Doctors Involved in Corruption Probe

Federal prosecutors in Darmstadt and Munich have opened investigations into corruption charges against several hundred doctors across Germany. Officials in Darmstadt, who said that some of the investigations have been going on for the past two years, said that around 350 doctors are suspected of receiving money and other perks such as trips, stays in luxurious hotels and even golf sessions from a pharmaceutical manufacturer in southern Hesse. In return the drug-maker expected doctors to stock their products in their clinics. Even in Munich, prosecutors suspect 20 German employees of the international pharmaceuticals company Fujisawa of having bribed doctors in transplant centers in Munich, Stuttgart, Bonn, Hanover, Hamburg and Berlin to use their products.