It is a legal doctrine that holds corporate officers liable for company wrongdoing. However, in the medical arena, enforcement is minimal and companies get away with murder! The Vioxx story is a classic example where deliberate action knowingly led to 50,000 deaths and not one person was criminally prosecuted. In fact, the company denied any wrongdoing at all even though it paid about $6 billion to those injured or killed. They still made a huge profit. Oh well, business is business! You can make the same case for the rest of the NSAIDs that are on the market...they kill 30,000 people annually and put 300,000 in the hospital. Is the FDA liable for this?
In another example, Synthes Pharmaceutical company made a bone cement product used in spinal surgeries where the data was fabricated and people died from the product. Another case of murder that let the guilty party off scott free!
