So banks, MPs, politicians and the police are all corrupt...and now you can add drug manufacturers and some doctors...

[breadandbutterfly]

GlaxoSmithKline fined $3bn after bribing doctors to increase drugs sales

Sales reps in the US encouraged to mis-sell antidepressants Paxil and Wellbutrin and asthma treatment Advair

www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jul/03/glaxosmithkline-fined-bribing-doctors-pharmaceuticals

Really shocking. A drug company that knowingly made totally unproven or false claims about their drugs, and doctors who knowingly took bribes of up to 1.5 mn to promote them.

And a $3 billion fine, compared to Barclays £290 million fine that has been garnering all the headlines.

Are all rich people just high class crooks? It seems so.

I find it quite disillusioning. Every time you think its got as bad as its going to get, there is another issue.
Its Ministers Expenses, then the Milly Dowler phone hacking, then banks, then ......
It just goes on and on. I think that most industry's and many companies are just corrupt.
As I do accounts, I see all sorts of 'jiggery-pockery' and hear endless stories, from fellow accounts people, of stealing and unscupulous dealings. It just goes on and on. How bl**dy depressing.

How awful, Meglet. :(

As you say, Oblomov, depressing to see how many corrupt people there are, esp at the top.

The question is, is that symptomatic of widespread corruption across all levels of society? I hope not.

It could be rather that power corrupts, and hence those at the top are particularly corrupt. Or it could be, as I supect, that it is precisely those who are immoral/sociopathic to start with who seek huge piles of cash/power, as normal people don't need or wish to validate their lives by collecting unnecessary amounts of cash/power over others, and so end up super-wealthy/as top politicians etc.

If the latter, than the question is how to attract enough 'normal people' to positions of power and how to police the system so that the corruption is rooted out.

Certainly, in my own profession, i feel I am poor because I am left-wing rather than left-wing because I am poor (as is often assumed to be the case). If I was prepared to ignore my principles a bit more, I could easily make a packet. But I'm not. My principles matter more.

So rather than people being promoted to the level of their incompetence, as the peter principle claims, are people actually being promoted, in some cases at least (eg banks) to the level of their lack of principles?

It's interesting, because this level of greed and selfishness can only have one outcome. Like the playground bully who suddenly finds that no-one wants to play with him/her, it carries the seeds of its own destruction within it. We're a' doomed ...

The only way for society to survive is for people to share, imo. United we stand. Love your neighbour and covet not his ox.

Going back for a second to the doctors taking money to prescribe certain drugs - how much more tempting will it be when they all work for private companies and have targets and bonuses to aim for. And the GPs who commission services will be offered incentives to recommend that patients 'choose' certain providers.

I don't actually think all MPs are corrupt, or even most of them.

I think there's a lot of corruption in the police but not really sure how widespread it is. Some forces seem to have a particularly bad reputation.

Drug companies - probably as corrupt as they can get away with, I reckon. They are very tightly regulated (in this country at least) but I think if they can get away with suppressing unfavourable trial data, bribing doctors to prescribe expensive medicines, invent new diseases that can be "cured", then I think they probably will.

But I am also interested in the economics of this. Now that GP consortia are going to have control of their own budgets, how could it possibly be in their interests to prescribe expensive drugs?

Think there's any chance at all they might put patients' interests first?

Another one from the Daly Fail today:
Roche

I've often wondered whether the drugs companies actually run the world!

Mankind if riven with fault, though isn't it, since the dawn of man. Hence religions have to come up with rules like not to covet your neighbour's ox or wife or husband or murder or lie and cheat. If were were 100% naturally good those rules would not be needed.

I woudl certainly like tio try an experiment in reversing gender ratios in all these bodies try to have the number of women ont he Glaxo board that there are currently men and vice versa, ditto MPs, bankers and the like for say 2000 years and see if that is better and only after that let the men back out of the kitchens on the boards.

Hospitals let patients die to save money.

Nice.

Once you're no use for a drug trial, you've had it.

I've worked in primary care for 12.5 years.

The main influence for prescribing is the Prescribing Authority (not sure of their exact title) not pharmaceutical companies. We are pretty tightly regulated as to what we can and cannot prescribe and alternatives that must be used.

Reps can chuck all the pens and sandwiches they like at us but essentially we can't prescribe their products unless we're "allowed" to. We're regularly audited also. I've worked in 3 surgeries and in all of them the GPs won't see reps in the practice. We tend to only see them at educational and training events where they have their display stands.

I'm sure it's very different in the USA where prescribing seems to be an open market.

I suppose people at the top are lightly policed. People at the bottom heavily policed. Chickens coming home to roost on cheating system

Sidge, what about the two week golfing holidays and whitewater rafting, with an hour lecture at the beginning so that it can be called a conference?

Fuddle I've never heard of GPs being invited on golfing holidays and whitewater rafting experiences. Maybe in the USA, maybe in the olden days before prescribing was so tightly regulated and budgeted but in my 12.5 years in the business the most I've had is dinner before lectures! (oh and some pens and post-its).

I had some sponsorship towards a professional diploma but there were no strings attached and I'm under no obligation to prescribe the products of the company that gave me money towards my diploma.

I have. Not GPs, consultants. And whitewater rafting. But I have heard of GPs going on weekends to Amsterdam.

Of course, I am sure that the receptionists and nurses get the biros and the mugs.