London-based pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has agreed to pay a $520 million fine exacted by the U.S. Department of Justice for illegally marketing antipsychotic drug Seroquel by overstating the drug’s purposes and failing to alert users of its health risks.

Does all this sound familiar? If so, it should. In just three years, that makes four enormous pharmaceutical companies which have paid large fines for illegally marketing antipsychotic drugs, which for them is a hugely profitable arena.

In AstraZeneca’s case, it reportedly deceived physicians and patients about potential defective drug Seroquel risks, including diabetes. AstraZeneca also allegedly promoted the drug for uses not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Such a practice is illegal.

Why would such things happen? Greed seems an obvious answer, considering the billions of dollars in profits reaped by makers of antipsychotic drugs. But such greed has caused some users of the drugs serious health problems — and even death.

By pushing the drug for children, AstraZeneca exposed many to rapid weight gain and even death, and selling it to the elderly exposed many to dementia. Other users of the defective drug were subjected to a heightened risk of having diabetes, a potentially fatal condition.

Even though AstraZeneca, by paying its fine, has thus settled a prolonged federal investigation into its defective drug practices, that doesn’t mean 25,000 civil lawsuits against it go away. Such defective drug lawsuits are just now starting to reach trial, and it won’t help AstraZeneca to have, in effect, acknowledged malfeasance already by agreeing to pay a fine of more than half a billion dollars.

In short, holding AstraZeneca accountable for its wrong-doing has just begun.

If you or a loved one has been harmed by taking antipsychotic drug Seroquel, alert a defective drug lawyer or attorney with Jim S. Adler & Associates. He or she can press a defective drug lawsuit in your behalf. Only then can justice truly be done.

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