A UK drugs firm has been hit with a $3billion penalty after admitting to the ‘biggest healthcare fraud in history’. GlaxoSmithKline paid U.S. medics to prescribe potentially dangerous medicines to adults and children. It handed out cash as well as everything from Madonna concert tickets to pheasant-hunting trips. Authorities branded GSK as ‘cheaters who thought they could make an easy profit at the expense of public safety, taxpayers, and millions of Americans’. The enormous settlement – believed to be the largest ever for a drugs firm – covers offences relating to some of GSK’s best-selling drugs between 1997 and 2004. It bribed doctors to prescribe Paxil to children even though the authorities had not approved its use for under-18s.
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