Health care’s epidemic of insider trading

The markets are awash in insider trading, and the health-care industry has been particularly hard-hit. “Health care is particularly attractive to criminals because so much turns on the government regulatory approval,” says Rod Rosenstein, the U.S. attorney for Maryland. “If you have a pending application for a new drug, the difference between yes and no on approvals can be tens or hundreds of millions of dollars.” Indeed, the lineup of accused health industry inside traders illustrates how widespread the problem is: CEOs, hedge fund traders, bankers, lawyers, doctors, accountants, baseball players, a retired pilot and a film producer have been charged or sued by regulators.