Pfizer Smacked by Feds: Today's Outrage

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Pfizer (PFE Quote) is paying a record $2.3 billion penalty to settle charges about illegal drug promotions. This is a public whipping by the Justice Department that is intended to send a signal to the entire industry.

The Obama administration is making it clear that one way or another it is going to change our health care system. Business as usual is over.

No more schmoozing, boozing and carousing with doctors to get them to prescribe specific brands of drugs or to go off label for alternative treatments. No more all-expense-paid trips to the Riviera.

It's a sad day for doctors everywhere.

And what about those doctors who willingly and knowingly played along? Are they not complicit? Didn't they break the law too? No matter, Pfizer was the ringleader. Take out the dealer and the junkies will suffer too.

The real travesty is that once again our justice system punishes the innocent shareholders.

The $2.3 billion is going to come out of the pockets of investors. Where are the consequences for management or the board of directors that at best turned a blind eye to all this? Shareholders should remember this when it comes time to vote on new terms for these folks.