Court is adjourned today and will resume Tuesday.
As I understand, part of GSK's defence in the UK Seroxat litigation trial currently being heard in the High Court in London is, they claim, the surge of Seroxat reports regarding a withdrawal problem was down to a series of programmes aired by the BBC. There were four in all (Videos below)
Isn't this like blaming Amazon or Trip Advisor because people say bad things about products and hotels?
It's a strange argument and one, it seems, they have a history of making, as confidential internal documents show.
In 1998 they didn't have consumers or the media to blame, instead, they blamed Eli Lilly for the Seroxat withdrawal problem. Lilly is the manufacturer of Glaxo's direct competition, namely; Prozac.
A 1998 internal memo highlights this in great detail and it's well worth reading. One also has to remember here who GSK blamed in the Dolin trial. The FDA, Dolin's doctor, Dolin's 'state of mind.'
Here's the document where they blame Lilly for Seroxat's withdrawal problem.
Here are those Panorama programmes GSK claim resulted in more reports of Seroxat withdrawal.
THE SECRETS OF SEROXAT (2002)
The Secrets of Seroxat elicited a record response from the public as 65,000 people telephoned the BBC helpline and 1,300 people emailed Panorama directly.
The second Panorama programme on Seroxat, Emails from the Edge included a report of the survey to which the 239 people responded. It showed widespread experiences of suicidal feelings and other severe reactions, very bad withdrawal symptoms and lack of warnings from doctors. After the broadcast users/survivors and Mind protested outside the offices of the MHRA.
Taken on Trust highlighted the incompetence of MHRA figures as well as hearing from GSK spokesperson, Alistair Benbow. This episode sees Benbow infamously blame patients for reading the Seroxat patient information leaflet incorrectly.
SECRETS OF THE DRUG TRIALS (2007)
On 29 January 2007, the fourth documentary of the series about the drug Seroxat was broadcast. It focused on three GlaxoSmithKline paediatric clinical trials on depressed children and adolescents. Data from the trials show that Seroxat could not be proven to work for teenagers. Not only that, one clinical trial indicated that they were six times more likely to become suicidal after taking it. In the programme, Panorama revealed the secret trail of internal emails which show how GlaxoSmithKline manipulated the results of the trials for its own commercial gain.
Bob Fiddaman
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