Sunday, October 07, 2007

1463 days to nothing - the GlaxoSmithKline Criminal Investigation

Study 329 Criminal InvestigationIt is four years ago this week that the UK drug "watchdog" the MHRA started an "independent" "criminal" "investigation" of GlaxoSmithKline over paroxetine clinical trials. This followed the clear appearance that Britain’s biggest pharmaceutical group had withheld data and had misrepresented clinical trials findings to both patients and prescribers.

Is it likely given the functioning of the MHRA that this will be honest or plausible? That seems almost inconceivable.

I have carefully read the original documents on one part of this problem involving paediatric study 329. It seems to me that four years would not be required to state the obvious. I am wondering why the General Medical Council has not been involved and why it has taken no steps to deal with the company clinicians or the involved medical members of the MHRA itself. After all it does seem likely that patients will have died as a result. This "investigation" has been a joke and a charade from the start. It is almost five years since the first "expert team" assembled by the medicines regulator dissolved after it was discovered that two of the four members held shares in GlaxoSmithKline (The Guardian 26 March 2003).

I am wondering what possible truth can emerge from this all.

It is most unusual that Gordon Brown should invite a company undergoing criminal investigation to join his new International Business Advisory Council. That alone would seem to have preempted any plausible examination.

Read more
http://seroxatsecrets.wordpress.com/2007/10/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/6291773.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/6298269.stm
http://www.socialaudit.org.uk/6060407.htm
http://clinpsyc.blogspot.com/2007/01/journal-editor-unapologetic-over.html
http://clinpsyc.blogspot.com/2007/01/keller-bad-science-and-seroxatpaxil.html

I think it is time to call this terrible disgrace and coverup by its real name. Again, where are our medical leaders in all this.

Earlier|Later|Main Page

4 comments:

soulful sepulcher said...

aubrey, you are asking where medical leaders are?

hmmmph./

Anonymous said...

I think it highly unlikely that the MHRA will finish this sham of an investigation until the current UK Seroxat litigation against GSK has been settled. Why give the high court judges yet more evidence that Seroxat is a defective drug?

Anonymous said...

Aubrey,

The MHRA's investigation won't be finished until the current UK Seroxat litigation has been settled, of that I am certain.

Why give any High Court Judge yet more evidence that GSK manufactured a defective drug?

If GSK were Sutcliffe, Shipman, Christie et al, there would be a public outcry and the respective police forces would probably already have been disbanded.

It's an utter disgrace

Anonymous said...

I know the subject of Seroxat very well..
I was on it for almost four years in my early twenties, and I have been researching Seroxat and GSK for more than 5 years now.

Basically whats happening here is, the MHRA , the GMC and the UK government are unwilling to tackle the might of GSK because GSK is a massive cash cow for the UK economy. It is a UK insitution, and GSK represents the UK's global stake in the profitable pharma domain.

GSK is to the UK what Guinness is to Ireland or IKEA is to Sweden. It is a corporation above common law. It exists solely to make profit and a lot of that profit sustains a lot of jobs in the UK.

GSK has a huge influence on every facet of the UK economy, from research/development to medical education sponsorship and everything else in between. Its wealth and power exists in its share price, stocks and bonds.

How many UK MP's have shares in GSK?...
Does anyone ever ask that question?

I was in my ex-GP's office the other day( the quack who prescribed me Seroxat all those years ago). And i noticed a GSK poster on his wall, i hadn't noticed it before. Anyway, we were discussing Seroxat and I said "do you know what really pisses me off Doctor, why did more GP's and psychiatrists not speak out against GSK after the first panorama documentary exposing the Seroxat scandal was first aired?"

Doctors and psychiatrists should be boycotting GSK , they should refuse to sell their drugs. What with Avandia, Seroxat, Myodil, Lamictal, Selacryn etc. GSK are the worst offender when it comes to concealing negative information and lying to the medical community about the effectiveness/ineffectiveness of their drugs.

Why does the medical community protect GSK ?
Why have the medical community stayed silent?

Well, he basically said what I knew all along, because it all boils down to money. He also said, he didn't think that GSK would ever be tried in the UK or Ireland because pharma is way too proficable to the economies of both isles.

We have a situation here, where justice will never be served on GSK in the UK,GSK can commit corporate manslaughter and get away with it, GSK can conceal negative data and get away with it. GSK can commit fraud and get away with it. GSK are above the law. Thats the simple truth.

In America, GSK has been fined for its various misdeeds, regarding paxil, Avandia and others. Cases have also been payed out of court, but one Paxil case did go to court, the infamous Donald Shell Paxil Murder Trial. GSK were held liable.

The reason why the American authorities are not afraid of GSK is because GSK is a British company. It is competition for American Pharma. It is the foriegner and outsider. The UK government are subjects of GSK in the UK. GSK calls the shots. Justice may never be served. But the truth will always prevail.