Major pharma player Pfizer has been ordered to pay $2.3 billion dollars in punitive fines for marketing so-called off label uses.
In response to the ruling the fines were described as "the result of a calculated business decision" intended to bolster the company's faltering share price.
Valued at just under $12/share, Pfizer's market capitalization has suffered a succession of hits in recent months.
Pfizer petitioned the FDA to permit the promotion of off-label uses and increased doses of its drugs in 2008. The petition was denied on the basis of the agency's review citing the study's results "unfavorable health risk assessment" The company was "disappointed" at the agency's decision to "favor public health over corporate profits".
"This is the third occasion on which we flouted the law and casused the deaths of hundreds of people. If that's not 1st degree murder, I don't know what is," said a commentator. "But so what? It's not like this fine will actually have to be paid. The ruling will be appealed, tied up in the system with legal wrangling and if anything ever has to be paid, it'll be years later and will have been reduced by the courts and inflation to insignificant amount which will be claimed as a business expense and be deduct it from our taxes. In any case, these people were killed for profit and no one's going to jail! WOOT-WOOT!"
