Makers of Prozac, Cialis and Cymbalta Admit To Doctor Payoffs
Beginning in 2012, all drug companies will be required by the FDA to report their promotional expenditure numbers to the federal government, but Eli Lilly, among other companies, started reporting their information in 2009. According to their own admission, in 2011 Eli Lilly, makers of Cialis, Cymbalta, Prozac and others paid out more than $200 million to doctors and healthcare providers for promoting their drugs/products. ProPublica.org’s Dollars for Docs database tracks other pharmaceutical companies’ disclosures of payoffs and bribes as well.
Why did Eli Lilly provide payment information back to 2009? Because the pharmaceutical company was involved in a criminal settlement and ordered to disclose these payments. In addition to that, they paid $1.4 billion to settle criminal and civil allegations of promoting their drugs for unapproved uses. An FDA official testified that Eli Lilly concealed the risks of its schizophrenia drug Zyprexa from U.S. officials, while knowing the serious health risks it caused. In addition to defrauding Medicare/Medicaid, they clearly put profit over the concern of the consumer.
This is yet another example of the need for consumers to pay attention to the near-comical warnings in drug commercials and to do our own research on the effects of drugs. We owe it to ourselves to do our best to seek natural treatments and lifestyle changes rather than drugs and surgery because, as this story demonstrates, drug companies are often lead more by profit motive than ensuring their products are safe. A business certainly can’t be blamed for trying to make a profit because they have employees, bills, buildings, insurance, research and product development to pay for, but when their product is sold and presented as safe while in reality being dangerous, that’s when consumers should demand more. A lot more.
