He did not want to endorse the pharmaceutical giant’s “very aggressive” sales methods. A former Pfizer salesman recounts for the first time in “Complément d’Enquête” how he became a whistleblower, before having his employer sentenced to a record fine.
In 2009, the news made the front page of American television news: “Pfizer agreed to pay 2.3 billion dollars, the largest fine in history.” The champion of the Covid vaccine race is also that of sanctions. In the United States, the group holds the record for the most sanctioned laboratory: 90 times in twenty-two years…
This historic penalty, the laboratory owes it to one of its former employees, who denounced his employer to justice in 2002. For the first time, John Kopchinski recounts, in “Complément d’Enquête”, the fraudulent practices that he was able to observe at the time at Pfizer.
Sales without authorization
At the heart of the scandal, one of the drugs that appeared in the catalog of this commercial: Bextra. In the United States, the sale of this painkiller was authorized at certain specific doses: 10 mg against osteoarthritis, and 20 mg against dysmenorrhea (painful periods). But according to John Kopchinski, faced with the potential market, the firm would have pushed its salespeople to go well beyond these authorizations. He says that he approached the doctors indifferently with samples of the two dosages, while an overdose of Bextra could cause strokes, or even serious allergic reactions, potentially fatal.
Shocked by these “very aggressive marketing techniques”, John Kopchinski has become a whistleblower. Other Pfizer employees followed suit and turned to justice.
“Pfizer’s illegal activities are all violations of the law. Taken together, they demonstrate a national, concerted and well-organized corporate strategy of using bribes and off-label prescriptions.”
Excerpt from an investigation reportquoted in “Additional investigation”
In total, nine whistleblowers across the United States testified to a fraudulent system to encourage people to prescribe more and more Bextra. According to them, to convince the doctors, Pfizer notably distributed invitations to a whole range of events: baseball matches, car races sponsored by Viagra, evenings in strip clubs, at the casino, at the golf course. With success, since sales of the painkiller exploded… until it was withdrawn from the market because of its side effects.
A Regarding this case, the Pfizer laboratory says it regrets certain acts of the past and claims to have reinforced its controls so that it does not happen again.
Excerpt from “Pfizer: who’s afraid of the big bad lab?”, a document to see in “Complementary investigation” on May 4, 2023.
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