In our third-world like health care non-system bribes and kickbacks are a normal way of doing business. We’ve previously commented on generous gifts and salaries given providers to use a drug company’s product, this week it’s pharmacists.
The U.S. government sued Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. Tuesday, claiming it gave kickbacks to pharmacies to switch kidney transplant patients from competitors’ drugs to its own.
And
The government said Novartis offered one pharmacist in Los Angeles a “bonus” rebate amounting to several hundred thousand dollars to induce the pharmacist to “shoulder the burden” of switching 700 to 1,000 transplant patients to Myfortic.
Medicynical Note: Unbelievable but true.
What’s doubly distressing is that this is not unique or unprecedented behavior by these companies which formerly called themselves “ethical. When money is involved apparently another form of ethics emerge, i.e. greed—and it’s not good…. for patients or health care or costs.
Medicynic 