Archive

FDAGate -- The Latest Lapse in Government Enforcement

By Gordon Schnell In what quickly has become the most recent "gate" scandal in Washington, the evidence continues to mount that the FDA acted to stifle whistleblowers within its own ranks.  It all began several years ago when a half-dozen FDA scientists and doctors objected to certain imaging devices for mammograms and colonoscopies because of the high levels of radiation they believed the equipment emitted.  The...

Big Pharma Strikes Again – Glaxo Settles Largest Healthcare Fraud Case in History

By Jason Enzler Earlier this month, GlaxoSmithKline entered into the largest settlement in healthcare fraud history -- a whopping $3 billion -- to settle a broad range of criminal and civil charges involving the company’s drugs and marketing practices.  Glaxo’s settlement easily surpasses the previous record for healthcare fraud, Pfizer’s $2.3 billion payout in 2009 to settle criminal and civil charges for...

Low Scores for Government Efforts to Clean Up Medicare/Medicaid Fraud

By Gordon Schnell The Government Accountability Office (GAO), the nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, just issued a relatively unflattering report on the government's internal efforts to clean up Medicare and Medicaid fraud.  According to the report, the government makes more than $60 billion in improper Medicare and Medicaid payments every year because of fraud, waste and abuse of the system.  This comes...