A really big fine but did they learn anything

Horrors! Glaxo SmithKline was fined $3 billion (that's with a 'b', not an 'm' folks) for marketing drugs for purposes for which they were not approved and for paying doctors kick backs to prescribe these drugs. $1 billion is for the criminal offenses and the other $2 billion is for the civil liability.

Kick backs and illegal use of the drugs. And apparently they are not alone in these practices. According to their website their annual sales are in the range of $28 billion so this is going to hurt them. Unless they have some fancy insurance policy which covers this.

There are laws in place that are there to prevent this. I hope that this shows that there are teeth behind the law and that other companies cease these practices. Not to blame GSK solely but we do want to assume the laws are in place to protect us patients.