Healthy Skepticism Library item: 17414

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Electronic Source

Sex Change, Hollenbeck & The Cookie Challenge
All Things Anderson 2010 Mar 12
http://www.allthingsandersoncooper.com/2010/03/sex-change-hollenbeck-cookie-challenge.html

Full text:

The battle for health care reform is nearing its end. There is a final push for a vote next week and President Obama has
postponed his trip to Asia. Drew Griffin was in with tonight’s “Keepin Them Honest” segment. Pfizer employs 116,000
people and has revenue of $50 billion dollars per year. It is the world’s largest pharmaceutical company and the
government has built a case against Pfizer for marketing Bextra for uses and in doses not approved by the FDA.
Apparently illegal conduct was tolerated and encouraged by sales managers. But Pfizer, like banks to big to fail, was
too big to nail. Because if it failed it would be excluded from Medicare and Medicaid, a corporate death sentence.
Millions would not be getting the drugs they need and thousands would be loosing jobs. So Pfizer cut a deal – a shell
company was created to be a legal shield for Pfizer. Since the shell company was created in March of 2007, Pfizer has
paid fines (for the shell company) in the about of $2 billion (the equivalent of 3 months profits) and has set up a
system to now monitor sales reps for illegal behavior, but the prosecutor thinks it could happen again.