Photoshop of Glaxo Chief Andrew Witty with a Cleft Palate, one of the many birth defects associated with Paxil [Seroxat]
Hardly surprising that Glaxo chief, Andrew Witty, has recently claimed that his company will [ahem] no longer pay doctors to promote its drugs, is it?
They are currently under investigation in China for doing just that.
Witty made the announcement in a phone conversation with the New York Times according to journalist Katie Thomas.
Wow, an announcement in a one on one phone conversation. Way to go Andy baby.
Witty, who recently flew to China with British PM David Cameron to convince the Chinese to trade with Britain, has come under fire many times, from me at least, for his excuses for Glaxo's past history of off-label promotion and failure to warn the public about Glaxo's unsafe drugs causing addiction, suicide, heart strokes and birth defects.
"All part of an era" was Witty's lament, an era that he was very much part of. Just ask the Whistleblowers in the recent $3billion dollar lawsuit.
There are many that suggest that I should give Witty a break. Hey, he's trying his hardest to be as transparent as possible. Yeh, right, maybe he should start by correcting the wrongs from the "era" he uses in his excuses.
A retraction of the embarrassing fraudulent clinical trial results of the Paxil pediatric studies would be a good start. Then maybe he can move on to the adults currently pursuing GSK through the British courts who claim that Paxil [known as Seroxat in the UK] caused them a whole host of withdrawal problems (including addiction) - something his company never warned them about.
There's also a number of Paxil birth defect cases to be settled, maybe instead of settling Witty should apologise to the kids born with heart defects because of their mothers ingesting Paxil during pregnancy. Maybe offer condolences to those who had to terminate pregnancies because his company failed to warn them of Paxil's teratogenic effects on the fetus, be it a viable or [ahem] non-viable fetus.
Just because the above didn't happen on Witty's watch should not make him shirk his responsibilities. He knew what he was taking on when Garnier handed over the reigns to him. If the Frenchman was not prepared to apologise to all those his company's drugs have harmed then maybe Witty should swallow his pride, ignore what his attorneys tell him and just apologise for the appalling behaviour of GlaxoSmithKline.
Glaxo have claimed that under their new plan, which would be completed worldwide by 2016, they would no longer pay key opinion leaders to speak on its behalf about its products or the diseases they treat “to audiences who can prescribe or influence prescribing,”
Full story here.
In other news...
Cat shocks judges by playing fiddle, a cow jumps over the moon and scientists baffled at dog laughing.
Bob Fiddaman
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