By Carolanne Wright
Contributing Writer for Wake Up World
Pharmaceutical companies generally don’t have the best track record when it comes to transparency and fair dealings. Extortion, fraud, corruption, harassment, obstruction of justice and hit lists appear to be a “business as usual” model for the industry. It’s not only individuals who have been on the receiving end of Big Pharma’s harm, entire communities and countries are feeling the effects of their shady conduct as well.
One of the more recent publicized examples of corruption concerns China, where the country fined the UK pharmaceuticals firm GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) a staggering $490m when the company was found guilty of bribery. Meanwhile in Argentina, the company paid out $240,000 after it was found to be experimenting on human beings during vaccine trials, which lead to numerous deaths. Moreover, the firm dumped more that 45 liters of concentrated live polio into the water at a Belgium treatment plant, potentially endangering swimmers and fishermen, along with individuals working at the facility.
