DOJ, Prosecute Johnson & Johnson CEOs Who Illegally Marketed Risperdal to Children and the Elderly!
- by: Susan V
- recipient: US Department of Justice, Attorney General Loretta Lynch
Johnson & Johnson has faced numerous lawsuits over the unlawful and dangerous marketing of its antipsychotic Risperdal to populations for whom it was neither intended - nor approved by FDA. But a new detailed report by Steven Brill in Huffington Post‘s “Highline“ reveals the depth of immorality to which company CEOs sank - committing serious crimes for which they never faced personal prosecution.
Even though drugs like Risperdal kill an estimated 15,000 nursing home residents a year, according to FDA safety expert Dr. David Graham, and J&J executives knew Risperdal caused a significant number of boys to grow female breasts, marketing leaders like Alex Gorsky actively and intentionally targeted these very vulnerable populations using unlawful marketing strategies, including an outrageously brazen kickback scheme involving Omnicare Inc.
Not only have these company CEOs not faced criminal charges, several have been rewarded. According to Brill, Alex Gorsky is now Johnson & Johnson’s chairman and chief executive, and he “got a 48 percent raise, to $25 million, in 2014."
Under US Attorney General Eric Holder, criminal charges were leveled only against the company and only as fines. Now it‘s time for Loretta Lynch to finish the job. If there's ever going to be a deterrent to this kind of blatant violation of FDA regulations, offenders like Gorsky must face personal prosecution for their crimes!
Sign this petition to insist those involved in the illegal promotion of Risperdal be personally criminally prosecuted.
We, the undersigned, say Johnson & Johnson’s blatantly unlawful marketing of Risperdal to children and the elderly calls for criminal prosecution of top company executives.
New York Times report on the lawsuit lead by US Attorney General Eric Holder states that “Much of the conduct highlighted in the case, which for Risperdal extends from 1999 through 2005, occurred while Alex Gorsky was vice president for sales and marketing and later president of the company’s pharmaceutical unit, Janssen”
But as Brill notes, “Johnson & Johnson has never come forward with any information that any of its employees was disciplined or fired for illegally promoting Risperdal."
After documenting, in explicit detail, how company CEOs altered study results, ignored FDA directives and blatantly set up a deal with Omnicare that most certainly led to strokes and other causes of early deaths of elderly nursing home residents, and how the life of one child was virtually ruined by the large breasts he later had to have amputated - all for the sake of astronomical profits at the cost of human lives, Brill sums up the outcome based on the legal actions taken so far. “…despite the company’s guilty plea," Brill writes,
...nobody in the boardroom and executive suites at Johnson & Johnson seems to think Gorsky or anyone else did anything wrong when they deployed those ghostwritten “scholarly” articles, those “Bridge to Dementia” brochures or those Risperdal Legos to encourage doctors to use this powerful antipsychotic to treat restless nursing home patients or children with behavior disorders. Whatever the small print on a label said or didn’t say about who should get the drug or about strokes, breasts or other side effects should not have been used to punish their passion for getting their drug to as many patients as possible.
The Times report says the lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson “is part of a decade-long effort by the federal government to hold the health care giant — and other pharmaceutical companies — accountable for illegally marketing the drugs as a way to control patients with dementia in nursing homes and children with certain behavioral disabilities, despite the health risks of the drugs.”
But in reality, the penalty imposed against Johnson & Johnson did nothing to change anything - the amount is just a drop in the bucket compared to the company’s overall profits and especially the money it made by breaking the law and harming children and the elderly!
The fact remains, Johnson & Johnson’s CEOs involved in this massive deception to sell drugs committed murder. And no monetary penalty is harsh enough to cover those crimes.
We insist the US Department of Justice, now under Loretta Lynch, finish the job and criminally prosecute all Johnson & Johnson employees involved in this documented criminal activity.
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