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A comment on Pharma Execs Arrested Over Fentanyl Rackateering.

Re:Pharma Execs Arrested Over Fentanyl Rackateering by trhway on Tuesday December 13, 2016 @03:10AM (#13165327)
i wish it were a prosecution for real crimes, yet so far reading it it looks like a typical way prescription drugs are pushed in the US, and the prosecution here may be just a scapegoating of those typical pharma-pushers just because of all the high attention the fentanyl abuse got recently, and thus government has to show action and Ortiz jumped at the chance to look good.
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Re:Pharma Execs Arrested Over Fentanyl Rackateering by matt4077 on Tuesday December 13, 2016 @03:37AM (#13165432)
If "In exchange for bribes and kickbacks..." is "a typical way prescription drugs are pushed" then I'm happy that "Ortiz jumped at the chance to look good" and hope others take her lead. Just because something is common doesn't mean it's legal.
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Re:Pharma Execs Arrested Over Fentanyl Rackateering by trhway on Tuesday December 13, 2016 @03:53AM (#13165494)
(IANAL) it is my understanding that kickbacks from drug companies to doctors are pretty legal in US - or there is a very technical line between legal and illegal kickback in pharma/doctor relationship that regular people like us don't recognize it.

And don't get me wrong, i'm not against sending a bunch of pharma execs to a country club - i just think that so few of them are sent there that situation looks more like politically motivated selective enforcement of the law than full fledged justice.

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Re:Pharma Execs Arrested Over Fentanyl Rackateering by danso on Tuesday December 13, 2016 @04:28AM (#13165623)
It is OK for doctors to have financial relationships with companies, for example, to be a paid speaker or consultant. But I don't think those are "kickbacks", and there's a distinction between those relationships and what the Justice Dept. is prosecuting here

https://projects.propublica.org/docdollars/

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Re:Pharma Execs Arrested Over Fentanyl Rackateering by cma on Tuesday December 13, 2016 @06:50AM (#13166126)
You don't think they often give out speaker roles as kickbacks? Speaking fees are often just bribes. Malcolm Gladwell isn't a doctor, but here's how it works in some cases (pushing amphetamines and tobacco): http://shameproject.com/profile/malcolm-gladwell-2/
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Re:Pharma Execs Arrested Over Fentanyl Rackateering by mirimir on Tuesday December 13, 2016 @04:48AM (#13165705)
It's a very subtle one, IMHO.
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Re:Pharma Execs Arrested Over Fentanyl Rackateering by 3131s on Tuesday December 13, 2016 @05:08AM (#13165771)
So subtle you might call it a "loophole".
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Re:Pharma Execs Arrested Over Fentanyl Rackateering by mirimir on Tuesday December 13, 2016 @06:52AM (#13166136)
:)

The Truth About the Drug Companies by Marcia Angell (Random House, 2004)

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM200410073511522

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Re:Pharma Execs Arrested Over Fentanyl Rackateering by paulajohnson on Tuesday December 13, 2016 @03:35AM (#13165426)
"In this country we find it pays to hang an admiral from time to time, to encourage the others".
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