1 Boring Old Man

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced its first enforcement action Wednesday morning, targeting Capital One for deceptive marketing tactics.
Roughly two million Capital One customers will receive a full refund, the agency said, at a cost of $140 million to the financial institution. Under the settlement, Capital One is also required to pay a $25 million penalty to the CFPB. Consumers due refunds need take no further action. If they are still Capital One customers, the money will be credited to their accounts. If they’re not, a check will be sent their way.
Capital One will also pay a $35 million penalty to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and additional restitution for customers harmed by unfair billing practices. In total, the bank is set to pay out some $210 million.

THEN THERE IS THIS:

“Annual Sales of Risperdal worldwide per annual reports of Johnson & Johnson, Inc.
1994: $0.172 Billion
1995: $0.343 Billion
1996: $0.502 Billion
1998: $0.588 Billion
1999: $0.892 Billion
2000: $1.083 Billion
2001: $1.845 Billion
2002: $2.146 Billion
2003: $2.512 Billion
2004: $3.05 Billion
2005: $3.552 Billion
2006: $4.180 Billion
2007: $4.697 Billion
2008: $1.309 Billion
2009: $1.425 Billion
2010: $1.50 Billion

Total for the period: $29.796 Billion
Testimony at trial indicated that the profit margin for sales of Risperdal was 97% or $28.90 Billion for the period of 1994-2010”

Question: Is a $2 billion “settlement” accompanied with continued access to the federal trough (Medicare/Medicaid participation) anything other than a ‘cost of doing business’ penalty? If DOJ were as serious as CFPB, maybe we could change criminal corporate behavior.

FYI
DSM-5 will capture the dynamic nature of mental illness
by David Kupfer, MD

Much of the debate over the future edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) has centered on what disorders will be added, modified or dropped. But lost in the discussion is a change that will align disorders along a developmental continuum—one that looks at them across the lifespan. This shift will provide clinicians with a critical perspective that until now has been missing.”

http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2012/07/dsm5-capture-dynamic-nature-mental-illness.html

It’s nothing—compared to the initial amount robbed from the American people financially—but let’s be real, let’s add the additional ongoing treatment cost of all the people who were made into lifelong psychiatric patients due to ignorance, hubris and /or malfeasance of psychiatric researchers, or as I call them, dorktors.

My son is one of these people, who it seems, been nothing more than a means to a financial end. He was first the victim of violent crime, which made him a targeted psychiatric patient, who was turned into a Risperdal victim—EVEN though it was shown in an NIMH study that neuroleptics were not an effective treatment for his condition—but, I knew after a week of research more than a decade ago—none of the treatment used in standard practice is based on evidence collected in research.

Then Jon McClellan then traumatized him for years in the TEOSS trials—this is after he had been taking Risperdal for six years—It boggles my mind the mental gymnastics any psychiatrist would have had to go through to not look at the context in which my son’s symptoms in fact occurred and to, (I presume) look at my son as nothing more than a biological organism in need of chemical alteration… Over a million dollars in fraud to effectively, repeatedly traumatize a trauma victim—who asked me in agony, “How could they take so much from me mom?” All I know is I tried to stop them, but no one listens to patients or their parents. As one psychiatrist told me, “parents who do not agree (to drugging their kid) at best are perceived as ill-informed; and at worst, impaired themselves.” Well that pretty much means that psychiatrists are, as Beiderman proclaimed, just after God.

I know my first mistake was listening to a psychiatrist instead of a Police Officer—I know that I will never know who my son would have been had he been helped instead of used and abused. I know that no matter how much these settlements are, they are paltry sums compared to the financial fraud committed. I also know no victims get any payment for their ‘service’ as research fodder, and no help to recover from their injuries. In all reality, these people are hated to some degree by most for the financial burden they continue to be on the taxpayer.

Forgive me, my comment is not directed at you, personally in any way—I truly appreciate more than I can express, what you are doing in writing this blog. My point is simply that this massive fraud had primary victims; I need to know that fact will not be forgotten…

Mickey, are there indications why there was such a drop shown by figures from 2008?

Mick,

I hope every state attorney sees the opportunity to sue these moneybags for deceptive practices.

Altostrata,

Don’t you think it is time to advance to criminal charges against the psychiatrists who are propagating the *deceptive practices*? In the Massachusetts, parents are charged with and held responsible if their kids host a party and serve alcohol to minors— and any untoward event occurs!

How difficult is it to identify the culprit? Who writes the prescriptions and promotes psychiatric drugs as *treatment* for made up disorders—from the cradle to the grave???

Sure, if the doctors could be held legally accountable, that would dry up the pharma distribution system right quick.

But a doctor can prescribe just about psych drug in any way falling within common medical practice, which can be legally justified by all those crooked scientific papers finding psychiatric drugs good for whatever ails you, off-label or not.

Since there is no “common medical practice” in US psychiatry — it’s a field without quality control — doctors can experiment on patients as they wish.

There’s also the problem of the patient’s credibility in court, if he or she has ever gotten a psychiatric diagnosis.

Short of killing a child, doctors pretty much can get away with doing whatever to patients with psychiatric drugs.

(Complaints about a doctor to the state medical board are about as much as patients with limited financial resources can do, plus reporting adverse events to the FDA at 1-800-332-1088.)

Altostrata,

Is this REALLY true?

“Since there is no “common medical practice” in US psychiatry — it’s a field without quality control — doctors can experiment on patients as they wish.”

Doesn’t psychiatry have to play by the same rules as the rest of medical doctors— ?? Medical research still has boundaries, or prohibitions around conducting experimental practices, medical/surgical procedures and administering medications that involve full disclosure and obtaining informed consent. No?

In the absence of scientific evidence for biological causes, chemical imbalances in the brain– ANYTHING that identifies so called *mental illness* as a disorder/disease is based on theories and accepted by virtue of authority– NOT medical model practice by a long shot!

Factor in financial gain and concealing risks of serious harm— that becomes a breach of the public trust and as such is a *criminal* offense.

Maybe if we all focused our consciousness on this one point…??? Maybe those who have both credentials and a conscience will think in terms of presenting the case to the Attorney General’s office—state by state, all the way to the federal level!

Katie, as you know, many prescriptions for psychiatric medications are prescribed “off-label.” This means the doctors are making up the rules as they go along, or a friend told them it worked on a patient, or a drug rep told them it works, etc.

Informed consent is a very, very large hot potato in prescribing drugs to treat mental illness. Doctors don’t want to tell patients about potential adverse effects (if the doctors themselves know about them) because they don’t want to discourage anyone from getting “needed treatment” for a mental disorder. They also believe patients will persuade themselves they’re having those reactions, or question whether a patient with a mental disorder is competent to make decisions about treating it.

I went pretty far discussing suing doctors with a malpractice attorney and I was told as long as the doctor did not have evil intent (which one would have to prove), just about anything goes in prescribing psychiatric drugs.

And if you see the unholy drug cocktails many patients end up on, and how doctors manage to ignore obvious adverse effects, you know this is true.

Thanks Mickey for reply. One picture is worth a 1000 words!