Heavy fraud with flu vaccine Pediatrician sentenced to 18 months probation

Medic collects money for fake data
A 67-year-old pediatrician has been sentenced by the Fulda district court for fraud in two cases to a prison sentence of one and a half years on probation. As the district court informed in a recent press release, the doctor had wrongly received just under 73,000 euros from a drug manufacturer. He had wanted to have the means tested scientifically - but instead of reputable data, the doctor sent invariably even made-up results.

Pharmaceutical manufacturer pays just under 73,000 euros for drug study
The district court of Fulda has sentenced a pediatrician from Petersberg (Hesse) to a suspended sentence of 18 months. The man had received from a pharmaceutical company about 72,700 euros and should do in his practice, a scientific survey on a not yet approved flu vaccine. The 67-year-old defendant pledged to provide the parents with diaries for this study, in which they should document the children's reaction to the vaccine.

Pediatrician receives suspended sentence for double fraud. (Image: aruba2000 / fotolia.com)

Doctor uses data of children from patient chart
However, the doctor apparently did not comply, but instead sends fake results to the drug manufacturer. In order for the judge of the district court of Fulda to consider it proven that the man got the money wrongly in 2009 and 2010. The delivery of even devised data therefore represents a particularly serious case of fraud, said Judge Judge Joachim Becker in his verdict: "Because this reflected the defendant with the intention to deceive a proper implementation of the test study," said the report of the district court.

According to a report by the news agency "dpa", the pediatrician had admitted that he simply entered names from his patient file in the documents for the documentation and came up with the results freely. The study was about a seasonal influenza vaccine that is already approved for adults and should now be screened for its tolerability in children. The manufacturer himself had set the case in motion after he became suspicious of the evaluation of the logs.

Injury not clearly detectable
Finally, physicians had to answer before the district court for fraud, in addition came an indictment of the prosecutor for assault in 75 cases. Because the man was accused that he had treated the children without the knowledge of the parents with the flu medicine. But on this point, the process had to be discontinued because it had not been clarified whether the defendant had actually performed drug tests on children, the "dpa" continues.
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