[Reposted]

IN 2009, the main manufacturer of COVID vaccines paid the largest pharmaceutical civil fraud settlement and the highest criminal fine “of any kind ever.”

Pfizer agreed to pay $2.3 billion after the federal government charged it with illegally marketing the drug Bextra as a painkiller. From The New York Times on Sept. 2, 2009:

Bextra was approved in 2001 by the Food and Drug Administration to treat arthritis and menstrual cramps. The drug was not approved for the treatment of acute pain, nor was it shown to be any more powerful than ibuprofen. But Pfizer instructed its sales representatives to tell doctors that the drug could be used to treat acute and surgical pain and at doses well above those approved, even though the drug’s dangers which included kidney, skin and heart risks increased with the dose, the government charged. The drug was withdrawn in 2005 because of its risks to the heart and skin.

[…]

The government charged that executives and sales representatives throughout Pfizer’s ranks planned and executed schemes to illegally market not only Bextra but also Geodon, an antipsychotic; Zyvox, an antibiotic; and Lyrica, which treats nerve pain. While the government said the fine was a record sum, the $2.3 billion fine amounts to less than three weeks of Pfizer’s sales.

Much of the activities cited Wednesday occurred while Pfizer was in the midst of resolving allegations that it illegally marketed Neurontin, an epilepsy drug for which the company in 2004 paid a $430 million fine and signed a corporate integrity agreement — a companywide promise to behave.

John Kopchinski, a former Pfizer sales representative whose complaint helped prompt the government’s Bextra case, said that company managers told him and others to dismiss concerns about the Neurontin case while pushing them to undertake similar illegal efforts on behalf of Bextra.

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