Abbott to pay $385 million over contaminated infant formula claims

Filed 1h ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

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Abbott Laboratories agreed to pay $385 million to settle claims it hid roof leaks, worn equipment and other defects at multiple plants, including its Sturgis, Michigan facility, the largest formula plant in the country, the Justice Department announced. Officials say the company skipped bacterial testing between 2018 and 2022 to avoid positive results while continuing to collect government contracts, contamination concerns that triggered a nationwide recall and the 2022 formula shortage.

Roughly $350 million goes to the federal government and $36 million to state Medicaid programs; three whistleblowers who first filed the case in 2022 will split nearly $70 million. Abbott maintains the settlement is not an admission of fault, citing negative bacteria tests on unopened product and a CDC finding of no definitive link between Sturgis and the clinical cases investigated.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Nobody hands over $385 million for a plant that was running fine. If the roof was sound and the gear was clean, you keep the money and let the tests speak, but they skipped a fair number of those tests between 2018 and 2022, which is a strange habit for a company sure of the answer. The three people who filed the case in 2022 saw plainly what the press office still cannot make out.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: Trio for Piano, Cello, and Clarinet · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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