The MHRA, criminal investigations and Glaxo – 3

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the on-going criminal investigation into Glaxo – the posts can be seen here and here.

Perhaps the Panorama programme on Monday will provide Mick Deats and his crack team at the MHRA Intelligence and Enforcement unit with some answers – as both Panorama and the MHRA have been investigating the same offence.

Panorama will tell the story of how Glaxo deliberately misled doctors into prescribing Seroxat, which it couldn’t prove actually worked for teenagers. Not only that, one of its own clinical trials indicated that they were six times more likely to become suicidal after taking it. In the investigation, Panorama reveals the secret trail of internal emails which show how GSK manipulated the results of the trial for its own commercial gain.

In spite of knowing what Seroxat REALLY did to teenagers, GlaxoSmithKline distributed a memo to its sales force in 2001 touting the drug’s “remarkable efficacy and safety in the treatment of adolescent depression.”

The words ‘corporate’ and ‘manslaughter’ spring to mind in this case.

I do hope that Mick Deats has remembered set his timer to record – Monday 29 January, BBC One, 20.30.

Seroxat and Panorama – the word is spreading

Word is spreading around the world about the forthcoming Panorama programme – Monday 29 January 2007, BBC One 20.30 or on the interent here.

These three websites are just a few of the many now carrying the story around the world:

The British Medical Journal

Alliance for Human Research Protection

Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry

Panorama will show how GSK had: “written up” the pediatric Paxil trial for publication; “bought and manipulated (apparently willingly) opinion formers; worked to promote the product for use in children (although it was not, and never has been, licensed for such use);” and how the information about the safety and efficacy of Paxil was distorted in letters to prescribers, in advice to their sales force, and in messages to the media.