Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced today that Qualitest Pharma would pay $39M to resolve charges initially brought to light by a physician whistleblower that it sold sub-potent fluoride tablets to Medicaid and other government health programs. The government alleged, and Qualitest admitted, that Qualitest violated the False Claims Act by knowingly manufacturing and selling understrength chewable fluoride tablets that were prescribed to children living in communities without fluoridated water supply to prevent tooth decay. Medicaid and the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program paid millions of dollars for these understrength tablets.

U.S. Attorney Bharara said: “The integrity of federal healthcare programs like Medicaid depends on manufacturers telling the truth about their drugs and producing and labelling their drugs accurately.  When companies violate that critical obligation, as Qualitest did here by distributing diluted fluoride and then causing health care programs to pay for the full strength tablets, we will pursue them, make them pay damages and admit to their violations.”