She Treads Softly: False Claims

Saturday, May 10, 2025

False Claims

False Claims by Lisa Pratta
6/3/25; 288 pages
William Morrow

False Claims: One Insider's Impossible Battle Against Big Pharma Corruption by Lisa Pratta is a very highly recommended account of a whistleblower taking on corruption and fraud in the pharmaceutical industry.

Lisa Pratta had a successful career in pharmaceutical sales when she joined Questcor Pharmaceuticals. Her job was to promote to doctors the drug Acthar, which, if prescribed correctly, could relieved flare-ups of multiple sclerosis (MS) with the goal to get them back to baseline, the condition they were in before the flare-up. However during sales meetings, Questcor was encouraging its salespeople to promote off-label use of the drug while also inflating the price of the drug to an outrageous and unjustifiable cost, $28,000 per vial. They were also encouraging giving doctor's office staff and nurses gift cards when visiting.

Pratta declined to promote off-label usage, kickbacks, or provide bribes, but stayed with the company while acting within the law because she needed the job to care for her special needs son. When her friend and colleague, Pete Keller, informed her that he was going to report Questor’s fraudulent practices to the federal government. Knowing Pratta's feelings, Keller encouraged her to join him. She did, while still working at Questcor and providing inside information for nearly a decade.

After recent experiences, many people have come to realize the corruption and unscrupulous behavior used by corrupt pharmaceutical companies and False Claims offers an insiders view into some of the practices of Big Pharma. Questor was bought by Mallinckrodt, which settled with the federal government, but the same sales practices are still used by other companies.

Pratta recounts both her professional and personal experiences in this straightforward, well-written narrative that has the tone of a memoir. Her childhood abuse and personal struggles along the way made her commitment to stay with the company and continue helping provide information for the federal case even more incredible.

Pratta provides practical advice to readers at the end as she encourages everyone to advocate for themselves, be proactive, do research, and refrain from taking any medical advice at face value. Perhaps most importantly, if a physician prescribes you a medication to ensure they are not bias ask about any relationship they have with the manufacturer or if they have attended conferences paid for by the company.

False Claims is an excellent choice for anyone following the corruption in Big Pharma. Thanks to William Morrow for providing me with an advance reader's copy via Edelweiss. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

No comments:

Post a Comment

John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.