Drug company to pay more than $313M over Celexa

updated 9/15/2010 4:36:42 PM ET

WASHINGTON — Forest Pharmaceuticals Inc. has agreed to pay more than $313 million and to plead guilty to obstruction of justice, distribution of the then-unapproved drug Levothroid and illegal promotion of Celexa for use in treating children and adolescents suffering from depression.

Forest Pharmaceuticals also will settle allegations that it caused false claims to be submitted to federal health care programs for the drug Lexapro as well as for Levothroid and Celexa, the Justice Department said Wednesday. Forest Pharmaceuticals is a wholly owned subsidiary of New York-based Forest Laboratories Inc. Celexa and Lexapro are anti-depressants; Levothroid is used to treat thyroid deficiency.

Court papers in the case say that Forest Pharmaceuticals began distributing Levothroid in the early 1990s without first obtaining approval from federal regulators. Regarding Celexa, Forest Pharmaceuticals promoted the drug for pediatric use despite limited approval only for adult depression, the court papers state. The government says Forest Pharmaceuticals's off-label promotion for Celexa involved directions to its sales representatives to promote pediatric use of the drug in sales calls to physicians. The company hired speakers to talk to pediatric specialists about the benefits of Celexa for children and teens, filings in the case state.

Forest engaged in similar marketing conduct for Lexapro, which at the time lacked approval for pediatric use. A civil complaint in the case says Forest Pharmaceuticals used illegal kickbacks including cash, free meals and lavish entertainment to induce physicians and others to prescribe Celexa and Lexapro. Forest Pharmaceuticals agreed to plead guilty to obstructing justice, distributing an unapproved drug and distributing a misbranded drug.

Health

High-Fructose Corn Syrup Getting Rebranded as Corn Sugar

Submitted by LiveScience Staff

posted: 14 September 2010 09:38 am ET

The good news: Consumption of high-fructose corn syrup is at a 20-year low.

The bad news: The folks who make this insidious sweetener aim to rebrand it to boost sales.

High-fructose corn syrup is cheaper than cane sugar and acts as a food preservative, too, so the food industry loves the stuff. But it's been added to so many foods — yogurt, cereal, bread, drinks and even condiments — that researchers have fingered it as a culprit in the obesity epidemic.

The Corn Refiners Association has in the past marketed high-fructose corn syrup as natural. Our Bad Medicine columnist Christopher Wanjek argues otherwise:

"High-fructose corn syrup could be all-natural if cornstarch happened to fall into a vat of alpha-amylase, soak there for a while, then trickle into another vat of glucoamylase, get strained to remove the Aspergillus fungus likely growing on top, and then find its way into some industrial-grade D-xylose isomerase. This funny coincidence didn't happen in nature until the 1970s in a lab somewhere in Japan."

Now the Corn Refiners Association plans to ask the FDA to allow high-fructose corn syrup to be called simple "corn sugar" instead, AP reports. And already the group is advertising it with that name. The adds also claims there's no difference between corn sugar and cane sugar. Hmm.