Cancer corruption of doctors and pharmaceutical companies?

Public prosecutor's office nationwide against cancer physicians, pharmacies and pharmaceutical manufacturers

04/08/2012

The prosecution investigates numerous doctors for cancer and pharmaceutical manufacturers on suspicion of bribery and corruption. Currently, preliminary investigations are being conducted throughout Germany. The oncologists are accused of having received fees for the prescription of certain cancer drugs. Alone in Erfurt doctors should have received hundreds of thousands. A doctor should save up to half a million euros through this type of „earning opportunity“ have received.

Patients with cancer get into the hands of medical specialists to get the best possible treatment. Apparently, it was not only the benefits but also the fees of pharmaceutical companies in the prescription of drugs in the foreground for some doctors. According to confirmed data, several prosecutors are currently investigating doctors on suspicion of bribery. In addition to the cancer doctors are, according to reports of the news magazine „The mirror“ at least three smaller pharmaceutical manufacturers are also covered by the investigation activities. The drug manufacturers should, according to the magazine Doctors „systematically bribed“. Some physicians have received so over one hundred thousand euros.

Specifically, it is about the charge that the companies have paid outpatient doctors with a cash register, if they use their preparations in the cancer treatment of a patient „prefers“ prescribed. Investigations have already been initiated against dozens of cancer doctors and some pharmacies.

Meanwhile, the district attorney's office Erfurt announced that it had already brought charges against at least one doctor and two pharmacists from Thuringia. The suspect is said to have received from the two pharmacists sums of money and benefits of several hundred thousand euros, when he took medicines from pharmacies, said Hannes Grünseisen, spokesman for the prosecutor Erfurt on Friday to the news agency „dpa“. The specialist should have received money if he ordered cancer drugs of the class of cytostatics in these pharmacists. According to the current state of investigation, the agreements between the physician and the two pharmacists should not have taken place at the same time, but with a time delay. "But there was the same approach," said the spokesman. The charge against the three suspects was not only now, but some time ago. The reproach: „Corruption and bribery“. Accordingly, the indictment was transferred to the district court Mühlhausen. A negotiation day is not yet scheduled.

In addition, the public prosecutor's office in Dresden seeks charges against chiefly responsible employees of the pharmaceutical company „Oncosachs“ rise. According to the prosecutor, the pharmaceutical manufacturer from Leipzig should have paid several hundred euros per patient if the doctor preferred the company's funds. At the beginning of 2011, the business premises and eleven properties were searched by the anti-corruption unit "Ines". At least 60 boxes of files and gigabytes of data were secured, as reported by the Attorney General at that time. The company had argued back then with the argument that a competitor wanted to harm the company.

A spokesman for the Attorney General Dresden, Wolfgang Klein, told the magazine, in many states would in this context due to the „Suspected corruption“ determined against 47 oncologists. The doctors are held until 2008 so-called „rent subsidies“ from „Oncosachs“ to have received. Some time later, funds are supposed to be in „sham trials“ flowed. An accused should even have collected more than 500,000 euros between 2005 and 2011 in this way.

Not only in the new federal states is determined, according to magazine by the investigating authorities against doctors and medicament manufacturers. The public prosecutor's office in Munich is currently investigating the managing director of the pharmaceutical company Ribosepharm. Also, the authorities assume bribery and bribery. Explicitly, this is the division „Hikma“ for cancer drugs. The health insurance AOK Lower Saxony confirmed to the press to have written specific communications to the Munich public prosecutor to support the investigation.

In the Hanseatic city of Hamburg, the prosecutor investigates those responsible for the drug manufacturer „Zyo Pharma“. Again, there is the suspicion of bribery in the room.

At present, it is not known if patients have suffered any health damage. Rather, it is about administering drugs with the same active ingredient from a specific manufacturer and receiving benefits and financial resources. If convicted, the parties face fines and imprisonment. (Sb)

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Picture: Dr. Klaus-Uwe Gerhardt