Diabetes Drug

The diabetes drug Avandia is another potent example.  Between 1999 and 2007, Avandia is estimated to have caused over 80,000 unnecessary heart attacks,11 although the actual numbers of people harmed or killed by the drug is still largely unknown. Avandia is a poster child for the lethal paradigm of corrupted science as GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the manufacturer of Avandia, hid damaging information about the drug for over 10 years, as they knew it would adversely affect sales!

Two years ago, GSK agreed to a $3 billion settlement over the sales and marketing practices of several of its drugs, including Avandia. This was the largest federal drug-company settlement in US history, surpassing the $2.3 billion paid by Pfizer in 2009 for illegally promoting off-label uses of four of its drugs. Most recently, GSK’s crooked ways made international headlines yet again when Chinese authorities arrested four of the company’s senior executives on charges of cash and sexual bribery.

The British Medical Journal’s blog recently featured an article12 by former BMJ editor and director of the United Health Group’s chronic disease initiative, Richard Smith. The piece is also the foreword to the book mentioned earlier, Deadly Medicines and Organized Crime. Smith writes:13

“The drug industry has systematically corrupted science to play up the benefits and play down the harms of their drugs....  the industry has bought doctors, academics, journals, professional and patient organizations, university departments, journalists, regulators, and politicians. These are the methods of the mob.

... [D]octors and academics are supposed to have a higher calling. Laws that are requiring companies to declare payments to doctors are showing that very high proportions of doctors are beholden to the drug industry and that many are being paid six figures sums for advising companies or giving talks on their behalf. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that these “key opinion leaders” are being bought. They are the “hired guns” of the industry.

And, as with the mob, woe be to anybody who whistleblows or gives evidence against the industry. Peter tells several stories of whistleblowers being hounded, and John Le Carré’s novel describing drug company ruthlessness became a bestseller and a successful Hollywood film.”