Legal Question

[hope]

Ok,

So apparently GSK is a billion dollar corporation which seems to have almost unlimited funds to fight off any legal entanglements, lawsuits, etc. They can deny any wrongdoing for another 10 years and pay out money and more money and drag out their wrongdoings for decades to come. However, at the top of every corporation are individuals who write memos, boards of directors who make decisions to cover up facts, etc. In short, they are breaking the law, commiting fraud, screwing people for money.

So if Enron executives are facing prosecution and potential jailtime, why are not these guys. What would it take to get a criminal complaint filed and get these guys where it really hurts, the possibility of not buying people out of their path, but having to fight for their freedom and avoid the possibilities of being someone's significant other behind bars? Sueing them will not solve the problem. Bringing them to justice is what will. But they are so big, and they have their tentacles spread out into every aspect of our government and healthcare system, and who knows how far. How do you actually prosecute them?

[Charlie]

It's just an opinion but I think they've escaped prosicution to this point because the public outcry hasn't been great enough. If the media had just let the Enron story go the same way they do drug stories they might have gotten away with it to.

I do think the time will come somewhere down the road or at least I hope it does. Like I say this is just an opinion.

[rdjanis]

I agree with Charlie. Once a largely public case hits the news and the truths come out, they will start butt covering and pointing fingers at each other. The truth will come out.

[punky]

I've talked to several lawyers. The most helpful one gave me insight to this website and drugawareness.org He told me that their hands are tied due to new laws that are trying to be passed protecting the drug companies much the same way that doctors are protected with the new malpractice laws. He also told me to blame the Bush administration. Soooo ok then. BUT i don't think these laws will pass. I just don't see how they possibly could considering the God honest truth that is out there. GSK so needs a major class action law suit shoved in their faces. If I learn of a lawyer that's willing to go there despite what I already mentioned, I'll definitely post it here in the forums.

[scotty]

GSK just had a big class action suit. Drop in the bucket for them.

[Charlie]

I think down the road when the truth comes to public attention there is the POTENTIAL for 2 things to happen. First criminal prosicution of top executives and secondly class action judgements that surpass the tobaco settlement numbers. When? I have no idea. What they have done is willful and criminal and somewhere down the road they'll pay the piper. Not just GSK but all manufacturers.

I agree that the tobacco companies and Big Pharma have a lot in common.

Fact is that Big Pharma has the FDA and powerful organizations on their side and eating out of their hands.

The executives of Enron were punished due to the financial consequences to their shareholders. Money talks and therefore it was publized extensively.

[elisa]

Charlie, I don't know what happened, but I changed your last post by mistake. I thought that I was responding as a reply but must have replied on the "edit" button. I'm sorry but don't remember your exact post so I can't correct it.

Where I started to respond was: I agree......... etc.

I think that the only way to prosecute big pharmaceutical corporations who commit fraud, lie( suppressing clinical trials etc) and knowingly release dangerous drugs on an unsuspecting public, is to come from a human rights angle.

These are human rights abuses and in a sense the deaths and suicides from SSRIs can be compared to genoicide or mass murder ....

[mkmullan]

Tabacco and big Pharma employ the same litigation attorneys, one of whom recently worked at FDA. Surprise. Surprise.

[Healing]

I like the human rights abuses angle. Get the World Court involved....Not that the U.S. considers itself to be under the jurisdiction of the World Court....

The human rights angle is the only angle that will blow this scam wide open ...
There is an international court of human rights ...
If enough people came together to make a case , the crimes would not be ignored...

As long as Big Pharma gags plaintiffs from class actions, the scandal will stay out of the mainstream...

But a human rights abuse is a different ball game ...

[hope]

How do you contact that international court of human rights? How do you get this ball rolling?

[Charlie]

Here is the link to the international criminal court. I don't know if this is what you were looking for but my mind is in no condition today to understand what it says.

http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/icc/

Elisa,
Don't worry about the post.

this is the website of the european court of human rights

http://www.echr.coe.int/echr

some other websites of interest for the human rights angle :

http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/inte...ce/icc/icc.htm

Human rights act : http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1998/19980042.htm

http://www.yourrights.org.uk/your-ri...ct/index.shtml

http://www.dca.gov.uk/hract/

And....

What about the freedom of information act ....?

Are Pharma above international law or does this apply just to governments?

http://www.oninformation.com/Legal/L...Act_(FOIA).htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_abuse

Human rights abuse is abuse of people in a way that violates any fundamental human rights. The correct usage of the term in legal sense is within the historical context and time frame when the term "human rights" was introduced and has been in use. For older historical periods the term "human rights abuse" is reasonable to use in comparative and descriptive ways.

According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (generally accepted as the international standard for human rights), fundamental human rights are violated when:

A certain race, creed, or group is denied recognition as a "person". (Article 2)
Men and women are not treated as equal. (Article 2)
Different racial or religious groups are not treated as equal. (Article 2)
Life, liberty or security of person are threatened. (Article 3)
A person is sold as or used as a slave. (Article 4)
Cruel or unusual punishment is used on a person (such as torture or execution). (Article 5)
Punishments are dealt arbitrarily or unilaterally, without a proper and fair trial. (Article 11)
Arbitrary interference into personal, or private lives by agents of the state. (Article 12)
Citizens are forbidden to leave their country. (Article 13)
Freedom of speech or religion are denied. (Articles 18 & 19)
The right to join a union is denied. (Article 23)
Education is denied. (Article 26)
Human rights abuses are more common in dictatorships or theocracies, whereas they are rarer in democracies.

Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International (AI) have criticized the use of the death penalty, however, in some democracies such as the United States, particularly when the penalty is used against those who were minors when they committed the crime in question. Only a very few countries do not violate human rights at all according to AI. In their 2004 human rights report, (covering 2003,) the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Costa Rica are the only (mappable) countries that did not violate human rights.

Many international non-governmental organizations such as International Freedom of Expression Exchange, Freedom House, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Anti-Slavery International monitor and condemn human rights abuses.

Human guinea pigs ...
Human experimentation...
Forced addiction ....
Defective drugs ....
Suppressing information causing death and injury...
Fraud causing death or injury....

These are all human rights abuses as far as i am concerned ....

[elisa]

Rory: let's add this sentence to your bolded one.

Education is denied.

Education equals information. The truth (education & information) has been denied to us by Big Pharma regarding virtually all medications.

[RR]

I'm afraid we are all just chalkmarks or, in some cases, chalk outlines, caught in the SSRI rain.

The grip these corporations now have over us is exactly what Ralph Nader has warned us about and railed against for decades. The day the public is going to look back and say, "you know, we really should have listened that guy" is here now. In fact, it has passed.

The best thing anyone can do for their health now is eat well, exercise and "just say no" to the raft of generally crappy drugs Big Pharma is spending hundreds of millions of marketing dollars to convince us we need. (TiVO is a great invention if for no other reason that you can fast forward past all the DTC television advertising these companies rely so heavily upon.)

As far as the human rights abuse angle is concerned ... check out this link at the Dr. Rath Foundation (for what it's worth.) See: http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/T...omplaint04.htm

The best chance the public would have to get at Big Pharma would be through a racketeering and/or conspiracy angle. That said, the slimeballs at the top are typically quite good at covering their tracks ... they know they can be buried by written communications and, as such, are very circumspect.

Last year there were rumblings in the UK that some principals of GSK might face personal criminal charges relative to the Paxil fraud. I doubt it, but we'll see....

Yes Rob unfortunately Politics and big business are now one and the same ..
But that doesnt mean public outcry cannot expose the regime ....