‘CBS Evening News': Correspondent Jim Axelrod Investigates Fraud | Variety

In the first part of a two-night report, CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod discovers that American taxpayers are spending millions of dollars on questionable medications for military personnel and veterans. The creams, which are touted as having the ability to soothe pain and scars, are marketed directly to military personnel, and dozens of websites advertise them as low-cost cure-alls for service members’ wounds and pain.

The catch, Axelrod finds, is that the medicines aren’t so cheap. Major General Richard Thomas, who oversees the military health benefit system Tricare, tells him the agency is on track to spend more than $2 billion in taxpayer funds in 2015 on the dubious prescriptions.

Axelrod has spent much time covering the rise of so-called “pharmaceutical compounding,” in which drugs are made for specific patients’ needs, sometimes by an outsourced pharmacy operation that may not be regulated as much as a hospital facility.



 


‘CBS Evening News': Correspondent Jim Axelrod Investigates Fraud | Variety