Drug Giant Hit with $1 Billion Fine Over Faulty Antipsychotic Risperdal Marketing
Johnson & Johnson, the largest health products company in the world, will pay $1 billion to the United States government as well as most states in response to an agreement over the marketing of the hugely popular antipsychotic drug Risperdal. J&J came to an agreement with a U.S. attorney in a meeting conducted in Philadelphia, after the government concluded an ongoing investigation into how the company marketed the drug for unapproved uses.
Risperdal at one time was J&J’s best-selling drug, raking in over $24.2 billion in sales from 2003 to 2010. Following the mega sales, J&J lost patent protection and sales began to plummet. In comparison, the $1 billion fine is quite low. Numerically, it is equivalent to 31% of Risperdal’s peak sales in 2007.
While negotiations over a possible criminal plea are still in the process, J&J is one of many drug giants to receive minor fines for practices that threaten public health on a grand scale.
Drug Giants Routinely Issued Small Fines Over Threatening Public Health
What do J&J and Merck, a similarly-large drug giant have in common? Besides selling pharmaceuticals that damage your health, they have both been hit with fines overly falsely marketing top selling drugs. In November of 2011, Merck was slapped with a $950 criminal fine for falsely marketing Vioxx through false advertising and deceptive marketing tactics. It may seem like a lot, but the fine is very insignificant when considering the fact that Vioxx was linked to 27,000 heart attacks and sudden cardiac death. It wasn’t until 2004 that Merck pulled Vioxx off the market, meaning the drug has been approved for 5 years before Merck decided to act.
This means that Merck willingly ignored the thousands of deaths associated with Vioxx, and continued to heavily market the drug through false claims and deceptive advertising. Meanwhile, these deaths were knowingly hidden from the public eye. Still, the minor fines for big crimes do not end there.
The most recent fine was issued to GlaxoSmithKline, the second largest drug manufacturer in the United States. The crime? An Argentinian judge fined 400,000 pesos (around the equivalent of $93,000) by an Argentinian judge for killing 14 babies during illegal lab vaccine trials that were conducted between 2007 and 2008. It also came out that GSK recruited doctors who forced illiterate parents into signing over their children for the experiments. Are 14 lives really worth $94,000?
The real question is why are the heads of these deceptive marketing campaigns and illegal human experiments not in jail?
 | Natural Society staff contribution |
How best to detox Risperdal Consta injections from the brain? Not sure of it’s ingredients though!
So, considering their profits from the sale of their poisons that kill, $1 billion is just a slap on the wrist.
Why should governments get anything?
This drug is used to keep seniors sedated as well. My mother was in Hospice when the Drs kept giving her Risperdal. She was extremely uncomfortable, started having awful hallucinations, could not rest comfortably, and even writhed in her sleep. I noted (and informed the nurse) the Risperdal was specifically formulated to "Not Be Pleasant" in order to avoid abuse. Well, it is certainly not pleasant. I had to twist some arms to get her off the stuff, after which she was made comfortable with morphine until she passed. Screw big pharma and their criminal ways!
You are worth more sick than you are healthy.
Late term abortion doctors don't exist, because they get shot. These executives need to be ducking when they hear a car backfire. The millions of diabetics and cancer patients because of this and the fluoride and aspartame. When tests show these things harm animals and they still sell to humans it's criminal.
They need a 50 BILLION dollar fine if not more.
Why play games and reward them? Why not file criminal charges against the top executives and have them rat out whomever decided this policy would be enacted and then put those executives in prison under RICO act?
Why not seize the company on behalf of the American public divide its' assets up and sell them to the highest bidders then use the money to pay down the national debt?
That would incenti-vise corporations to rat on each other to gain market share and make the people responsible for our debts pay them- AMERICAN CORPORATIONS.
Risperdal is a cousin of Zyprexa and Seroquel.
PTSD treatment for Veterans found ineffective.
Risperdal and Eli Lilly Zyprexa can cause diabetes.
This is a powerful drug that can damage a young person physiologically for life.
Please take with caution and learn as much as you can about side effects.
*FIVE at FIVE* The Zyprexa antipsychotic drug,whose side effects can include weight gain and diabetes, was sold for "children in foster care, people who have trouble sleeping, elderly in nursing homes.
*Five at Five* was the Zyprexa sales rep slogan, meaning *5mg dispensed at 5pm would keep patients quiet*.
WARNING- If a drug Risperdal (Zyprexa) lists anything about the pancreas among the side effects, it probably means it can cause diabetes.
Risperdal,Zyprexa is glorified Thorazine at ten times the price.
— Daniel Haszard Zyprexa victim activist.
FMI zyprexa-victims(dot)com
The legal system is more all messed up than the medical system. The one billion is going to the government that was put in place for the purpose of atempted protection of the citizens. They grab the money however the drugging continues. This is the insanity. A childs brain will not be fully developed until the age of 25.
The "one billion" goes entirely to pay contract legal agencies and law firms that assisted the government in its' case, don't believe me? Call the Justice Department and ask them the names of private firms that assisted and you will find that they only bother to collect the money due politically-connected law firms. Legislators don't even write bills anymore, a team of paid-for-by-tax-payers outside counsel draft, amend, research and submit ALL legislation. Don't believe it? Call your local representative's office and see how ripped off we are daily.
This explains a lot to me. Mom was on Risperdal
way back in 1999. I feel awful that I put her through that, but had no way of knowing the dangers….I just accepted what the doc said. I feel so very sad now…I was the one person she was depending on…