The congressional report, titled,“The Clinton Foundation and The India Success Story,” was initiated by Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican and vice-chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
The CHAI program to help AIDS victims is considered one of the Clinton Foundation’s most important contributions and is probably its best known initiative.
The congressional report focused on Clinton’s decade-long relationship with a controversial Indian drug manufacturer called Ranbaxy, which CHAI used as one of its main distributors of HIV/AIDS drugs to Third World countries.
It also highlighted the work of Dinesh Thakur, a former Ranbaxy employee who became a star whistleblower, permitting the U.S. government to launch a landmark lawsuit against the Indian firm. The company was vulnerable to U.S. prosecution because it also sold its generic drugs on the U.S. market.
Ranbaxy ultimately pleaded guilty in 2013 to seven criminal counts with intent to defraud and the introduction of adulterated drugs into interstate commerce.
The Department of Justice further levied a $500 million fine and forfeiture on the company.
“This is the largest false claims case ever prosecuted in the District of Maryland, and the nation’s largest financial penalty paid by a generic pharmaceutical company,” said U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein when Ranbaxy pleaded guilty.
“When companies sell adulterated drugs, they undermine the integrity of the FDA’s approval process and may cause patients to take drugs that are substandard, ineffective, or unsafe,” said Stuart F. Delery, acting assistant attorney general for the civil division of the Department of Justice, when the government announced its action against the Indian company.
The Department of Justice stated in its final settlement, “alleged due to the company’s diluted drugs, it ‘subjected patients to increased risks of morbidity and mortality,’” according to the report.
“The question becomes, ‘how many people lost their lives, how many people found it was a false promise,’” asked Blackburn in a recent interview.
The possibility that CHAI distributed adulterated and diluted AIDS drugs to Third World victims could shake the foundations of the Clinton charity and spark a new round of scrutiny in the final weeks of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Blackburn said she planned to deliver the report to the inspector generals at the Department of Health and Human Services and to the Department of State, where Hillary served as secretary of state during President Barack Obama’s first term.
The congressional study also highlighted the unseemly ties between Bill and two controversial Indian-Americans who have been investigated and sanctioned by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The most troubling revelations concern the Clinton Foundation’s vigorous promotion of Ranbaxy despite mounting evidence the Indian firm had persistently poor quality control and attempted to cover it up through either faulty or fraudulent reporting to the FDA.
It is unclear at this juncture how many AIDS patients received the “watered-down” drugs.
ProPublica estimated that in 2007 alone, the U.S. Agency for International Development allocated $9 million to Ranbaxy and delivered “more than $1.8 million packages.”
“Substandard HIV medicines cause health problems for patients, perhaps even accelerating death from HIV-related infections,” said Roger Bate, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute who researches substandard and counterfeit medicines.
Thakur revealed that many of the company’s anti-retroviral drugs were used to stabilize platelet and white blood cell counts in AIDS patients.
“These drugs allow it to stabilize and essentially provide immunity to patients. If the content of the medicine is not what is listed on the label, you will not see the platelet levels or the WBC levels stabilize,” he said.
Ranbaxy’s first public hint of problems occurred in August 2004, one year after CHAI began working with the firm. The World Health Organization reported irregularities involving three Ranbaxy drugs in South Africa, according to the report.