"Rudy Giuliani may turn out to be the sleaziest presidential candidate ever"

[ProSense]

OxyContin: The Giuliani Connection

May 10, 2007 1:28 PM

Brian Ross, Richard Esposito & R. Schwartz Report:

Oxycontin_the_g_mn Rudolph Giuliani and his consulting company, Giuliani Partners, have served as key advisors for the last five years to the pharmaceutical company that pled guilty today to charges it misled doctors and patients about the addiction risks of the powerful narcotic painkiller OxyContin.

Federal officials say the company, Purdue Frederick, helped to trigger a nationwide epidemic of addiction to the time-release painkiller by failing to give early warnings that it could be abused.

Prosecutors say "in the process scores died."

Drug Enforcement Administration officials tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com Giuliani personally met with the head of the DEA when the DEA's drug diversion office began a criminal investigation into the company.

According to the book "Painkiller," by New York Times reporter Barry Meier, both Giuliani and his then-partner Bernard Kerik "were in direct contact with Asa Hutchinson, the administrator of DEA."

<...>

Hutchinson told the Blotter on ABCNews.com today that Giuliani asked for a meeting, "and we gave him a meeting." Hutchinson says he was aware the company was under investigation at the time, and "any time a company is under investigation I like to give them a chance to make their case."

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OxyContin maker misled on addiction risks

Purdue Pharma and former executives to pay $634.5 million in fines

Updated: 2:10 p.m. ET May 10, 2007

ROANOKE, Va. - The maker of the powerful painkiller OxyContin and three of its current and former executives pleaded guilty Thursday to misleading the public about the drug’s risk of addiction, a federal prosecutor and the company said.

Purdue Pharma L.P., its president, top lawyer and former chief medical officer will pay $634.5 million in fines for claiming the drug was less addictive and less subject to abuse than other pain medications, U.S. Attorney John Brownlee said in a news release.

<...>

False information
Purdue learned from focus groups with physicians in 1995 that doctors were worried about the abuse potential of OxyContin. The company then gave false information to its sales representatives that the drug had less potential for addiction and abuse than other painkillers, the U.S. attorney said.

<...>

From 1996 to 2001, the number of oxycodone-related deaths nationwide increased 400 percent while the annual number of OxyContin prescriptions increased nearly 20-fold, according to a report by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. In 2002, the DEA said the drug caused 146 deaths and contributed to another 318.

In western Virginia, 228 people died from overdoses of oxycodone from 1996 to 2005, Brownlee said.

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Lord Of The Rings

by digby

I think Rudy Giuliani may turn out to be the sleaziest presidential candidate ever, and that includes Nixon. This is just amazing:

The greatest love affair of Rudy Giuliani's life has become a sordid scandal.

His monogamous embrace of the Yankees as mayor was so fervent that when he tried to deliver a West Side stadium to them early in his administration, or approved a last-minute $400 million subsidy for their new Bronx stadium, New Yorkers blithely ascribed the bad deals to a heaving heart.

It turns out he also had an outstretched hand.

Sports fans grew accustomed to seeing Giuliani, in Yankee jacket and cap, within camera view of the team's dugout at every one of the 40 postseason home games the Yankees played while he was mayor. His devotion reached such heights that at the 1995 Inner Circle press dinner, he played himself handing the city over to George Steinbrenner in a lampoon version of the Broadway musical Damn Yankees, succumbing to a scantily clad Lola who importuned him on behalf of the Boss to the tune of "Whatever Lola Wants (Lola Gets)." Mike Bloomberg understood years later that the song was no joke; he nixed Rudy's stadium deal in his first weeks in office.

It is only now, however, as Giuliani campaigns for president, that we are beginning to learn that this relationship went even deeper. Giuliani has been seen on the campaign trail wearing a World Series ring, a valuable prize we never knew he had. Indeed, the Yankees have told the Voice that he has four rings, one for every world championship the Yankees won while he was mayor. Voice calls to other cities whose teams won the Series in the past decade have determined that Giuliani is the only mayor with a ring, much less four. If it sounds innocent, wait for the price tag. These are certainly no Canal Street cubic zirconia knockoffs.

They're worth 200k and perhaps the sleaziest thing about this is that Rudy made quite a show of accusing other politicians of corruption for taking things like Broadway tickets. He even dinged his pal Kerick recently for taking similar kickbacks in a similar amount.

Read the whole story. I'm beginning to understand why, in spite of the fact that he's not a social conservative, that he's the front-runner for the Republican nomination for president. On the defining issues, he's definitely one of them.

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[LisaM]

1. I hope so!

It's quite fun to follow the stories - something new every day!

[hlthe2b]

2. Did he somehow become convinced that he could capitalize

on America's obsession with "The Sopranos?" I doubt Tony S. has any more skeletons in his closet that Ghouliani...:shrug:

[Turbineguy]

3. That's a shame

because there was a time when Giuliani (like John McCain) was a real stand-up guy.

Whatever the GOP has, it seems to be contagious. Don't hang out with these people, you might get it too!

[venable]

4. I'm not sure when rudy was a stand-up guy

as a resident of nyc, I can attest that he is widely loathed and even feared. Even when he was prosecuting mobsters he was disliked and considered a grandstander. All credit needed to flow to rudy, and all blame elsewhere. sound familiar?

In summation on the indictment of sleazeball extraordinaire, I offer two words: Bernard Kerik.

[Turbineguy]

6. Well those of us on the

West Coast... might have gotten the spin story. I thought he "cleaned up New York" and improved things. Not as mayor, but long before.

[venable]

9. the clean up was a perfect example

he hired a police commissioner who actually did the great work of improving cop/civilian relations (more beat cops, etc), and when it was noted that it was the police commissioner who was doing such a good job, and hence credit flowing to him, Rudy fired him, thereby re-souring the scene. everyone knew he sacrificed what was working so his own vanity would not take a hit.

he removed some classic new york types in such an overbearing way that many new yorkers left the city, claiming it was no longer the ny they loved.

(though I'm happy to have no more squeegee guys...I find the city more yuppie than it used to be, and still wildly stratified, sort of a crowded connecticut).

The post 9-11 garbage is just that, garbage. He lied about the ghastly levels of toxins, and he had the city entirely unprepared. Ask the firemen.

Bloomberg is a much, much better mayor.

[Infomaniac]

5. Total Sleaze. Recommended.

[Tejanocrat]

7. k & 5th r

[flyarm]

8. ALL YOU HAD TO DO WAS ASK US NY'ERS AND NJ PEOPLE!!

We have been trying to tell everyone!!

fly

[Cha]

10. So rose limpbaugh could

sue ghouliani for oxycotin addiction.

Adam Sandler..what do think of your yankee boy now?

[ProSense]

11. Same old Ghouliani

shit-head mayor

cronyism