Tag: big pharma

Pfizer Agrees to $60 Million Settlement in Kickback Scandal for Allegedly ‘Bribing’ Doctors to Promote Migraine Drug — Defrauding Medicare and Other Federal Health Programs

Big Pharma Pfizer has agreed to a hefty $59.7 million settlement to resolve allegations of a kickback scandal that has defrauded Medicare and other federal healthcare programs.

The scandal revolves around Biohaven Pharmaceutical, a company acquired by Pfizer in October 2022, which engaged in unethical practices to push prescriptions of its migraine medication, Nurtec ODT, also known as Rimegepant.

Whistleblower Patricia Frattasio, a former sales representative at Biohaven, played a crucial role in bringing these malpractices to light, leading to a qui tam lawsuit under the False Claims Act in 2021.

The U.S. Department of Justice disclosed that from March 2020 through September 2022, Biohaven manipulated the healthcare system by offering kickbacks—including speaker honoraria and lavish meals at upscale restaurants—to healthcare professionals.

Allegations include that Biohaven paid some healthcare providers over $100,000 to boost prescriptions of their migraine medication, Nurtec ODT, resulting in fraudulent claims to federal programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

This egregious scheme involved not just ordinary incentives, but also repeated, unnecessary educational programs that offered no real benefit to attendees, turning these events into mere facades for bribery.

This practice, aimed at increasing Nurtec ODT prescriptions, breached anti-kickback statutes designed to keep medical decisions free from financial influence.

Keep reading

Purdue Pharma, Sackler family owners agree to landmark $7.4B opioid settlement

Purdue Pharma and its Sackler family owners have reached a new $7.4 billion settlement to resolve thousands of lawsuits alleging that the pain medication Oxycontin caused a widespread opioid addiction crisis in the US, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton said Thursday.

The settlement was announced nearly seven months after the US Supreme Court upended the company’s previous attempt to resolve the lawsuits in a bankruptcy settlement that would have granted the Sacklers sweeping civil immunity from opioid lawsuits in exchange for a payment of up to $6 billion.

The Supreme Court ruled that the Sacklers, who did not file for bankruptcy themselves, were not entitled to legal protections meant to give bankrupt debtors a “fresh start.”

Under the new settlement, the Sacklers will pay $7.4 billion, without fully shutting off lawsuits from states, local governments, or individual victims of the opioid crisis. Those who do not wish to join the settlement are free to pursue lawsuits against the Sacklers, who have said they would vigorously defend themselves in court.

The deal was negotiated by 15 states, including New York, California, Connecticut, Oregon, Texas, Florida and West Virginia. The other states will be asked to sign on the settlement, which must be approved by a US bankruptcy judge before it becomes final.

Connecticut attorney General William Tong said that the settlement would help provide closure to victims of the opioid crisis.

“It’s not just about the money,” Tong said. “There is not enough money in the world to make it right.”

The latest settlement is meant to address a drug addiction crisis that has led to over 700,000 opioid overdose deaths in the United States over the past two decades.

Keep reading

J&J’s ketamine-derived nasal spray approved by FDA to treat depression

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Johnson & Johnson’s ketamine-derived nasal spray to help millions of U.S. patients suffering from severe depression.

Spravato, approved as a standalone treatment, is “the first and only monotherapy for adults living with major depressive disorder who have had an inadequate response to at least two oral antidepressants,” the pharmaceutical giant said Tuesday. 

An estimated 21 million adults in the U.S. are living with major depressive disorder, one of the most common psychiatric disorders, but one-third of them will not respond to oral antidepressants alone, hindering their quality of life, according to Johnson & Johnson. 

“Treatment-resistant depression can be very complicated, especially for patients who do not respond to oral antidepressants or cannot tolerate them. For too long, healthcare providers have had few options to offer patients much-needed symptom improvement,” Bill Martin, global therapeutic area head of Neuroscience at Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine, said in a statement. 

Keep reading

FDA Orders Pfizer to Add PARALYSIS WARNING to RSV Vaccine Labels

Last Wednesday, the FDA ordered Pfizer and GSK to add Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) as a serious adverse event risk warning to both Pfizer’s Abrysvo and GSK’s Arexy Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccine labels.

RSV is the leading cause of respiratory infection in adults over the age of 60. Prior to 2023, the CDC has not published data on the incidence of RSV death in babies and children. In 2023, the CDC estimates that approximately 100 children under the age of 5 died from RSV. Despite these low numbers, the CDC recommends that pregnant women receive an RSV vaccine to ‘protect’ their baby from RSV.

Keep reading

Moderna’s only real “FDA approved” product, an RSV mRNA injection is a failure

It goes without saying that RSV is a made up “virus” and there is no need to inject anyone with any alleged vaccines for it. This will only cause damage – scroll down to the part of this article where I discuss the FDA approved labeling for these shots. Sadly some people are still in a coma missing the lessons of the past 4 years of “safe and effective” so I hope that this information will help you with your efforts to wake those people up.

Despite being fully approved by the FDA in 2024, NOT as an EUA countermeasure (as best I can determine), the total revenue for this miracle of science is $10M so far. It’s refreshing to see that most people did not fall for the bullshit of RSV. I am willing to bet that even the $10M came from obligatory purchases by HHS to “stockpile” and assassinate an occasional Native American grandma, some prisoners, or other unfortunate subjects of the government healthcare services. In other words, no real uptake is happening.

Keep reading

With more Americans able to access legalized marijuana, fewer are picking up prescriptions for anti-anxiety medications – new research

In states where both medical and recreational marijuana are legal, fewer patients are filling prescriptions for medications used to treat anxiety. That is the key finding of my recent study, published in the journal JAMA Network Open.

I am an applied policy researcher who studies the economics of risky behaviors and substance use within the United States. My collaborators and I wanted to understand how medical and recreational marijuana laws and marijuana dispensary openings have affected the rate at which patients fill prescriptions for anti-anxiety medications among people who have private medical insurance.

These include:

  • Benzodiazepines, which work by increasing the level of gamma-aminobutyric acid, or GABA, a neurotransmitter that elicits a calming effect by reducing activity in the nervous system. This category includes the depressants Valium, Xanax and Ativan, among others.
  • Antipsychotics, a class of drug that addresses psychosis symptoms in a variety of ways.
  • Antidepressants, which relieve symptoms of depression by affecting neurotransmitters such as serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine. The most well-known example of these is selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors, or SSRIs.

We also included barbiturates, which are sedatives, and sleep medications – sometimes called “Z-drugs” – both of which are used to treat insomnia. In contrast to the other three categories, we did not estimate any policy impacts for either of these types of drugs.

We find consistent evidence that increased marijuana access is associated with reductions in benzodiazepine prescription fills. “Fills” refer to the number of prescriptions being picked up by patients, rather than the number of prescriptions doctors write. This is based on calculating the rate of individual patients who filled a prescription in a state, the average days of supply per prescription fill, and average prescription fills per patient.

Notably, we found that not all state policies led to similar changes in prescription fill patterns.

Keep reading

8 Bombshell Findings In Florida’s Grand Jury Report On Big Pharma’s Covid Shots

On Tuesday, a Florida grand jury released its final report on potential “criminal or wrongful activity” regarding the creation and promotion of the Covid jabs.

Requested by Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., and authorized by the Florida Supreme Court in December 2022, the grand jury was tasked with looking into whether individuals and entities, “including, but not limited to, pharmaceutical manufacturers (and their executive officers) and other medical associations or organizations” possibly violated state law related to the development, clinical testing, and marketing of the mRNA shots. The jury previously released interim reports in February and May 2024, respectively, which undercut much of the pseudo-science pushed by government “experts” on subjects such as masking, lockdowns, and natural immunity.

Following its investigation, the grand jury ultimately declined to charge any individual or entity in the case after the jurors “did not find any statute that [they] believed would be an appropriate vehicle for a criminal indictment based on the facts” in its final report. The grand jury did, however, note that such a conclusion does not absolve entities of engaging in unethical behavior.

“We want to be abundantly clear that this does not mean we believe the actions of these sponsors were always appropriate, or that the statements they made turned out to be factually correct,” the report reads. “It just means that those actions and statements are not sufficient bases to support criminal prosecutions.”

Despite the lack of criminal charges, the jury did unearth numerous major findings in its report that shine a light on deceptive behavior and actions surrounding the development and promotion of the Covid shots. Here are some of the biggest takeaways from the analysis.

Keep reading

More Big Pharma/Big Government Attacks Coming – Arepanrix: Package Insert & Approval Letter

By now, readers know this writer is a staunch advocate for proper informed consent following the informed consent process. Previously, the injectable vaccine AUDENZ for H5N1 manufactured by Seqirus was reviewed to inform the public about the product. While it was a long read, the package insert for AUDENZ proved there were not enough participants to represent the population, placebo-controlled trials were only conducted in one study, and the one-year follow-up was not long enough to uncover potential serious adverse events relating to development of autoimmune diseases. Understandably, reading package inserts is not particularly “attention-grabbing” and can be quite boring and tedious. However, it is the only way you will receive all the information you need to give proper informed consent, which includes denying taking a product. Because of the volume of data to be covered in the AREPANRIS package insert, it will be covered in two parts.

In this article, the approval letter and package insert for AREPANRIX will be reviewed. The only approval letter for AREPANRIX on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) website is dated October 18, 2024. This letter references another letter dated April 19, 2024, which requested a supplement to their license regarding packaging to include the proprietary name of AREPANRIX. There should be another letter indicating the initial FDA approval for this vaccine. Without the initial approval letter, there is no additional information to be gleaned besides the package insert.

AREPANRIX, manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), is approved for active immunization for the prevention of disease caused by the Influenza A virus H5N1 subtype contained the vaccine for individuals 6 months and older. AREPANRIX comes in two vials that must be mixed before administration: one contains the H5N1 antigen and the other contains the AS03 adjuvant. The AS03 adjuvant will be explained in Part II. For individuals ages 6 months through 17 years, two doses of 0.25 ml are injected intramuscularly 21 days apart. For individuals ages 18 years and older, two doses of 0.5 ml are injected intramuscularly 21 days apart. (Sections 1 through 2.2)

Keep reading

2012 Whistleblower of the Year Exposed Psycho Pharma Corruption: Continues to Call for Unyielding Accountability

With the recent nomination of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, (HHS) the nation’s premier federal health agency, it’s important to remember Kennedy’s rising star began decades ago by exposing fraudulent medical/corporate research and food safety issues. In a sense, Kennedy is a kind of whistleblower on a national level.

But he’s not the only one and, with Kennedy’s rise to power, AbleChild is reminded of another whistleblower, Allen Jones, whose exposure of dirty dealing between the pharmaceutical industry and state mental health agencies needs to be remembered and recognized.

Afterall, it takes courage to stand up to corruption and Jones, not one to shy away from controversy or be strong-armed into walking away, stood up to the behemoth pharmaceutical industry and ultimately protected children in ways they will never fully understand.

In a nutshell, Jones, as an investigator with the Pennsylvania Office of the Inspector General, was tasked with investigating the State’s chief pharmacist, Steve Fiorello, who was reported to have been receiving payments from drug companies. A clear violation of Pennsylvania law. But Jones uncovered a much deeper financial scheme where the money flowing into Fiorello’s unregistered account was also flowing out of it and into an account belonging to the Director of the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation. Jones had no idea that he was about to run head-first into the then controversial Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP).

Keep reading

Two undisclosed deaths in Pfizer Covid vaccine trials

Pfizer-BioNTech did not disclose the deaths of two participants in its COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials before the FDA granted emergency use authorization (EUA) in December 2020. Documents released nearly three years later revealed the deaths of a 63-year-old Kansas woman and a 58-year-old Georgia woman, both classified as “sudden cardiac death.” Researchers have criticized Pfizer for failing to report these incidents within the required 24-hour timeframe, with one case taking 37 days to be filed.

Dr. Jeyanthi Kunadhasan, an Australian anesthesiologist and researcher with the watchdog group Daily Clout, called for an investigation by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach. She raised concerns that withholding this information may have impacted the perception of the vaccine’s safety profile.

“If the additional two deaths had been disclosed at the time of the EUA, it would have shown that the BNT162b2 mRNA COVID vaccine intervention provided no reduction in deaths.”
— Dr. Jeyanthi Kunadhasan, Anesthesiologist, Daily Clout

These revelations are part of a broader controversy surrounding transparency. In 2022, a federal court ordered the FDA to release 1.2 million pages of clinical trial documents after rejecting a 75-year delay request. This included the trial data that Pfizer had an opportunity to disclose to the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee but did not.

Kansas Attorney General Kobach has also filed a lawsuit against Pfizer, accusing the company of misleading the public about the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness. The suit alleges the company failed to disclose risks like myocarditis, pericarditis, failed pregnancies, and deaths while promoting the vaccine as “safe and effective.”

Pfizer classified the deaths as unrelated to the vaccine and omitted them from a December 2020 New England Journal of Medicine paper that lauded the vaccine’s safety and efficacy. Critics say this omission reflects a troubling pattern of selective reporting.

Keep reading