Drug companies allegedly defraud state Medicaid programs with 54,000% markups

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The scam is being described by the Alabama Attorney General as a "systematic" effort by pharmaceutical companies to defraud states of billions of dollars. It's yet another example of the widespread lack of ethics in the pharmaceutical industry, where seemingly any strategy that makes money is supported: scientific fraud, Medicaid fraud, censorship, bribery, intimidation... and that's just what we've seen in the national headlines in the last month!

You see, the drug racket isn't just about dangerous drugs like Vioxx being peddled to tens of millions of Americans, it's also about financial fraud designed to extract even more money from taxpayers. Like parasites that don't know when to stop, drug companies seemed determined to drain the economic life away from the country in any way possible.

What we're seeing today is unrestrained capitalism at its worst. The so-called "free market" system of organized medicine is really only free and open to those organizations that control the media propaganda, FDA decision makers, medical journal content and med school agendas. And, of course, those are the organizations with the big bucks. What we're increasingly learning is that they got the big bucks by defrauding customers and hyping drugs with fatal side effects that they knew were dangerous long before now. In other words, it's blood money. And you can go right down the line and name all the drugs that are killing people (or seriously harming them) right now: COX-2 inhibitors, antidepressants, statin drugs, NSAIDs, and many more.

Consider where we are today with organized medicine:

• 50% of all personal bankruptcies in America are due to medical bills.
• Vioxx alone is now reportedly responsible for killing more Americans (via heart attacks) than all American fatalities in the Vietnam War. (Source: The Lancet)
• 2/3rds of the FDA's own drug safety scientists don't believe the agency can protect the American public from dangerous drugs. (Source: FOIA of HHS / FDA internal survey.)
• Scientific censorship, intimidation, distortion of clinical trials, and the bribing of doctors is now the norm. (Source: Dr. David Graham, senior drug safety scientist, the FDA.)
• 40% of all Americans are now on prescription drugs of some kind and yet the national health continues to decline.

Let's take a closer look at some of the actual figures that reveal just how egregious the drug companies have been in their overcharging of prescription drugs: (this is from the Office of Alabama Attorney General)

Where will all this go? Stay tuned to this site. We'll cover the lawsuit as it progresses and find out whether the drug companies will ever have to face the music on this one. Hopefully, this will have some real bite and not end up being settled behind closed doors with little more than a slap on the wrist.

It is the ongoing tolerance of this sort of behavior by drug companies that has allowed it to continue so far. And it will only be public outrage and legal action that will force changes to occur.

In the mean time, I have some salt... er, I mean sodium chloride on sale for just 1/10th the price being charged by one of the drug companies being sued here. Yep: just $90 per bottle. What a steal! Send me $900 and I'll send you ten bottles of salt!

And if you think that's stupid, just imagine: your state has been sending drug companies $900 checks for one bottle of what is essentially salt water. Those are your state tax dollars at work. Aren't you impressed by the financial efficiencies of state government? No wonder the states are suing over it.
About the author: Mike Adams is a consumer health advocate with a passion for teaching people how to improve their health He is a prolific writer and has published thousands of articles, interviews, reports and consumer guides, impacting the lives of millions of readers around the world who are experiencing phenomenal health benefits from reading his articles. Adams is a trusted, independent journalist who receives no money or promotional fees whatsoever to write about other companies' products. In 2007, Adams launched EcoLEDs, a maker of super bright LED light bulbs that are 1000% more energy efficient than incandescent lights. 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 and CEO of a well known email mail merge software developer whose software, 'Email Marketing Director,' currently runs the NaturalNews email subscriptions. Adams also serves as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a non-profit consumer protection group, and pursues hobbies such as Pilates, Capoeira, nature macrophotography and organic gardening. He's also author of numerous health books published by Truth Publishing and is the creator of several consumer-oriented grassroots campaigns, including the Spam. Don't Buy It! campaign, and the free downloadable Honest Food Guide. He also created the free reference sites HerbReference.com and HealingFoodReference.com. Adams believes in free speech, free access to nutritional supplements and the ending of corporate control over medicines, genes and seeds. 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: • New Medicaid rule may deny health care to millions of poor Americans • Walgreens Allegedly Defrauded Medicaid by Secretly Switching Drugs to More Expensive Ones • Florida Attorney General sues six pharmaceutical companies for price fixing and possibly defrauding Medicaid	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/004316.html Reprinting this article: Non-commercial OK, cite NaturalNews.com with clickable link. Embed article link: (copy HTML code below): <a href = "http://www.NaturalNews.com/004316.html">Drug companies allegedly defraud state Medicaid programs with 54,000% markups</a>