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Company Illegally Tested Products On Humans With Disastrous Results
[font size=3]Bad to the bone: A medical horror story[/font]
Fortune
September 18, 2012: 5:00 AM ET
By Mina Kimes, writer
When medical device company Synthes decided to illegally test a bone cement on people, the results were disastrous. A disturbing tale of corporate crime and punishment. Georgia Baddley, a 70-year-old woman living near Salt Lake City, received a shocking call from a special agent at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The agent told her that the government had come across new information about her mother's death.
Baddley was speechless. Eight years before, her 83-year-old mother, Barbara Marcelino, had unexpectedly died during spine surgery. At the time, Baddley didn't question what had happened; surgery was always risky for a woman of that age. She was horrified when the agent told her that the surgeon had injected bone cement into her mother's spine and that the product -- which was not approved for that use -- may have played a role in her death.
The agent explained that the government had filed criminal charges against the maker of the cement, a company called Synthes, and four of its executives. After hanging up the phone, Baddley sat in stunned silence. "I was taken aback," she says. "I had no idea that anything like that had happened."
Most people have never heard of Synthes, a medical device maker headquartered in West Chester, Pa. But the company became part of one of the most recognizable names in health care in June when Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) completed the purchase of it for nearly $20 billion -- the largest acquisition in J&J's history. Market watchers cheered the deal, which will expand the company's stable of high-margin orthopedic products. J&J, which has endured a series of reputation-sullying recalls and lawsuits in recent years, specifically cited Synthes's "culture" and "values" as evidence of its appeal, even as former Synthes executives awaited sentencing on charges of grievous conduct.
MORE
Fortune
September 18, 2012: 5:00 AM ET
By Mina Kimes, writer
When medical device company Synthes decided to illegally test a bone cement on people, the results were disastrous. A disturbing tale of corporate crime and punishment. Georgia Baddley, a 70-year-old woman living near Salt Lake City, received a shocking call from a special agent at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The agent told her that the government had come across new information about her mother's death.
Baddley was speechless. Eight years before, her 83-year-old mother, Barbara Marcelino, had unexpectedly died during spine surgery. At the time, Baddley didn't question what had happened; surgery was always risky for a woman of that age. She was horrified when the agent told her that the surgeon had injected bone cement into her mother's spine and that the product -- which was not approved for that use -- may have played a role in her death.
The agent explained that the government had filed criminal charges against the maker of the cement, a company called Synthes, and four of its executives. After hanging up the phone, Baddley sat in stunned silence. "I was taken aback," she says. "I had no idea that anything like that had happened."
Most people have never heard of Synthes, a medical device maker headquartered in West Chester, Pa. But the company became part of one of the most recognizable names in health care in June when Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) completed the purchase of it for nearly $20 billion -- the largest acquisition in J&J's history. Market watchers cheered the deal, which will expand the company's stable of high-margin orthopedic products. J&J, which has endured a series of reputation-sullying recalls and lawsuits in recent years, specifically cited Synthes's "culture" and "values" as evidence of its appeal, even as former Synthes executives awaited sentencing on charges of grievous conduct.
MORE
- Never fear good citizens, our illustrious DOJ has wrenched four -- count 'em FOUR MISDEMEANOR guilty pleas (one each) -- from these Johnson & Johnson executives who killed several people by testing on them without their knowledge or consent. That kind of justice ought to provide a severe deterrent since their records will forever be marred and the shame and humiliation they'll feel while resting at home in their jacuzzi will certainly be memorable (in a passing thought kind-of-way). And I'm relatively sure that if they ever get caught killing people this way again, no matter how much profit they've made, why the DOJ will no doubt ask the judge to revoke their driver licenses as well.
And it'll serve them right.......
14 replies
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It is essential to the idea of a law, that it be attended with a sanction; or, in other words, a penalty or punishment for disobedience. If there be no penalty annexed to disobedience, the resolutions or commands which pretend to be laws will, in fact, amount to nothing more than advice or recommendation. ~Alexander Hamilton, Federalist 15
Who'll create the jerbs!?!?! Who'll buy the baby's their milk!?!?! Won't somebody think of the children!!!
