A Federal Lawsuit charges Dr. Margaret Hamburg, former Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with conspiracy, racketeering & colluding to conceal deadly drug dangers – under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law (RICO) law. The amended RICO lawsuit was filed on April 11, 2016 in the U.S. District Court in Washington DC on behalf of eight plaintiffs who claim they have suffered severe harm by ingesting the drug, Levaquin whose deadly risks were concealed to protect financial interests.

The drug is one of the controversial group of antibiotics, including  Levaquin, Cipro, Avelox and other fluoroquinolones. Public Citizen petitioned the FDA in 1996 and again in 2006, to issue Black Box warnings for tendon rupture and tendinitis. Had warnings been issued, the death toll from Levaquin– reputedly more than 5,000 — and the tens of thousands who were debilitated with life-threatening diseases would likely have been averted. (Read risks at RxList)

The suit, filed by Larry Klayman, a former federal prosecutor, charges Dr. Hamburg, her husband, Peter Brown, an executive in the hedge-fund Renaissance Technologies, with collusion, conspiracy and racketeering alongside the pharmaceutical giant, Johnson & Johnson to conceal those deadly risks — to protect their financial stake.

“While Defendant Hamburg was FDA Commissioner, her husband, Defendant Brown’s annual income, not coincidentally, increased from a reported $10 million in 2008 to an estimated $125 million in 2011 and an estimated $90 million in 2012, due in whole or in part to Defendants’ racketeering conspiracy to withhold information about the devastating, life threatening, and deadly effects of Levaquin.”

This lawsuit is unusual; it shines a light on blatant political corruption — the purchase of powerful executive posts.
In 2009, President Barak Obama nominated Dr. Margaret Hamburg for Commissioner of the FDA as a political appointee. The suit alleges that Dr. Hamburg and her husband had made large donations to Hillary Clinton’s campaigns, and to the Clinton Foundation. And that they “gave political contributions and gratuities to President Obama to induce him to nominate her to be appointed as FDA Commissioner.”

“Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg was nominated as a result of huge political and other gratuities to Hillary Clinton and The Clinton Foundation, and at Mrs. Clinton’s recommendation.”

The suit further charges that “During the confirmation process before Congress, Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, acting in concert with her husband, Peter F. Brown, at all material times the Co-CEO of a hedge fund named Renaissance Technologies, L.L.C., failed to disclose to Congress and other relevant authorities, her and her husband’s clear-cut conflict of interest –specifically, that Renaissance Technologies, L.L.C. held hundreds of millions of dollars of Johnson & Johnson stock, the manufacturer of the deadly drug, Levaquin.”