CORPORATE CRIME REPORTER

Why Did Pharmacia & Upjohn Plead Guilty?
23 Corporate Crime Reporter 35, September 9, 2009

Last week, the Wall Street Journal web site ran this headline:

“It’s Official: Pfizer Pleads Guilty to Illegal Marketing of Bextra.”

But while it was Pfizer that illegally marketed Bextra, it wasn’t Pfizer that pled guilty.

It was a Pfizer unit – Pharmacia & UpJohn – that pled guilty to the felony.

As it turns out, Pharmacia & Upjohn had nothing to do with the marketing of Bextra.

In fact, Pharmacia & Upjohn is now effectively a defunct corporation.

Dead as a doornail.

But they pled guilty to the crime.

Why?

Because if you are a major American corporation – alive and kicking and raking in profits – and you plead guilty to a felony, you will face exclusion from government contracts.

And excluding a company like Pfizer from federal government contracts would make you eligible for – the death penalty.

And we as a society don’t believe in the death penalty for corporate criminals – no matter the crime.

“It’s like shooting a dead person,” says Patrick Burns of Taxpayers Against Fraud told Corporate Crime Reporter. “The government uses it for effect.”

What should the government have done?

“They should have recovered the money – as they did. But they also should have criminally prosecuted the individual Pfizer executives who were engaged in the crime,” Burns says.

He points to the case of one of the whistleblowers – Glenn DeMott – in last week’s record $2.3 billion settlement – $1.3 billion of which was a criminal fine.

“Pfizer was working under three previous corporate integrity agreements,” Burns says. “And one of those corporate integrity agreements says that any off label marketing activity should be reported to the Pfizer compliance office. So this whistleblower, Glenn DeMott, reports off label marketing to Pfizer. And what does Pfizer do? They fire him.”

“The compliance program was used to hunt down and terminate someone who wanted to engage in compliance,” Burns said.

“At this point, corporate integrity agreements are good for lining a bird cage,” Burns said. “Not once has violating a corporate integrity agreement resulted in someone going to jail.”

Not once.

Burns says he has the names of people who should be criminally prosecuted in the Pfizer case.

And he has the names of the people who should be criminally prosecuted in a 2007 criminal case against Purdue Pharma.

In that case, the company knowingly spread dangerous disinformation about OxyContin, falsely assuring doctors and patients that the powerful pain reliever was less addictive than similar medications. The company's misrepresentations led to addiction and abuse nationwide.

It seems pretty clear – all the billions in settlements won’t deter this kind of organized corporate crime.

Stop shooting the dead corporations.

Start putting the living executives who committed these crimes behind bars.

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