by Roberto Satolli
The giant GlaxoSmithKline has admitted to making false and omitted promotions of its products and has been fined. But it is not an isolated case, indeed. And doctors are often accomplices
(August 20, 2012)
The British pharmaceutical Glaxo Smith Kline has to pay a 3 billion dollar fine in the US for the continued illegal promotion of some of its drugs, including the antidepressants Paxil and Wellbustrin, and above all the antidiabetic drug Avandia (now no longer marketed in Europe). The company has admitted guilt to all the criminal charges in the investigation, including that of having hidden for years that Avandia could damage it instead of protecting the heart and of having subsidized doctors' prescriptions with millions of euros.
The managers of the multinational comment on the story as something that belongs to the past: "Things like this will never happen again". For their part, the exponents of US justice and health are rejoicing, declaring that initiatives like this (far from isolated: in May Abbot was fined 1.6 billion dollars and within the year Johnson & Johnson is expected to figure of 2 billion) demonstrate the willingness of the public administration to better protect the health of citizens.
In reality, costs of this kind are already budgeted by multinationals, because aggressive marketing is legitimate
or illicit, produces enormous profits, which repay them abundantly. The "New York Times" calculates that in the decade in which GSK's illegal activities took place, it grossed around 28 billion dollars for the three drugs in question. And if the industry does its job (but no one is forced to commit a crime in order to sell), the agencies that are supposed to supervise are not doing their job: in the case of Avandia, like other antidiabetic drugs, greater guarantees on safety and real useful in preventing heart attacks and strokes that diabetes promotes.
