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.




Southern California is long overdue for a major earthquake along the San Andreas fault, according to a landmark study of historic seismic activity released Friday.
When Ismail Nemati set out from Kabul last week to join his family in nearby Wardak province for the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, friends said, his biggest fear was running into Taliban forces who might question his allegiances.
Swedish authorities have issued an arrest warrant for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange on suspicion of molestation and rape. The warrant was issued late yesterday, said a spokeswoman at Sweden's prosecutors' office in Stockholm.
A new study estimates that 85 per cent of new drugs offer few if any new benefits while having the potential to cause serious harm due to toxicity or misuse.
Halliburton Co. said on Wednesday that it has gotten a letter of intent from Shell Iraq Petroleum Development BV that would make Halliburton the project manager for developing the Majnoon field in southern Iraq.
The private security company formerly called Blackwater Worldwide, long plagued by accusations of impropriety, has reached an agreement with the State Department for the company to pay $42 million in fines for hundreds of violations of United States export control regulations.
While much of the focus has been on Google and Verizon when it comes to net neutrality as of late, the Wall Street Journal has reported that lobbyists began a new set of talks among a much wider group on Wednesday.





























