Amen!
Like I said, a felony conviction is the last thing any drug co. wants and DOJ let’s them get away with all kinds of criminal abuse.
Check the Vioxx settlement.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-22/merck-agrees-to-pay-950-million-to-settle-u-s-government-s-vioxx-probe.html
Merck paid a $950 Million Fed Fine and plead guilty to a Misdemeanor Misbranding charge.
AFTER, they’d ALREADY PAID the surviving family members of 3,468 people they Killed with Vioxx while they were breaking the law by marketing the stuff illegally.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-27/merck-paid-3-468-death-claims-to-resolve-vioxx-suits.html
They admitted they broke the law, and that they were responsible for killing 3,468 people, and DOJ let them buy their way out of it.
Or How about Pfizer?
They got popped for $2.3 Billion and they had their shell co, Pharmacia Upjohn take the fall for it because that fall was a felony, no more Medicare bucks for 5 years if Pfizer ate the felony themselves.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer
“Bextra settlement of off-label marketing investigation
In September 2009, the United States Department of Justice announced that Pfizer had agreed to pay $2.3 billion to settle civil and criminal allegations that it had illegally marketed four drugs: Bextra, Geodon, Zyvox, and Lyrica “with the intent to defraud or mislead” by promoting the drugs for non-approved uses; this marks Pfizer’s fourth such settlement in a decade.[4][5][39] Pharmacia & Upjohn Company, Inc., a Pfizer subsidiary, agreed to plead guilty to mis-branded promotion of Bextra, a FELONY violation of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. “
To salute these companies as examples of Free Market Capitalism is as ridiculous as writing a bank robber a ticket for an expired meter out front while he was robbing the bank.