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Articles Related to This Article: • The great direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising con: how patients and doctors alike are easily influenced to demand dangerous drugs • Pharmaceutical fraud: How Big Pharma's marketing and profits come before consumer safety and wellness • New study shows that 94% of marketing claims made by pharmaceutical companies have no basis in fact Support NaturalNews advertisers - Advertise with NaturalNews Nutrition Can Save America! FREE report by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, reveals why nutritional deficiencies are destroying America's health and economy... and how to restore America's future with real food.

Demonstrating yet again that pharmaceutical companies will do anything to make a buck, six such companies are under fire by the Florida Attorney General who has issued civil subpoenas concerning potential overcharges to Medicaid in the amount of $100 million. Apparently, the pharmaceutical companies involved in this scam inflated the "wholesale" prices charged to Medicaid, thereby pocketing additional profits at the expense of taxpayers.

That pharmaceutical companies would overcharge the government for prescription drugs should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the dealings of the industry. Companies routinely mark up prescription drugs as much as 500,000% over the cost of the raw ingredients, and they engage in monopolistic, mob-like behaviors to block competing, lower cost drugs from Canada and other countries.

In the mean time, the pharmaceutical industry has long since demonstrated its own alarming lack of ethics by, for example, hiding the results of negative drug trials, distorting other trials to show false benefits of drugs, and outright bribing physicians with so-called "consulting fees" if they'll write more prescriptions for their drugs.

I've frequently called for criminal investigations of pharmaceutical companies and even the FDA. This action by the Florida Attorney General is a step in the right direction, but it barely scratches the surface of the extremely profitable criminal operation known as Big Pharma.

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About the author: Mike Adams is a holistic nutritionist with a passion for sharing empowering information to help improve personal and planetary health He has authored and published thousands of articles, interviews, consumers guides, and books on topics like health and the environment, impacting the lives of millions of readers around the world who are experiencing phenomenal health benefits from reading his articles. Adams is an honest, independent journalist and accepts no money or commissions on the third-party products he writes about or the companies he promotes. In 2007, Adams launched EcoLEDs, a manufacturer of mercury-free, energy-efficient LED lighting products that save electricity and help prevent global warming. He also founded an environmentally-friendly online retailer called BetterLifeGoods.com that uses retail profits to help support consumer advocacy programs. He's also the founder of a well known HTML email software company whose 'Email Marketing Director' software currently runs the NaturalNews subscription database. Adams is currently the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a 501(c)3 non-profit, and regularly pursues cycling, nature photography, Capoeira and Pilates. Known by his callsign, the 'Health Ranger,' Adams posts his missions statements, health statistics and health photos at www.HealthRanger.org


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Related Articles: • The great direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising con: how patients and doctors alike are easily influenced to demand dangerous drugs • Pharmaceutical fraud: How Big Pharma's marketing and profits come before consumer safety and wellness • New study shows that 94% of marketing claims made by pharmaceutical companies have no basis in fact	Take Action: Support NaturalNews.com Email this article to a friend Share this article on: NewsVine | digg | del.icio.us Permalink to this article: http://www.NaturalNews.com/001449_pharma_companies_Medicaid_Big_Pharma.html Reprinting this article: Non-commercial use OK, cite NaturalNews.com with clickable link. Embed article link: (copy HTML code below): <a href = "http://www.NaturalNews.com/001449_pharma_companies_Medicaid_Big_Pharma.html">Florida Attorney General sues six pharmaceutical companies for price fixing and possibly defrauding Medicaid</a>