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Study
of Fraud Cases Against Drug Makers
Explains How Medicare/Medicaid Are Cheated
TAF
Calls for Preserving Records
& Supporting Whistleblowers
WASHINGTON,
DC, November 6 -- The Taxpayers Against Fraud
Education Fund today released a study of the
seven federal False Claims Act (FCA) cases
settled with the U.S. Department of Justice since
2001 in which pharmaceutical manufacturers paid a
total of $1.6 billion to resolve
allegations of Medicare and Medicaid drug pricing
and marketing fraud. Each case was initiated by
whistleblowers later joined by federal and/or
state governments. The defendants were:
AstraZeneca, Bayer, Dey, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer,
and TAP Pharmaceuticals (a joint venture of
Abbott Laboratories and Takeda Chemical
Industries).
Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca, are
among the world's top five drug manufacturers in
terms of sales volume.
The
TAF study describes the critical role played by
insider whistleblowers in uncovering the
wrongdoing, and finds a backlog of other similar
cases in various stages of development. The $1.6
billion already recovered is equal to the total
amount spent by the federal government in one
year to combat infectious diseases like SARS in
this country. The study urges Congress to
consider the lessons of these frauds as it works
on Medicare coverage for outpatient prescription
drugs. TAF specifically recommends that The
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)
revise an August regulation in the Medicaid drug
rebate program permitting manufacturers to
prematurely destroy pricing records, thereby
potentially compromising FCA lawsuits and
investigations. In addition, the study postulates
that we may be in the midst of a sea change in
government/industry relations triggered by these
cases.
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