Invokana can cause total renal failure the FDA knows that and they're
ignoring it
see the story at drugsafetynews.com when it comes to ripping off Americans
no industry does it better than Big Pharma and now we've learned that it
isn't just price-gouging that's taking place Big Pharma has joined the ranks of
other corporate giants by trying to avoid paying any taxes to the US
government
joining me now to talk about this is Michael Berg Michael Big Pharma never
ceases to amaze me they've always got some kinda new plan on how they're just
gonna rip everybody off usually it is with the price gouging on the price of
pharmaceuticals but now now it's you know what we're gonna stick it to Uncle
Sam tell us about what's happening right now with with Pfizer in the whole tax
evasion scheme here
well they've they've been talking about it for years first of all you know our
audience ought to understand that these pharmaceutical companies who come to truly are unpatriotic they
here we are in a tremendous deficit and and what are they doing there trying
to not pay taxes every American like it or not nobody likes paying but we have
an obligation so we can fix our infrastructure so we can make sure that
we're able to pay off her debt and what do they do they say let's find a
company somewhere else in this case in Ireland where we can avoid paying
billions of dollars in taxes even though we're making billions of dollars from
selling pharmaceutical drugs and that's what it's all about it's a scam and and
and I'll tell you why it's a scam but it is it is just a big scam they're just
lying to the American public and they're trying to keep from paying taxes and you
know with this whole Ireland thing that they're doing basically you know they if
I had this right I think they're trying to merge with this little company over
in Ireland and then that's going to be home base so then it
they say look we're we're not American anymore we're an Irish company we're not
and that's true you know it they're not American as you pointed out
because it is an American's duty to pay our taxes that's what keeps our
government running that's what keeps the the FDA alive said they can do stick
it to Big Pharma test their products are we know they're not gonna be out there
killing us every day even though right now the FDA is wholly owned by Big
Pharma so so so what what happens if if this goes through if if Pfizer becomes
an Irish company
well first of all they they can claim their home bas is in Ireland but let's
talk about why they did it the reality of it
the reality is they did they bring this company because it's it owns the product
Botox there they want to get into another blockbuster drugs it's what they did
with Warner-Lambert that's how they get Lipitor this company is absolutely the
most un-American company there is even though the largest pharma in the world
because what they do is they pretend like you're actually spending a lot of
money on R&D they may spend some money on R&D but this company has a history of
buying other companies to find their drugs
this is a company that basically spent approximately I think $87 billion in
buybacks and an almost $90 billion in dividends not to mention their CEO this
last year got over 22 million dollars and direct compensation so what they're
really doing is they're saying look we're not we're no longer in the pharma
business what we're in is the acquisition business we're going to
acquire these companies they tried to acquire AstraZeneca they they they were
not able to do it they they acquired Warner-Lambert they've now acquiring or
acquiring this Irish company again for the Botox product and and what
they do is they pretend that really they need these tax
breaks for research and development but if you look at what they really spend
they spend over five times the
amount of money in marketing than they do in R&D so it's a scam and you know
what the American public should demand that these companies pay their fair
share of taxes
think about this we're going after the little guy the guy who makes thirty
thousand dollars a year the guy who makes $50,000 a year and what what this
company does and what with these right-wingers and and anti-tax people
are saying all of the government's after you the government is taking more
than they should
well the reason they're going after them and the reason people may be paying
higher rates than they should
is 'cause corporations like Pfizer are paying practically nothing
billions and billions of dollars of revenue from drugs being sold in this
country not to mention the price gouging that's going on in this country and one
other thing that people don't understand is that under under the system that
exists in this country
believe it or not every other country pharmaceutical companies have to
discount their drugs for the government here there is no discount for Medicare
there is no discount for Medicaid that is outrageous when a company is making
billions and billions and billions of dollars in profit so so what do we
really have here we have a company that is basically lying to the American
public claiming that somehow the tax burden here is so great that they need
to go overseas and put their headquarters there
the truth is if them and other pharmaceutical companies and other giant
corporations would pay their fair share
just a bit their fair share here we can alleviate the debt on the middle
class and alleviate our debt in the world
alleviate the tax to the middle class because when you have a company that's
making billions if they're paying their fair share
think how many people making $30,000 can get relief from that
so the whole thing is upside down and the system is rigged to benefit those
corporations and I think what's interesting is you know you talked about
this they're spending about five times more on marketing than they are on
research and development and a large part of that you know where we can
really see the contrast here is when we look at what they pay a scientist that
helps develop these drugs versus what they pay a sales rep who goes out and
sells these drugs I think they even even beyond that, every commercial you see
on television today the most and that's why there is a commercial for some
pharmaceutical drugs you can't get away from it and that's cost money to have
those national commercials it cost hundreds of millions of dollars and so
what they want to do is they want to basically continue to spend that money
and market and market and market and market and confuse the American people
they don't even tell the truth in many cases about the side effects that they
know about and they have people dancing through the flowers and how wonderful
this drug is going to be in the meantime some person and the bottom is saying
very fast you could die you could get a stroke you could have a heart attack you
know your ears could fall off you could be bleeding through your nose but in the
meantime because we're so visual they know they've done testing that people
are not going to be hearing the warnings they're gonna see that person dancing through
the flowers it's obscene and its dead wrong and we ought to stop it and in one
of the things they do in those ads to those studies have shown is that when they're
talking about the great benefits of the drug they typically speak at a sixth or
seventh grade level now when they're talking about the warnings they're
speaking on a collegiate level so most Americans unfortunately they literally
can't understand what's being said because its scientific jargon and just
kind of this mumbo jumbo that they don't want them to understand because they
don't want to know that hey not only did we create this disease you know
restless leg syndrome but if you take the pill to make your legs stop moving
at night you might end up dying but you know what you might get a good night's
sleep every now and then that's how ridiculous this has become a mean look
the pharmaceutical industry they do create products that save lives they
they they do don't get me wrong on that but they're also in the business of
creating new diseases and curing those new diseases and in making billions of
dollars in profits parking it offshore over in Ireland of the Cayman Islands
are wherever it is now they don't want to give back they want money
they don't care about disease that's the bottom line it's run by Wall Street their priorities
are wrong we used to have drug companies in this country and there are still some
around the world there really are there to try to help people be healthier to
actually have drugs that are gonna save people's lives and make them make them
better while they're still a component of that now it's driven by Wall Street
it's all about profits in the stock it's all about the CEO making hundreds of
millions of dollars if you include their stock options it's about the company not
paying taxes it's about basically making as much money as they can and who's
paying for that
who's the ones who are being hurt the American people it's United States
government in terms of unable to get taxes and it's also the other people
getting hurt are people are getting hurt by their drugs cause they're not always
completely honest about the adverse effects in this in the side effects
the problem is again that they controlled congress because of all the
money they give they control the media all the money they give for
advertisements so we're not hearing except from certain groups the truth
about what's going on and I think this is such an important story and I would
hope that everyone who is watching or listening
stands up and says you know is that in network you know we're not gonna take it
anymore
paying your fair share let's let's stop this let's stop this greed that's just
outrageous that's why this next year's election is going to be so important
because we do have some candidates out there right now maybe they'll
survive the primaries maybe they won't but they're talking about this and that
is so important because those are the very few voices in positions of power that are
addressing this issue and
Michael Berg thank you for telling us this story have a wonderful new year
well thank you very much