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AMA Labs update - owner pleads guilty
Just updating a story that was posted a couple years ago.
This was a testing laboratory that the company I worked for used on occasion. I wonder how many science papers, claims, and patents are suspect due to using data generated by this lab.
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11 Replies
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Perry said:Just updating a story that was posted a couple years ago.This was a testing laboratory that the company I worked for used on occasion. I wonder how many science papers, claims, and patents are suspect due to using data generated by this lab.
What’s crazy is that those crimes together total a maximum of 7 years in prison! I would think causing a misbranded drug to be introduced to interstate commerce and that type of egregious behavior would carry a much heavier sentence than 7 years…
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White collar crimes are treated relatively softly in our society.
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Yes, this is generally true. But do they have any idea how many consumers were potentially put at risk from these adulterated and/or fraudulent test results??
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No idea.
But if you compare this punishment (some jail time) to the family who was responsible for the Opioid crises here in the US (fines with no jail time for anyone), the priorities of our system are really screwed up.
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I suspect the impact of their fraud is going to be quite substantial, and it seems they were doing this for quite a while.
For example, one of the largest Australian sunscreen brands primarily used AMA Labs for their SPF testing and it was found that many of those sunscreens are not performing to standard. Concerning since Australia and New Zealand and #1 & 2 for skin cancer rates.
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Sincityfire said:I suspect the impact of their fraud is going to be quite substantial, and it seems they were doing this for quite a while.
For example, one of the largest Australian sunscreen brands primarily used AMA Labs for their SPF testing and it was found that many of those sunscreens are not performing to standard. Concerning since Australia and New Zealand and #1 & 2 for skin cancer rates.
That is just terrible! I sense some class action lawsuits coming…
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How would it have benefited AMA to cheat on testing? Was it just poor work ethic? I feel like I am missing something…
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@Cafe33 - The scheme could have gone something like this.
1. A company hires them to conduct a test on 30 human volunteers
- Typically, volunteers get paid $50 - $100 depending on the test.2. Instead of getting 30 volunteers they get 2 or 3 then make up names and data for the rest of the subjects.
They pocket all the money from the fake subjects. Multiply this by thousands of tests a year & the money adds up.
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It’s pretty crazy that so many people were involved in this scheme over DECADES and no one ever blew the whistle! Even crazier is the fact that the companies paying this entity, none of them ever had another independent lab test their product(s)…?
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abierose said:It’s pretty crazy that so many people were involved in this scheme over DECADES and no one ever blew the whistle! Even crazier is the fact that the companies paying this entity, none of them ever had another independent lab test their product(s)…?
True - suppose they were exploiting small to medium sized companies and those without their own auditing systems that likely couldn’t afford multiple clinicals and i bet AMA was a low cost supplier.
Major company clinical research study monitors would have caught the fraud. -
PhilGeis said:abierose said:It’s pretty crazy that so many people were involved in this scheme over DECADES and no one ever blew the whistle! Even crazier is the fact that the companies paying this entity, none of them ever had another independent lab test their product(s)…?
True - suppose they were exploiting small to medium sized companies and those without their own auditing systems that likely couldn’t afford multiple clinicals and i bet AMA was a low cost supplier.
Major company clinical research study monitors would have caught the fraud.Ahh, yeah, that makes sense.
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