Medical Corruption Revisited

Charges in a medical corruption case in Manhattan were made public on Friday.

Five Manhattan doctors were paid more than $800,000 by a pharmaceutical company to prescribe a spray version of the highly potent and addictive opioid fentanyl to more and more patients whether they needed it or not, according to an indictment handed up Friday in federal court.

And doctors who went along with the arrangement got other perks, prosecutors say: tickets to sporting events, free meals delivered to their office workers, casino and nightclub outings and an evening of lap dances at a strip club — all paid for by the drugmaker, Insys Therapeutics. (1)

The fentanyl product is sold under the brand name, Subsys.

Two former executives with Insys Theraputics have entered guilty pleas and are cooperating with the investigations. The founder, billionnaire John Kapoor, and other executives are under indictment. Kapoor was actually arrested on charges related to this investigation in October.(2)

An email from one sales representative to [Dr.] Freedman gave explicit instructions on how many new patients were needed to help meet a company target, according to the indictment.(1)

The investigation started in 2014.

If true, and with the guilty pleas, it seems to be, this is grotesque.

And you wonder why health insurance is so expensive.

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Sources:

1. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/feds-say-5-nyc-doctors-took-bribes-drug-maker-prescribe-n857476
2. https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/americas-heroin-epidemic/billionaire-charged-bribing-doctors-prescribe-opioids-n814686