Health care industry's federal fines at record pace.

According to a Wall Street Journal article reprinted in today's St. Lous Post-Dispatch, "[i]n the last three fiscal years, the government has amassed $4.21 billion in fines, settlements and restitution payments from its health-care probes, well more than the $3.29 billion it collected in the previous 10 years combined":

This year, the federal government is poised to collect more than $2 billion in payments from HCA Inc., Abbott Laboratories, AstraZeneca PLC, Bayer AG, Guidant Corp., GlaxoSmithKline PLC, Tenet Healthcare Corp. and Pfizer Inc.

More settlements are expected. Schering-Plough Corp. anticipates more than $150 million in liability from investigations by U.S. attorneys in Boston and Philadelphia into alleged marketing violations. Fred Hassan, who took over as Schering-Plough's chief executive in April, has said that he's holding "constructive dialogue" with the prosecutors and that he's ready to settle the issue.

This would be a good time to invest in a law firm with a good white-collar and complex civil practice . . . .