The whistleblowers who helped to build the case for prosecuting Johnson & Johnson for illegal marketing of Risperdal will take home nearly $168 million of the $2.2 billion the company will pay. Judith Doetterl stayed undercover for nine years while the case played out. “Here’s a 34-year-old woman with a tremendous job, putting her career on the line and wearing a wire, all in order to do the right thing,” said Doetterl’s lawyer.
Of further interest:
Antipsychotic Risperdal Slapped with $2 Billion Dementia Penalty (Alzheimer’s & Dementia Weekly)
$168 million payout to Johnson & Johnson whistleblowers (CNN Money)
J&J whistleblowers to collect record $168M share of DoJ settlement (Fierce Pharma)
Post-DoJ settlement, GlaxoSmithKline toes the line in Breo launch (Fierce Pharma)
NAMI, the pharma front group, back then called The National Alliance For The Mentally Ill was marketing Risperdal for kids, they had this link posted front page. Its still there on the web archive.
“Risperidone for Adolescent Aggression”
Medical Focus, Winter 1996
http://web.archive.org/web/19961221104126/http://www.nami.org/
Dr. Joseph ‘Risperdal’ Biederman was the recipient of the 1998 NAMI Exemplary Psychiatrist award.
Then congress investigated charges that Biederman earned consulting fees of at least $1.6 million over eight years from pharmaceutical companies, but did not report much of this income to university officials.
He kept all the money and wrote this “apology letter” that doesn’t even say sorry ! Check it out.
http://web.archive.org/web/20110708110602/http://freepdfhosting.com/ce3f1b1ea1.pdf
This is the “mental health mafia” in action.
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A number of drug company insiders have given similar accounts of how PhARMA operates, and sometimes internal memos have confirmed the allegations. But it is sweet to know that at least one company has been caught red handed with a wire.
I’m just starting Peter Gotzsche’s “Deadly Medicines and Organised Crime.” This article is a peek inside PhARMA that makes that book title seem apt.
Thanks to these whistle blowers, from my old home town of Buffalo. They could have kept their heads down and just taken the money, but they didn’t.
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He even quotes a former vice-president of Pfizer as saying, `It is scary how many similarities there are between his industry and the mob !!
http://www.amazon.com/Deadly-Medicines-Organised-Crime-Healthcare/dp/1846198844
At least the real mob has some morals, these pharma scumbags target children, the lowest of the low.
These people are not your ‘Good fellas’ kida mob. These are the scum of the earth.
The real mob would seek and destroy these people if they messed with there kids.
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Its like “Pharma Pedophilia” what these people did. Making there billions targeting children.
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And for all the children whose brains were damaged and lives were wrecked… nothing. SSI, shame, poverty, etc.
But the people who were in on it and later turned on their associates — tens of millions of dollars.
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I’m obviously in the wrong whistleblowing business …
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