For the record though: For the most part, companies (way beyond pharma) were _not_ under significant duress during WW2. The most recent and best research shows that senior management were more likely to be true believers and/or seized the advantage of playing ball. So the Trapp example was, in that context, a less typical one, which is what makes it interesting to me. You didn’t _have_ to be hard-core or purely mercenary to go with the flow.

Jack2 - I appreciate your coming in on this. I wish more people from industry also had, but there are other threads in which they have.

I was just giving my opinion, which you asked for in your first post. I didn’t want to be seen as “opting out.”

And Angry mentioned prosecution.

I don’t like the grayness. I’m a math/science guy and while often they’re impossible to find, I like clear rules and answers.

Justice isn’t saying that Bayer or pharma industry as a whole is still behaving like they did during WWII but I think it was a good reminder of how we need to all be careful with pushing our boundaries too far.

So, I do think this was in the appropriate context here.

The point being is that we all need to be more mindful of our own moral compasses and not just follow what the market is doing. If we have learned anything at all, it must be that we need to stop and ask questions and understand why we do some of the things we do. To me that was the point of Justice’s comments.

Decisions made in modern day pharma and those made by German companies under whatever duress was imposed in WW2 are in no way comparable, nor are the consequences.

Enough. Let’s look forward.

“An unfortunate coincidence is that Gemfibrozol also utilizes that very same pathway to a significant extent.”

Well so does caffeine.

I damn near died on Baycol, and I wasn’t using gemfibrozol or any other drug concurrently or drinking grapefruit juice or eating grapefruit or grapefruit hybrids. I was put on Baycol for prevention. One day when I was leaving my clinic, the Baycol rep told me, after asking who gave me the drug boxes I was carrying, that he would have to thank my doctor for putting me on Baycol. Thank my doctor. Why? How?

“An unfortunate coincidence…” my ass.

I was immediately reminded of Trapp when I read the bit about CEO Ebworth saying, “One may not value this – but since it is the rule of the market, we as a company have to follow it.”

The point is not to compare Baycol (or any other pharma event) with genocide nor is it a slam about Germans. The reality is that this kind of moral near-sightedness - if that is what it is - is an illness that most of us share. I count myself among them.

Most of us do what is in front of us to do. And, in the process, it _feels_ like we have no real choice. “Orders are orders.” “The rule of the market is the rule of the market.”

None of this is real. In actuality, no perpetrator was even lightly punished for choosing not to carry out orders during the Holocaust. And I doubt that Ebworth - or Baycol, for that matter - would have faced significant consequences if he had opted out of “home-made bread.”

But we convince ourselves that the systems we are in are they only possible realities. And we act accordingly.

It is that unreflective habit which may be part of the key to the way out.

Re: Jack2, if you do read the case as provided by Ed, you will find your sense about prosecutions to be confirmed. While there appear to have been a few “point people” whatever culpability there was was widely spread throughout management and beyond. So, indeed, it does not appear that singling out individuals would mean much, just as you write.

It is possible to levy criminal (as well as civil) fines against companies, not only individuals Some of the famous $430 million fine levied against Pfizer/Warner-Lambert for the Neurontin fraud was based on criminal charges. Just as Jack 2 describes, the DOJ’s justification was how widespread and systematic the fraud scheme was in that case.

I do regret bringing in Auschwitz, although people should certainly know that history (the medical profession as a whole was deeply implicated in the Holocaust). Still, it was a little “over the top” in this context. I was, indeed, furious having found the excerpts that I included, and that outrage led to what followed. I have not forgotten, however, that my outrage may turn out to be less justified when more is known.

Also agree that gray is generally where things are, and gray is what makes things interesting. When things go on in this industry, it very often has to do with the strange career of what began as good intentions.