Healthy Skepticism Library item: 17611

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: news

Loftus P
Abbott Told to Turn Over Emails
The Wall Street Journal 2010 Apr 13
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303828304575180301853637676.html

Abstract:

A U.S. judge has ordered Abbott Laboratories to hand over to federal prosecutors some of its chief executive’s email messages, as part of a federal probe into whether Abbott improperly marketed the antiseizure drug Depakote for unauthorized uses.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Virginia is investigating Abbott for “potential federal violations arising out of Abbott’s impermissible off-label marketing of Depakote as a treatment for agitation and aggression in the elderly, and health-care fraud arising out of that allegedly improper use,” U.S. District Judge Samuel Wilson wrote in an opinion dated March 10.

Depakote is approved by …