist recommendation. When he saw THAT one, the same thing happened. Rude doctor who warned him he was living dangerously. The truly amazing part of this story? NO ONE has taken a cholesterol level for over a decade. But PUSH the meds….
Jeri,
The Statins have been proven to be a sham now too.
The cholesterol issue was a bogus selling point for that class of drugs, which are not without problems.
Reblogged this on The Mystical Raven and commented:
It’s imperative that we wake up and understand how royally we are being SCREWED by Big Pharma, in collusion with the AMA. Learn to question everything and try to go to neutral sources before swallowing anything Big Pharma has to sell. TMR
Jon, great reporting and I just don’t get it. Why do people still get taken in by this. Waaaay back many years ago I read that THOUSANDS of people each year were harmed and even killed by legally prescribed drugs. It was called “the other drug problem”. Not only that, it was reported that thousands more were harmed, maimed and even killed by surgeons, doctors, hospitals, etc for a total of about 425,000 annually, more than all our wars and that American allopathic medical care is the third leading cause of death in our country. I said WHAT?? Don’t go there if you like living. As a result, I have seen an MD only five times since 1970! I am 74 years old in excellent health using vitamins, chiropractic, massage, good food and common sense! If more people did that, this drug problem would die for lack of interest. No one would buy their toxins. Keep up the good reporting. I’m sure you wake up more people along the way. I catch you on Fade To Blacktoo. ????????