When the world's largest pharmaceutical company was found to have engaged in a massive illegal marketing campaign, federal prosecutors decided the company was too big to punish -- so they let it set up a shell corporation to take the blame.
Yet when the government threatened Pfizer with prosecution for off-label marketing fraud, it realized that a conviction would, under federal law, require that Pfizer be excluded from Medicare and Medicaid -- and that this would probably put the company out of business.
So Pfizer and the government agreed that a subsidiary of the company would plead guilty instead. That subsidiary, Pharmacia & Upjohn Co. Inc., was formed in 2007 to plead guilty to another charge and has never conducted any business.
The U.S. government has given an ultimatum to the international group that helps provide vaccines to...
