Who Were The Biggest Corporate Criminals in 2010?

[Joanne98]

Once upon a time, the defense industry was the biggest defrauder of the government. Who remembers the $640 toilet seats and $7,600 coffee makers contactors charged the Pentagon in 1987?

But a new study by the Health Research Group of Washington, D.C.-based Public Citizen reveals that pharma is now the biggest defrauder of the federal government. Since 2000, 25 percent of all federal False Claims Act payouts are from pharma versus 11 percent from the defense industry.

In fact, since 2009, pharma has paid $6 billion in settlements to the government -- $19.8 billion since 1990. The fraud trend is getting worse, too, says Public Citizen's Health Research Group. 73 percent of the settlements occurred in the last five years.

Leading the Hall of Government Fraud Shame is the politically connected Eli Lilly, linked to the Bush family and former Enron officers. Lilly paid $1.4 billion in fines in relation to its antipsychotic Zyprexa in 2009. The charges included hiding Zyprexa side effects which include diabetes mellitus, hyperglycemia, pancreatitis and increased risk of suicide. Lilly also paid settlements related to Zyprexa to more than 13 states in 2009.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Who-Were-The-Biggest-Corpo-by-Martha-Rosenberg-101224-689.html

[somone]

1. "But no drug company executive has served a single day of prison time"

Figures.

[DCKit]

2. If they took even a cursory look at Wall St. (esp. Goldman Sacks) and the big banksters...

we could probably solve the debt issue.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

3. Congress.

What do I win?

[ClassWarrior]

4. Care to be more specific? I don't recall...

...Russ Feingold, Barbera Boxer, Barbara Lee, or countless other members of Congress committing corporate crimes.

NGU.

[rucky]

6. They're just driving the getaway car. n/t

[rucky]

5. I guess they know they can buy their way out of it and still turn a profit.

Jail time might change their risk/reward chart a bit.