The Magazine of Corporate Responsibility

Regulation & Legislation rss

Drug Companies Reduce Payments to Doctors as Scrutiny Mounts(0)

January 3, 2012

Following an investigation by ProPublica of payments made by drug companies to doctors, some of the nation’s top medical schools last year cracked down on professors who give paid promotional talks for drugmakers. The firms themselves cut back on such spending in the wake of mounting scrutiny.

Full Story»

The Champion of Painkillers

Overdoses caused by narcotics painkillers now kill nearly 15,000 people a year — more than heroin and cocaine combined. But the pills continue to have a champion in the American Pain Foundation, which describes itself as the U.S.’s largest advocacy group for pain patients. Its message: The risk of addiction is overblown, and the drugs are underused. What the nonprofit doesn’t highlight is the money behind that message.

Culture Kills: The Legacy of Massey Energy

In April 2010, 29 miners died in Massey’s Upper Big Branch (UBB), the worst mining disaster in 40 years. On December 6, 2011, the U.S. Department of Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) issued a 1,000 page report of its investigation into the UBB tragedy. Alpha Natural Resources, which bought Massey earlier this year, agreed to pay $209 million in penalties (civil, criminal and restitution) for Massey Energy’s role in the explosion.

Why No Financial Crisis Prosecutions? ‘It’s Just too Hard’

Years after the financial crisis, there have still been no prosecutions of top executives at the major players in the financial crisis. Why’s that? Well, according to a now-departed Justice Department official who used to be in charge of investigating such matters, the Justice Department has decided that holding top Wall Street executives criminally accountable is too difficult a task.


More in this category