Corruption in the Pharmaceutical Industry

On November 4th, 2013, global health care giant
Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiaries reached a
settlement amount of $2.2 billion dollars. Johnson
& Johnson settled to pay this amount to resolve
the civil and criminal allegations of promotions not
approved as safe and effective, kickbacks to physicians,
and violations based on the False claim act.
This type of offense has been common with pharmaceutical
companies for the past ten years, but
the federal government still gives pharmaceutical
companies tax breaks which represent billions of dollars
in lost revenue for the federal government. With
this type of exemption, pharmaceutical companies
are given an incentive to commit fraud for corporate
greed while neglecting to put funds towards research
and development.