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March 23, 2018 - Health Ranger - Mike Adams
01:07:21
GlaxoSmithKline whistleblower speaks out about bribery of doctors, off-label marketing of drugs
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Hello and welcome to the Health Ranger Report.
We have a worldwide exclusive breaking report for you today about GlaxoSmithKline.
Remember that $3 billion settlement that the company made with the Department of Justice not too long ago, just a few days ago actually.
Well, there were two whistleblowers who initiated what became that $3 billion settlement.
And we have one of those whistleblowers joining us right now.
He joins us by Skype video to give us the inside story of what happened and what led to this record-breaking $3 billion settlement, the largest in the history of the pharmaceutical industry with the Department of Justice.
His name is Blair Hamrick.
He was an employee, a drug rep with GlaxoSmithKline more than a decade ago, and he's here to share his story right here on the Health Ranger Report.
Blair, thanks for joining us today.
It's good to have you on.
Hey, Mike.
Thanks for having me.
Well, it's great to actually speak with you.
You know, you've made history, or you've helped make history.
I know there were others involved.
How does it feel right now?
I know this is not completely concluded yet, but how does it feel at this point to see Glaxo having to pay a $3 billion fine for both criminal and civil violations that the Department of Justice investigated them for?
How does that make you feel now?
Well, it makes me feel vindicated.
You know, all along, you know, you're described as crazy or not a team player and, you know, ruined my career.
And after, you know, 11 years of having to remain silent, To finally have the burden of this whole fiasco taken off my back, it's great vindication.
Well tell us, how did you first start working for Glaxo?
I know you said you were a drug rep, but walk us through your background, how you connected with them at first, and really what you did for them as an employee.
Well, I started out, when I graduated from college, I went to work for a consumer products company and started in sales.
And then shortly after that, I went to work for another pharmaceutical company by the name of Syntex Laboratories.
While I was employed with them, they were bought by a larger pharmaceutical company called Roche.
During that transition time, I was promoted and relocated out to Denver, Colorado.
I worked for, I then, when Roche finally merged with Syntex, I left Syntex and went to Novartis, which was Sandoz at the time.
After that, how I got hooked up with Glaxo was I had a physician that would only see reps after 5.30pm.
And, you know, drug reps have a bad reputation of not working very hard or having even less hours than bankers do.
And I walked into this doctor's office at 5.30pm to try to see this one last doctor.
And as I came out, I ran into the Glaxo rep that I knew and her manager.
And I said to the manager, I said, hey, are you guys hiring?
You know, and I guess because he was impressed to see that there was actually another rep out and about at 530 in the afternoon, I got an interview.
Well, is that considered late work hours?
Yeah, that's considered, like, to be honest with you, if you've ever seen the movie Love and Other Drugs, you know, on the inside, drug reps are very well known to only work two to three or four hours a day, you know, because it's, you know, essentially you just go around and collect signatures to drop your samples off.
So it's, you know, it's not that difficult of a position to But, you know, drug reps are just known throughout the industry of not having a good work ethic.
And yet, at the same time, they're known for getting paid quite well.
$100,000 or more is not uncommon among drug reps, correct?
Exactly.
That's not uncommon at all.
You know, base salaries anywhere from $80,000 to $100,000 plus you can make bonuses, you know, $30,000, $40,000 a year in bonus.
So it can be quite lucrative.
And then if you get promoted into management, then you get stock options and things like that.
So yeah, it's a pretty...
It's a pretty lucrative job.
The inside joke used to be, it's the best part-time job you could ever have.
Wow.
So you were on a pretty fast track to making good money and living a good life.
Had you been able to continue to climb that corporate ladder, you might have been looking at potentially a million dollar salary at some point in management, right?
Well, right.
Well, I mean, if you look at some of the packages that some of these guys, some upper management got when they left GlaxoSmithKline, they get really nice golden parachutes when they walk away.
When you look at somebody like David Stout or Chris Wiebacher, they were given, from what I understand, and what I think I remember reading in the press, they received millions of dollars just to walk away.
Wow.
Yeah, that's quite a golden parachute.
So you were doing well.
At what point did you start to have questions about Glaxo and their behavior that eventually led to this Department of Justice investigation?
What did you see happening or what did they say to you or ask you to do that raised those red flags for you?
Well, it started out, Greg Thorpe and I, of course, my partner who first came forward, we were discussing where the company was going and how the company had taken a turn asking us to do some unethical and illegal things.
Such as what?
Are you going to give some examples?
Selling drugs off-label.
Selling drugs to children that The drug says specifically in its package insert, this drug's not indicated for children under 18 years old, but they were asking us specifically to sell it to children.
Sorry to interrupt, but how would that work?
Would they have you in a private meeting in their office or something, and they would say, like with a wink and a nod, oh, you've got to push this drug for use on children, or how would that work?
Well, it happened several ways.
When we would have regional meetings, because most of the reps got to work with a lot of autonomy.
But when we would have district or regional meetings, we would train on how to sell off label, how to find niche products.
For instance, like a drug Wellbutrin.
You know, it was indicated for depression, but then they, you know, I guess apparently they were not satisfied with the amount of money they were making, and they were not satisfied with their market share, so they started pushing it for weight loss.
For pediatrics, for sexual dysfunction.
And then you've probably heard the quote.
This little catchphrase went around for the doctors that you could only see for a brief second.
It's like, hey, doc, remember Welbutrin's the happy, horny, skinny drug.
You know, I mean, these are catch little phrases that makes it, you know, drills the name of the drug in the back of a doctor's mind.
And, you know, they get duped into writing prescriptions for the product.
May not be appropriate.
I'm sorry, go ahead.
Well, yeah, just to be clear, so for the audience, the FDA never granted approval for those drugs to be used in treating those diseases and health conditions.
That's why it's called off-label use.
Just for the audience to know, that is illegal to push a drug for something that it's not approved for.
I mean, some people may not know that, but that's a crime, or at least that's a violation of FDA regulations and misrepresentation and fraud, and that's what Glaxo pleaded guilty to, correct?
That's correct.
You know, it's not illegal for a doctor to write a drug off label.
In fact, that happens very frequently, but that's up to a doctor's prerogative.
But when a company goes out there and actively markets a drug that is not indicated for a specific disease state, there's no studies to show that it even works, That is a violation of the law.
I'm sorry to interrupt.
There's a little bit of a delay.
So for Welbutrin, the catchphrase was, this is the happy, horny, skinny drug, and that was sort of what you were taught to repeat to doctors?
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
You know, that was for when you could only quickly give a...
That's only when you had like a minute to talk to the doctor while you're getting a signature for samples.
It's like, hey, doc, remember Wellbutrin.
It's the happy, horny, skinny drug.
Now, if you actually got the opportunity...
To speak to the physician, then, you know, for a sit-down appointment, you may then start talking about things like intimacy and depression and how the competitor drugs like Paxil or what have you...
The patients have problems with their libido.
You should use Welbutrin because it increases the libido.
Depending on what your primary drug was to promote, you would go in and then talk to...
We were trained on uncovering what doctors' objections were and then to come back with What these objections were and spin it so that the doctor would start writing your drug.
Well, give me an example.
So let's say if I'm a physician, you're talking to me and I say, well, what about Welbutrin's side effect?
What was the most common side effect that the drug had?
A common side effect would be anxiousness or one of the problems is insomnia.
Oh, okay.
So let's say if I raise that question, what about insomnia?
I don't want my patients to have sleep disorders.
Then what would you say as the drug rep?
Well, as a drug rep, I'd say, doctor, well, the insomnia is transient.
So it's only a problem for the first couple of days.
Once your patients acclimate to the drug, the insomnia will fade away.
So it's always a, you know, it's a spin machine.
I'll give you another for instance.
You know, this isn't, you know, Glaxo did not plead guilty to this stuff, but it is in our complaint.
And that is, for instance, the drug Advir for asthma.
They came out with the SMART data, and I don't remember exactly what SMART is the acronym for, but the SMART data showed that there was an increased incidence in death in African American people Who were taking Advir.
So the study was stopped in the middle.
They had black box warnings put on in the package insert of Advir.
We were trained, according to our complaint, we were trained to tell the doctors, well, doctor, You know, most people of lower socioeconomic conditions are not compliant with their medications.
So with Advir, you don't have to worry about your patients not being compliant, not taking their inhaled corticosteroid, because Advir is a combination of an inhaled corticosteroid and a long-acting beta agonist.
So it's always a spin.
So they were basically taking, according to our complaint, they were taking a very negative, dangerous outcome of a drug and trying to spin it as positive.
Like, oh, the drug's a combination drug, so you don't have to worry about your patients having problems with this drug.
So it sounds like, I mean, the depth of all this is incredible, but it sounds like So if the FDA approves a drug for just one condition, doctors can prescribe that drug for any condition, thousands of conditions.
That's correct.
And then the drug company can train its drug reps, like you were with Glaxo, to sort of push that drug for any condition, even if there's been no clinical trials whatsoever, no safety data, no long-term results, absolutely no review by the FDA, nothing.
I mean, I think most...
Common sense people would say this is all a big scam.
The whole thing is a giant con.
There's no scientific basis to it if that's the way it runs.
Precisely.
And I tell you what, when you have the epiphany of, you know, for instance, when you run, when you look at a drug like Wellbutrin, for instance, and it has a 0.1% incidence of seizure, that's one in a thousand.
Well, when you extrapolate the numbers, you know, if you're that one person that has a seizure, Well, you know, it's 100%.
And where the line was drawn between myself and Greg Thorpe was realizing it's like, you know what, if a child has a seizure, who's responsible?
Is it the doctor?
Is it me?
Is it the company?
Because, you know, where does the buck stop?
And unfortunately, you know, we have in the corporate world, there's so many veils of protection that these people have, you know, I mean, they're a corporate defendant, which is nothing more than a table full of attorneys.
And nobody pays the price.
That's a really crucial point, Blair.
You just hit the nail on the head that no person is being held responsible for any of this.
The CEO of GlaxoSmithKline is not being marched out in handcuffs, prosecuted for fraud and felony crimes.
None of the top managers are being individually prosecuted by the Department of Justice, which I think a lot of people find that to be very strange because You know, let's say Bernie Madoff, who ran the Ponzi scheme, he defrauded people out of hundreds of millions of dollars.
He's in prison.
If you or I went out on the street and tried to, let's say, bribe doctors and defraud the government, steal hundreds of millions from Medicare and Medicaid, all these other things that Glaxo has been accused of, We would be arrested and thrown in prison immediately.
There wouldn't be any way out of it for everyday people.
So why does a corporation get to commit felonies?
No one goes to jail.
No one.
And they can keep doing business with the government.
More money for Medicare.
More money for Medicaid.
Obamacare gives them a monopoly virtually over health care.
Yeah.
What are your thoughts on that from being an insider?
It seems insane to me.
What do you think?
It's offensive.
It's flat offensive.
You know, I mean, in my opinion, they have no regard whatsoever for precious human life.
And, you know, I don't want to paint myself as a victim like I've been harmed.
I have been.
I mean, I've suffered.
I've lost every...
I've lost all my money.
My son has suffered tremendously.
But I have suffered nothing compared to a parent whose child committed suicide on Paxil.
Imagine how horrifying that is.
Yeah.
It's so repulsive.
You're just talking about a bad company run by bad people, in my opinion.
Well, in those cases where suicides take place, and we've talked about this, we've reported on this, the data is there to show The data are there to show that suicides are linked to the consumption of some antidepressants, SSRIs, certain psychiatric and psychotropic drugs do lead to visions of violent action and taking your own life and things like that.
That's well supported by the data.
But, you know, then the parent, if the child commits suicide, the parent blames themselves because they think the drug is not at fault because they've been lied to by their doctor or the TV ad or the FDA regulator, whatever the case may be.
So you're right.
It destroys not only lives of those who are lost, but even the lives of the families who are left behind.
Oh, how can it not destroy their lives?
I mean, and then, you know, listen, and they've bastardized They've bastardized all of the medical research.
You can't trust the research.
You know, you can't look at the New England Journal of Medicine and trust that the study hasn't been, you know, paid for by whatever company that's out there.
I mean, and you're not, and you're also, it's not just one company.
I mean, they are truly, you know, the far, the far mafias, what I refer to them, is, you know, they are, they circle the wagons, they protect each other.
It is, it's horrible.
You're exactly right, Blair.
Look, we covered the story of two whistleblower virologists who used to work inside Merck, who filed a false claims act with the federal government, alleging that Merck falsified the efficacy data of its mumps vaccines for at least the last 10 years, spiking the test results with animal antibodies, basically animal blood antibodies, to falsify a 95% effectiveness rate of a vaccine that...
The virologist said it didn't work and actually contributed to the spread of mumps and the spread of outbreaks.
I mean, it's incredible.
Yeah, it's, you know what, you know, and this is, you know, when will the public be outraged and say enough is enough?
When, you know, I mean, because this kind of behavior will continue until somebody goes to prison.
And I'm not talking about country club prison, minimum security.
I'm talking about real prison.
When they do time.
I mean, look, they're hurting our children.
I mean, you know, it's just...
It's offensive.
It's immoral.
It's unethical.
And, you know, for a company to have the slogan of letting people do more and live longer and live better and then hide behind that slogan at the same time you're telling your sales reps to sell off-label to children is...
I mean, how evil can you...
How evil does it get?
You know, it just doesn't get any more evil than that.
We've seen a lot of evil here in covering Big Pharma.
You know, naturalnews.com, the Health Ranger Report, we've documented and exposed a lot of evil, and you're doing it too.
And I want to ask you, you know, you seem like a person, I'm curious, do you have a strong spiritual connection with Do you have a faith?
Do you have a set of ethics?
Because most people would have stayed silent, Blair.
They would have said, I'm going to make millions of dollars by keeping my mouth shut and going along with the program, regardless of who's harmed.
But you didn't.
You stood up.
You and your colleague, co-worker, Greg, you stood up.
Why did you do that?
Well, because I had to ask myself a question.
And it was a hard, you know, a lot of times doing the right thing is the most difficult thing.
Many times, actually.
But I had to ask myself, if a child has a seizure, who's responsible here?
Well, I can't have that on my conscience.
When you talk about being spiritual, you know, I am spiritual.
I am a Christian.
I would say that the way that this has turned out...
You know, I mean, it's been so overwhelming.
And, you know, the way I feel God moves, I mean, isn't it abundantly clear that He's behind this?
Because I couldn't have done this all on my own.
My friend Greg couldn't have done it all on his own.
I mean, I really feel that there has been, without a question, divine influence in the outcome.
And I can also tell you at my lowest moments, You know, five, four or five years ago when, you know, I just never saw an end to this.
I was, you know, I was shunned by people in my hometown, people I grew up with, even shunned by my own family.
You know, I'd pray a lot and, you know, If I didn't have my faith, I don't think I could have made it, the 11 years I've put up with this.
Yeah, because our viewers may not yet realize this has been an 11-year battle for you, correct?
Or how long exactly?
Right.
It started back in 2001 when Greg Thorpe came forward, and then GSK launched an internal investigation in January of 2002.
We were interviewed, and then they proceeded to do pretty much nothing about it.
Wow, wow.
And I also saw in some of the documents that are now on the public record, but hard to find about this case, it looks to me like Greg and you were blackballed by the industry.
Now, I don't know if you would use that word, but to me as an outsider, the fact that you can't get a job at a pharmaceutical company, and he couldn't either, it looks like you're blackballed.
Well, it sure has that appearance.
Now, I can't really speak specifically about it, but I would welcome Mr.
Witte to give me a call, and I'd be happy to work for his compliance department and show him where he has holes.
Mr.
Witte, he's the CEO of Glaxo, correct?
That's correct.
If they are truly a changed company like they say they are, Then I would think he would want to reward me for pointing out all of this fraud.
And I would also think he would like to perhaps hire me back and put me in a position of power because I wouldn't abuse the power.
I think I've already proved that I wouldn't.
And help them in their compliance department.
Hey, if he really wants to clean up GlaxoSmithKline, he should hire us both.
We'll go in there, we'll do the research, we'll find where the corruption and fraud is, because that's what we do every day, for virtually no pay anyway, just because we're interested in justice, we're interested in truth.
You know, I've got to say, I don't know about you, but I don't have anything against honest scientific medicine.
You know, I'm not against pharmaceuticals that work and that are safe and that are based on honest science.
What we're against, I think you would agree with me, is we're against the fraud, we're against the deception, we're against the harming of children and innocent people.
Who didn't have to die?
How can we not stand up for that, you know?
Right.
Well, and then you look at, I forgot, is it Salk, who came up with the polio vaccine?
Yeah.
You know, when he came up with that, and Alexander Fleming also, who developed antibiotics, penicillin, these gentlemen didn't patent these items.
And why?
Because they knew that if they patented them, that Commercially, not everyone could afford these products, so they wanted to make these things available for everyone.
But, you know, Big Pharma has done just the opposite.
They not only patent it, but then they prevent, when the patent expires, they prevent the drugs from going generic.
Oh, yeah.
You know, they absolutely, the greed is just insane.
No, Pfizer is being sued right now by major pharmacy retailers across the U.S. who allege that Pfizer is engaged in a monopolistic price-fixing practice to prevent generic cholesterol drugs from entering the market and thereby interfering with the high-profit sales of Lipitor.
Right.
Well, hey, I tell you what, if you start looking at the data, you know, you've got to really question the data on that Lipitor also.
I mean, that's, you know, who do you think's paying for the guidelines for the, you know, for the cardiologists to come out with their guidelines?
And every year, it's LDLs have to be lower and lower and lower.
And what people don't understand is that Cholesterol is essential for your brain to function properly.
Maybe having the ratio of high LDLs to HDLs can cause an ischemic cardiac event or a stroke, but you know what?
Not having enough cholesterol can cause having a hemorrhagic stroke.
And then also, to have your cognitive ability to be able to think clearly, you have to have some cholesterol.
So, you know, I mean, I was in the industry long enough.
I could look at some studies and just look at them and go, wow, I can't believe I'm being told to sell with this data.
And then, you know, of course, those studies, you're trained to, you know, to focus on how well it works, but don't focus on the side effects so much.
You don't really want to bring that one up.
If they ask you questions, then you can, you know, then you can address it.
But let's spin it in a very positive manner.
You know, for instance, you know, oh, well, you know, doctor, people with low socioeconomic conditions, they're not compliant with their drugs.
So that's why we should use our drug.
That's incredible.
It's the truth.
It's well established that the drug companies, they cherry pick which studies they wish to present to the FDA. So right there, it's non-scientific to begin with.
You can't pick and choose which studies you want to consider to be real.
Right.
It's also known that the FDA doesn't even conduct the studies.
In fact, the drug companies pay scientists to run the studies for them.
And it's also well known, we've documented this at Natural News, that scientists or lab researchers, clinicians, for example, who find results that are unfavorable to the financial incentives of the drug companies end up magically not finding any contract work from the drug companies themselves.
The secret under the table is you better find our drug to work, to be efficacious and safe, otherwise you won't get any contract work from us.
That's well known.
Yeah, well, and don't forget the ghostwriters.
You know, the ghostwritten articles where doctors, you know, they just put their name on it.
Somebody from the marketing department wrote the study.
Yeah, well, just so that our audience knows what you're talking about, you're talking about scientific papers that are published in peer-reviewed medical journals, such as the Lancet or New England Journal of Medicine, for example, that are authored by drug companies, and then they pay a doctor to put the doctor's name on it as the author.
Then the doctor submits it to the medical journal.
It gets published and becomes scientific fact, even though it's just companies spin.
That's correct.
I can't speak for how often it happens, but we know it happens.
There's no question it happens.
That's why I'm saying any study that's published, you have to be really careful If you want to believe it or not.
Yeah, exactly.
Let me get back to your personal first-hand experience.
One of the charges that the DOJ leveled against Glaxo was bribery of doctors.
And Glaxo pleaded guilty to bribing doctors in a number of creative ways, including sending them on exotic vacations, including paying them big money to go on, quote, speaking engagements.
I think one doctor received $2 million to go speak to a number of people.
It might have been 10 people in a room somewhere.
It was very clear that this was bribery money and not really fair compensation for your speaking skills because most of these doctors really aren't that great speakers.
Did you see any of this happen or do you have any first-hand knowledge of this kind of thing going on?
Yeah.
I was promoted when I was with Glaxo.
After about two years with Glaxo, I was promoted to a specialty physician.
I was called a therapeutic area specialist.
So one of my jobs was to recruit And local speakers to become trained on the drugs to go and speak to other physicians.
You're taking them down the primrose path of payoffs.
Write the drug.
First of all, they've got to start writing the drug.
If they're not writing the drug enough, then you've got to get on them about that.
Then when they do a speaking program at $2,000 for 30 minutes or $1,500 for, you know, whatever, anywhere from $500 to $2,500 for a half-hour talk.
Then if the message that they're sending is not exactly the way you want it to go, then, you know, you coach the doctor about, here's our marketing message.
This is the point we want to get out to other physicians.
You know, and so, yeah, I saw it firsthand.
I even had doctors, you know, when they when I walked into their office and they found out I was the therapeutic area specialist when I would go on a call with the with the other rep that called on the doctor.
They were like, hey, can you set me up in a speaking program?
You know, because it's extra it's extra money.
And there's even doctors out there that they make so much money on the speaking tours that they start hiring like maybe nurse practitioners or other doctors to see their patients.
And they maybe go in the office two or three times a month because they're out speaking.
It's so lucrative.
I mean, when you can go in, let's hypothetically say you're a doctor that makes $2,000 for a talk.
And then so I'm going to fly tomorrow to Atlanta, and they're going to pay me.
They're going to pay my airfare.
I'm going to fly first class.
They're going to pay my meals, my hotel.
And then I'm going to do a talk for about four doctors in the morning for breakfast.
And then I've got another rep who's going to send me off To a lunch program for an office of like, say, eight physicians all together and talk about a drug.
And then I have a dinner program that night in Atlanta.
Then I get on my airplane and I fly home.
I just made six grand.
Wow.
Pocket money in one day to do three half-hour presentations.
And then, of course, the slideshow I used, you know, I could say it's my personal experience with the medication, but, you know...
Most of the time, the slideshows come from the company marketing department.
So people like you or your colleagues would provide the slideshows, provide the airfare, the luxury hotels, and the speaking the money to have these doctors go speak to small groups?
That's correct.
In fact, at the time I left Glaxo, they had over 40,000 speakers on their speakers bureau.
You know, I saw that in the documents.
49,000.
Here it is.
To complement its dominant sales force, GlaxoSmithKline had unrivaled resource of speakers to promote his drugs.
GlaxoSpeakers Bureau is comprised of approximately 49,000 physicians, all of whom made their peer-to-peer marketing services, that means speaking to their colleagues, available in return for premium compensation.
These kickbacks, the document says, We're also a method used by GlaxoSmithKline to reward the biggest prescribers of its drug as a way to incentivize physicians to increase their writing of GSK drug prescriptions.
So it was a really elaborate, it sounds to me like an elaborate, almost a money laundering system where in the mafia they might run a racetrack and then they take their drug money and they funnel it through the racetrack and then they deposit it into the bank as winnings or whatever.
That's classic mafia behavior.
So the doctors were then going on, quote, speaking gigs and then getting sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars.
One doctor got $2 million, I read.
And it's just another way to funnel bribery money into their bank accounts.
Amazing.
In the name of medical education.
And that's what's so horrible.
And what's so funny is that you think that the crime is horrible enough, but then you've got the cover-up.
Then once we blew the whistle, you got the whole cover-up.
And, you know, the general rule is the cover-up's always worse than the crime.
You know, I mean, I still don't know the whole story of the cover-up, but I can tell you it's deep and it goes all the way to the top.
I mean, it's very bad.
It's very ugly.
You know, it's extraordinary.
When you say all the way to the top, I don't know if you mean the top of Glaxo or the top of the entire U.S. government, and you don't even have to answer that right now, but let me just say, you know, I don't know where you stand politically, and it doesn't matter, but if you think about the Obamacare legislation...
It is in essence creating a monopoly for medicine and forcing Americans to do business with these criminal drug companies that have pleaded guilty to criminal behavior.
It's like forcing us all to give our money to the mafia.
It's incredible.
Right, right.
You know, I believe, you know, I believe everybody should have health care.
I mean, currently, I don't have health care insurance, and I haven't been to the doctor in a few years because I can't afford it.
I don't have a job.
I don't have any money.
Luckily, thank the Lord, I'm healthy, you know.
At the same time, I believe everybody needs, we do need a universal healthcare, but you're making us do business with a criminal element.
And so, you know, it's not the way to go about it.
I don't know.
I was hoping that they would do something like private schools.
A voucher system.
Yeah, something like that.
A lot of people aren't satisfied with...
Everybody has the right to a free education, and some parents aren't satisfied with that, so they can spend extra money and send their children to private school.
I wish our healthcare system was a little bit like that as well, where everyone can get healthcare, but if you want the premium, if you want instant...
then, you know, you can pay for it.
But, you know, I don't agree with being forced to do business with Humana or with any other insurance provider because, you know, their whole incentive is to not treat, you know? their whole incentive is to not treat, you know?
They make money by not treating you, not by treating you.
The sicker you get and the longer you stay sick, the more money they make.
This is the issue I have with the system as well.
You've got all of these companies.
Pfizer was nailed by the Department of Justice a couple of years ago, but they had a shell company to take the felony hit.
So that the main company didn't have a felony on its record.
It's as if you went out and shot somebody and then you created an invisible copy of yourself to go to jail for you.
Listen, when Andrew Witte, who is the CEO of GlaxoSmithKline, talks to his shareholders and says a $3 billion fine doesn't even hurt him, Well, I believe him.
No, they paid for it out of cash reserves.
I mean, they had $3 billion just sitting around.
Right.
You would think that the punishment would hurt them.
You want them to suffer, to feel pain because...
Well, there's a punitive element, yes.
But here's the thing.
So Glaxo is allowed to continue to do business with the very entities that it defrauded, which is Medicare, Medicaid, the two biggest ones, plus potentially lots of insurance companies, lots of health and hospital organizations, things like that.
Department of Defense?
Yes, Department of Defense.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, it's extraordinary.
It's like you've got to start to ask, at what point do we restore basic law and order in America?
And you've got a Department of Justice led by an individual, Eric Holder, who is himself being deeply investigated now for possibly running guns across the border in New Mexico.
And in covering that up, and then the president helping to cover that up, To say, you can't have the documents that we previously said didn't even exist.
It's like, when the corruption goes all the way to the top, who do you call?
Who is the enforcer?
Are you familiar with Daniel Ellsberg?
Sure.
And the Pentagon Papers?
Yeah.
Once again, that was, of course, the Department of Defense and the military contractors.
But, you know, I mean...
I watched that movie, The Most Dangerous Man in America, because I wanted to see, wow, this has been done before.
This is nothing new under the sun.
Somebody's sacrificing everything for principle.
What happened to him?
You know, the guy was facing 115 years in federal prison, and luckily he was exonerated.
But, you know, unfortunately with this, you know, no one at Glaxo is facing anything.
I mean, they had to change some of their business practices, but in my opinion, I think it's just smoke and mirrors.
Well, yeah, they had to change the practice of not getting caught.
I remember seeing the statement from the CEO. It was something along the lines of, you know, we're going to change our practices and talk to those responsible people.
And I remember thinking he must mean to teach them how to not get caught because that's the only thing that they seem to have remorse over is getting caught.
And even then, they didn't have to pay much of a fine whatsoever.
So it's like, what is the penalty here?
There's no penalty.
It's sort of like a wink and a nod from the government.
Just keep doing business as you're doing it.
You know, at some point, Blair, you got to ask, what is the overriding agenda?
And some people believe, many of our readers believe, there is an agenda to actually destroy the health of Americans.
The government is broke and it wants people to die before they reach retirement age so it doesn't have to pay out retirement benefits.
Things like that.
And they sound crazy at first, but when you dig into it, you uncover things that are shocking and true.
Yeah, that's the thing.
Like I told you earlier, I've been watching Alex Jones for a long time, and it's like...
Some of the stuff, people think, oh, that's crazy.
That's crazy.
Dave Chappelle, I saw an interview with him where he said, calling somebody crazy is the most insulting thing you can say because you're basically saying, oh, dismiss whatever this person says because they're crazy.
So don't believe them.
And, you know, it's so dismissive.
I'll tell you a funny story.
The last meeting I went to with Glaxo, they, obviously, they had been hit with a subpoena by the Department of Justice, and they had a meeting with all the representatives, and they called the program Right Right.
The write-write program.
And they had somebody from GlaxoLegal, and it's write-write meaning W-R-I-T-E dash R-I-G-H-T, which means write correctly.
You know, basically telling you, hey, you don't want to tell in your call notes that you took a doctor to the Super Bowl.
Yeah, it's just something you don't want to put in writing.
So it was called the Right Right Program.
And it was like, I just sat there and I went, oh, this is a goldmine here.
This is just unbelievable.
If you don't get that you're breaking the law yet, you ought to get it after this one.
Wow.
So they had a systematic deception algorithm.
You could say they were training people to be deceptive, to subvert FDA regulations, to influence doctors' prescribing habits and make sure they got financially rewarded for doing so.
How did that take place?
How did the conversations happen with the doctors where you said, Something like, hey, if you write more prescriptions, you're going to get a lucrative speaking gig?
How did that happen?
You know what?
It was a lot more covert than that.
You know, I lived out in Denver.
So, you know, that was back with John Elway.
And, you know, it's a pretty big sports town.
So, you know, we had season tickets to Broncos games, to the Nuggets games, to the Avalanche games.
And, you know, it was kind of like, hey, you would just...
You wouldn't exactly ask directly, I'll scratch your back if you scratch my back.
It's a lot more covert than that, but it was like, hey, how'd you like to go to the Broncos game this weekend?
We're going to have a program on this drug.
Then, you know, when they're at the program, you go to the program with them and you really just keep talking about the drug and how it'd be so great for their patients.
And you know what?
I mean, If somebody says you're not influenced by that, I know doctors want to think that they're not influenced.
Oh, I'm too smart to be influenced by marketing employees.
But no, it's been studied.
They know how to get you.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, it's, you know, it's definitely a predatory relationship.
Well, let me ask you about the physicians in particular because I know a lot of physicians.
We've covered many.
And yeah, you're right.
They don't think that they're going to be influenced.
And yet, they tend to be very intelligent but also very arrogant people who then overestimate their resistance to social influence techniques and things that were used there.
How often did you...
I've run across doctors who were willing to just sell their souls as long as they got the right benefits and tickets and speaking gigs.
And did you see some doctors that resisted all that?
Describe some of that.
It's funny because when I was a rep, the doctors that were rep friendly, that would love reps to come in and they wanted all the toys and the lunches for their staff.
As a rep, I used to love those guys.
But as I saw the horrible things going on, now, with hindsight being 20-20, it's the physicians that refuse to see reps, that didn't like reps, didn't want reps coming in their office.
That's the doctor I'd go see right now.
What percentage of physicians, like GPs, do you think fall into that category?
Just a guess.
It was about 80% of them would be recipients of whatever you had to offer.
It may be even higher than that.
It was few and far between were the physicians that would be resistant to the drug reps.
Really?
So maybe one out of ten or one out of eight physicians might say no?
Maybe one or two out of ten would be like, no, I don't speak to drug reps.
These pharmaceutical companies, they have a special, well, they did at least when I was there, they had institutional reps.
So they had specific reps that just called on drugs.
Internships, interns, and young doctors in their residency.
Because if you can get them to form a habit early in their career, it's the gift that keeps on giving.
They go into private practice, and that's what they're used to doing, and they just...
They just keep writing the scripts.
No, they're inundated from medical school, and I've been in offices of doctors and asked them this question, so you're not influenced by a big pharma?
And they say no, and you look around, and the paper pads are all like Glaxo, and the cups, and the pens, and the billboards, the posters, the clocks, and probably half the guy's car was paid for.
The symbols of pharmaceuticals are everywhere, and they say they're not influenced.
I mean, how can they be so self-deluded?
Right.
Well, you know, the doctors should wear on their white coat patches of all the different drugs because they look like a NASCAR. Yeah, exactly.
Like Merck, Pfizer, Glaxo, Johnson& Johnson.
Yeah, I agree.
In fact, I think there was a comedian who proposed that idea.
Yeah, that's not an original thought.
I saw a cartoon written like that where the patient's like, Doctor, I'm not really comfortable with your relationship with the pharmaceutical companies, and he's got all these patches all over the place.
He looks like a giant NASCAR, you know?
But that would at least be honest, because what's happening today is the doctors are receiving money, but they do so secretly.
I believe the Wall Street Journal reported on the celebrity Dr.
Drew.
Oh, yeah.
Dr.
Drew received, I believe it was $275,000 from GlaxoSmithKline and then went on to promote Wellbutrin on his radio show, but he never told his audience that he had taken that money from Glaxo.
That's just one example out of, well, 49,000 other examples.
Right.
And that was that whole intimacy and depression thing that he was caught up in.
And, you know, listen, and look at his statement.
His statement is, yes, he got paid, but it's what he saw in his clinical practice.
You know, I don't know.
I'm not that naive.
I don't mean to be arrogant about it.
I mean, it's just, you know, eventually you have to say enough is enough of the lies.
Fortunately, you know, what we do in life, you know, perpetuates an eternity.
And, you know, if you can live with yourself and take the money and not care about people or sell drugs off-label and make that big bonus dollar, well, you know what?
You're going to have to answer to it someday, whether it be in this life or the next one.
I agree.
I agree.
And what's fascinating about this reality, this world, you could say, is you said 80%, maybe 90%.
I think it's more like 90% of the people out there will sell their soul for profit, for power, for material wealth.
For their ego.
And then there's the 10% of us, people like you and I, who are the whistleblowers.
We are the defenders of innocence.
We fight for justice.
We try to expose deception.
We try to demand honest behavior by others and then also set examples for ourselves.
I mean, we're not 100% perfect, but at least our intention is to be the best people we can be.
But we live in a world where there's so much deception.
It's everywhere.
And sometimes it seems like those are the people that get ahead.
But like you say, on their souls, on the record that really counts, they're so far behind, they're never going to catch up.
I mean, when you die, it doesn't matter how much money you had in your bank account.
What matters is how you lived.
That's what matters.
I mean, the soul record.
Right.
Well, you know, it's interesting that I broached Daniel Ellsberg and I'd love to meet the man someday because I really admire him.
But when he was up on federal crimes for when he was being charged with federal crimes, they did they had a psychiatrist interview.
He and his co-defendant and they sit in what he said to them.
And he was basically helping them how to pick a jury.
And he said, whatever you do, you do not want to put white males Who are middle-aged on the jury.
Now, this is back in the 70s.
And he said, why is because you have two very smart individuals who risk everything on principle.
And if you put a white, middle-class male, middle-aged on that jury, somewhere along the line, that person compromised their principle to either put food on the table or keep their job.
And they will want to hang your client.
Wow.
And that's true.
That's where we get into the allegory of the cave.
You go back into the cave to tell everybody, hey, there's a whole other world out there, and they hate you.
It's like, not only do they say there isn't another world out there, they say you're crazy for thinking so, and if they could break their chains, they'd kill you.
So, I mean, it's the same thing.
It's like, once you wake up to this, it's like, you can't go back.
It's impossible to go back.
Absolutely.
It's fascinating that you're taking this into philosophy and even Plato there.
The thing that really gets me about all of this is that most everyday people believe that they live in a world where the police go after the bad guys.
They think that the FDA only approves drugs when they are really safe.
They think that the science is legitimate.
And doctors believe this.
Doctors are the most brainwashed profession of all.
And I can't even tell you how many doctors have said things to me.
And some of them are already dead, by the way, from their own drugs.
Doctors I knew that are now dead.
Because you can't really change their minds to save their own lives.
Because they're so arrogant.
They say things like, oh, if that were true, I would have heard about it.
So, you know, it's like they think they're God because, what, all information goes through them?
Right.
Well, and you know, hey, they're absolutely...
And listen, I have a lot of doctors that I would consider friends, and I'm not trying to be insulting to all doctors, but when it comes to nutrition, man, they don't know.
I mean, they're just told how to react in medical school, and they react anecdotally to what their experience is and their practice.
But, you know, listen, they're not perfect.
And, you know, it was always funny to see the obese doctor who smokes cigarettes telling you you need to lose weight and stop smoking.
I saw that a bunch.
Oh, I'm sure you did.
I'm sure you did.
Anything else?
We're coming up on time for this interview, but anything else you want to share that you saw firsthand that you think people need to know?
Maybe something that would really surprise mainstream people out there who are just now starting to wake up to this reality.
Well, you know, one of the things that bothers me now is that, you know, Big Pharma has really run out of compounds.
I mean, they've run out of new things.
So once a drug goes generic, they don't sample it anymore.
And the last time I did go to the doctor, I started seeing products that were generic.
That smaller pharmaceutical companies that were made by other companies and then smaller pharmaceutical companies came out with a brand name for it and are sampling it again.
But it's no different than what's available generically.
So, you know, many times, you know, to get your drug approved, you only have to prove that it works better than placebo.
And many times, these new quote-unquote new drugs that come out, Yeah, they may be better than placebo, but what costs you pennies currently on the market may have a better side effect profile, may be more efficacious,
and the companies, of course, will not test that drug against the generic version because if it comes out that the generic works better, Then, you know, their whole marketing campaign is screwed.
So there are many drugs out there that they won't test it against what's already available and been available and their safety profile is known and well documented.
This is the proof, the absolute proof that the pharmaceutical industry does not care about human beings is that they go make agreements with generic drug manufacturers to keep the generics off the market.
They engage in patent fraud.
They engage in price fixing, in monopolization practices, unfair trade practices.
This is routine.
And it's all about keeping their profits rolling in.
And, of course, they never run ads on television saying, oh, we kept generics off the market so that you pay 10,000% more for your prescription.
How much do we love you?
They never tell you that.
Instead, they run these feel-good ads with healthy yoga models that don't even take their drugs to make you think that if you take their drugs, you're going to be this healthy, happy nature fitness person.
It's complete fraud.
It's totally deceptive.
It's hogwash.
Right, and one more thing.
If you think If you believe that we are the best country in the world and that we stop all the fraud, think about what these companies are global.
Think about what they're doing in other countries where they're not monitored so well.
If they're doing it here, think about what they're doing in a third world country.
Well, I believe, didn't Nigeria issue arrest warrants for Pfizer executives over there for drug trials that killed some of the children there?
I hope so.
You know, I saw your interview with Mr.
Rappaport where you were talking about what they did in China, where they just executed the people that were doing what they did.
I mean, I don't know if that's the answer, but I tell you what, putting them in jail is.
I mean, there's a thing called the Parker Doctrine.
And the Parker Doctrine, I would love to see the federal government enforce that.
And that prevents an individual from doing...
If you're a pharmaceutical executive and they find you guilty in the Parker Doctrine, you can never work for a pharmaceutical company again and you can't do business with the federal government.
If they would just enforce that...
I mean, you would see some people changing their behaviors.
Yeah, right.
There's no cost to them defrauding the government and the public.
There's no punishment for it.
Even Glaxo, this $3 billion fine, that was just basically cash sitting around.
And they probably profited $30 billion on the very drugs that they now are paying the Justice Department billions of dollars in fines for.
Right.
And, you know, there's so many questions about this.
For example, where does that $3 billion go?
You know, I mean, the bulk of it, does it go into the Department of Justice general account?
I don't know.
I mean, you know, there is a relator share, which, you know, it was a law that started during the Civil War.
Yeah, a whistleblower's reward, right.
Right, right.
There is.
And that's from 15 to 25 percent.
And then the rest of it, I know, you know, I mean, I've been reading articles how, you know, like the state of New York is going to get, you know, in their fund.
It was funny after the article that was in the Tampa Bay Times.
Right after it told about, you know, what, you know, Glaxo's three billion of fraud, then there was a quote from our elected official, Pam Bondi, and how she was going to take the money and do the right thing.
And I was like, man, it almost came across like she's taking credit for this, you know?
And it's just like, wow, typical politician.
Well, that's interesting.
I'm curious about how the Department of Justice negotiates with the drug company to arrive at this figure.
Why isn't it $25 billion?
Why isn't it $100 billion?
How does the company even have the ability to negotiate at all?
Can't the Department of Justice just say, look, you either agree to $20 billion and we're going to come in and arrest all your executives?
Right.
Well, who has more power is really the question.
Just look at the history of corporations when you look at, say, Coca-Cola.
It started in Atlanta, Georgia.
During Nazi Germany, they came up with Fanta, an orange drink, so they could sell...
They could sell sodas over in Nazi Germany.
Fanta Orange was the drink of the Waffen-SS. Or IBM computers.
How many punch cards they sold to keep track of the people in the concentration camps.
These corporations go over all the boundaries.
Well, of course they do, Blair.
But, I mean, you can't expect the Nazis to not be able to track all the Jews that they're exterminating using IBM technology now, can you?
Come on.
Right.
And if people don't see the evil, then you know what?
Then they're going to be blind.
You know, they're blind to it.
I mean, you know, denial is just not a river, I guess.
Well, yeah, denial is alive and well in America today.
It's a river that runs through American culture and probably most others as well.
But I got to say, I thank you for being you, for standing up for the truth, for being the whistleblower.
And I got to say, by the way, I also want to give a shout out to your law firm, Kenny and McCafferty, out of Philadelphia, I believe.
And they are a whistleblower law firm.
I know they represent Department of Defense fraud, government grant fraud, healthcare fraud, all these kinds of things.
That's the kind of law firm that we need in society, exposing the deception and the fraud.
So I'm really glad they exist, and I'm happy they're working with you on this case.
And I hope you're all rewarded for this, by the way.
I think that...
I hope you get a royalty, or I don't know what it's called, a share of the reward, of the whistleblowing reward, whatever that happens to be.
You know, you deserve it.
They deserve it for standing up against this kind of evil.
But most importantly, I just want to thank you for having the courage to speak out and help protect innocent people from being harmed by this behavior that you saw going on firsthand.
Well, that humbles me.
Thank you, Mike.
I really appreciate it.
It's really important for people to, when you decide to go down this path, the odds are way against you in recovering anything.
And if you don't have the right attorney, it could be a nightmare.
So, you know, I tell you what, despite what they say about attorneys and what Dante says about attorneys, I feel that Brian and Tabby and Emily, they're not only my attorneys, but they're my friends.
And they have guided me through a minefield that had they not been there, I would have been blown to bits.
Well, Blair, you're a pioneer.
You are a trailblazer.
I hope your story inspires more to also blow the whistle on the deception and the fraud that they see in other drug companies.
And I also hope that we turn a corner.
We pass that milestone in America in the justice realm of society where we can start actually going in and arresting these corporate CEOs for taking part in this, for the harm that they cause, for the crimes that they have committed.
They should face prosecution.
Of course, we want to give them their day in court.
We believe in due process.
We believe in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
They can have their attorney.
But let's present the facts.
Let's present the case.
Let's have a prosecution.
And if they're found guilty, let's make them repay society the debt that they owe society for their behavior.
Let them start thinking life is precious and wanting to help people like they say they want to.
Yeah, right.
Can you imagine if the CEOs of the top ten drug companies had to go to prison for a couple of years and give up all the money they gained through this kind of deception and then had to do a thousand hours of community service feeding the homeless, for example?
That would humble them.
Well, I tell you what, not only can I imagine it, I know that the world would be a better place if it happened.
I completely agree.
And in any case, I want to wish you the best outcome in this and ask that if you would, please keep us informed here at Natural News.
I absolutely will.
Okay.
We want to continue to cover your story and hang on with me after the interview because I want to chat with you afterwards about some other interview ideas I've got for you.
But thanks for joining us today, Blair.
Hey, thank you very much, Mike.
All right.
So there you have it, folks, the interview with Blair Hamrick, one of the two key whistleblowers of GlaxoSmithKline, now having a $3 billion settlement with the Department of Justice following a nine-year investigation involving off-label marketing, fraud, bribery, and much more.
It's an amazing story, and we're bringing it to you right here first on naturalnews.com and the Health Ranger Report.
If you'd like to stay informed about more topics like this, learn the truth about the drug industry, nutrition, natural remedies, and of course whistleblowing in many areas, go ahead and check out our website, naturalnews.com.
And you can also find me from time to time, filling in as a guest host on the Alex Jones Show at infowars.com, another great investigative organization exposing fraud at every level.
Thank you for joining me today.
This is Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, for the Health Ranger Report.
Take care, stay safe.
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