Maker of Claritin Drug To Plead Guilty To Federal Criminal Anti-Kickback Charges, Pay Fine of $52 Million, Also Facing $282 Million In Civil Liabilities

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This is yet another example of a drug company exploiting the system for maximum profit. It's almost a wonder that they were even caught, given that this kind of practice is widespread in the pharmaceutical industry. Personally, I'm wondering who's going to be scrutinizing Schering-Plough for the next five years -- will it be the FDA, and if so, what motivation does the FDA have to make sure Schering-Plough follows the rules from here forward? I wouldn't be surprised if employees of the FDA were shareholders in this company or had received monies or payments in the past for being consultants or employees of this company.

The bottom line is that when it comes to prescription drug companies and the pharmaceutical industry, the American taxpayers are consistently getting screwed by the system. They're being ripped off on a daily basis from over-priced prescription drugs that can be purchased for far less from Canada, Mexico, and European countries. Every once in a while, one of these drug companies gets caught and has to pay back a portion of the profits that it stole from the American public, but by and large, most of these pharmaceutical companies consider this kind of practice to be business as usual. Very few are actually caught for these sort of underhanded deals, and even when they are caught, they are typically only required to pay back fines that represent a fraction of the profits they generated from such activities.

Once again, contrast this with the treatment given to makers of nutritional supplements when they're targeted by the FDA. For example, one company called Lane Labs was targeted by the FDA because it was selling a nutritional supplement that actually promised to cure cancer. It contained powerful immune boosting extracts of rice bran and medicinal mushrooms, and in fact, I believe the product was an effective cure for many cancers. The product was named MGN-3.

When the FDA targeted this company, they not only put them out of business, they made sure they couldn't sell MGN-3 in the United States and they demanded that the company reimburse all customers who had purchased MGN-3 over the last six years, thereby draining Lane Labs of operating cash, and practically ensuring it would go broke.

Meanwhile, when Schering-Plough is caught and pleads guilty to federal charges of ripping off taxpayers, the company is merely fined a fraction of the total revenues it generated from its operations. If this punishment had been consistent with the degree of punishment that is usually dealt out to nutritional supplement companies, Schering-Plough would have been required to actually refund the full purchase price of Claritin to all wholesale customers who had purchased the drug over the last six years. That would have amounted to a far greater dollar amount.

As you can see, there remains a great disparity in the way companies are treated by the U.S. legal system and the Food and Drug Administration, and the treatment they receive depends entirely on whether they are pushing prescription drugs vs. nutritional supplements. When a company like Lane Labs actually tells the truth about a product that helps cure cancer, it is put out of business by the FDA -- it is destroyed. But when a company like Schering-Plough admits to criminal charges involving kickbacks of hundreds of millions of dollars, it is allowed to remain in business to keep on selling its popular drug, and to make good by merely paying a fraction of the total revenues in terms of fines.

And that, folks is just one way in which the FDA makes sure that the pharmaceutical companies continue to thrive while alternative medicine, complementary medicine, nutritional supplements and other natural healing modalities remain suppressed.

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About the author: Mike Adams is a natural health author and technology pioneer with a strong interest in personal health, the environment and the power of nature to help us all heal He has authored and published thousands of articles, interviews, consumers guides, and books on topics like health and the environment, impacting the lives of millions of readers around the world who are experiencing phenomenal health benefits from reading his articles. Adams is an independent journalist with strong ethics who does not get paid to write articles about any product or company. In 2007, Adams launched EcoLEDs, a maker of super bright LED light bulbs that are 1000% more energy efficient than incandescent lights. He also launched an online retailer of environmentally-friendly products (BetterLifeGoods.com) and uses a portion of its profits to help fund non-profit endeavors. He's also a veteran of the software technology industry, having founded a personalized mass email software product used to deliver email newsletters to subscribers. Adams also serves as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a non-profit consumer protection group, and practices nature photography, Capoeira, Pilates and organic gardening. He's also author of numerous health books published by Truth Publishing and is the creator of several consumer-oriented grassroots campaigns, including the Spam. Don't Buy It! campaign, and the free downloadable Honest Food Guide. He also created the free reference sites HerbReference.com and HealingFoodReference.com. Adams believes in free speech, free access to nutritional supplements and the ending of corporate control over medicines, genes and seeds.

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Related Articles: • The FDA Exposed: An Interview With Dr. David Graham, the Vioxx Whistleblower • Mercury Fillings Shattered! FDA, ADA Conspiracy to Poison Children with Toxic Mercury Fillings Exposed in Groundbreaking Lawsuit • How the FDA is Becoming a Drug Company: Consumer Safety and Access to Natural Health Options Threatened	Take Action: Support NaturalNews.com Email this article to a friend Share this article on: NewsVine | digg | del.icio.us Permalink to this article: http://www.NaturalNews.com/001589.html Reprinting this article: Non-commercial OK, cite NaturalNews.com with clickable link. Embed article link: (copy HTML code below): <a href = "http://www.NaturalNews.com/001589.html">Maker of Claritin Drug To Plead Guilty To Federal Criminal Anti-Kickback Charges, Pay Fine of $52 Million, Also Facing $282 Million In Civil Liabilities</a>