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« Pharma Fond of Fraud-Committing Physicians | Main | Proof that history matters »

Say something nice or don't say anything at all. Or Big Pharma will threaten to sue you.

In the previous post, I said that facility with fraud is a requirement for running a pharma trial. Is that a cheap shot? Probably not.

Yesterday, Dr. John Buse testified before Congress that GlaxoSmithKline, the makers of diabetes drug Avandia, pressured him to stop questioning the drug's safety. Company representatives threatened him by saying that his "actions were scurrilous enough to attempt to hold me liable for a loss in market capitalization." In other words, they threatened a multimillion dollar lawsuit because he wouldn't simply swallow the shit Glaxo was shoveling.

Did I mention that the Congressional hearings are being held because Avandia carries an increased risk of heart attack? Avandia paid for a full page non-apology ad in today's Daily News; it wasn't much different from Panexa's. The non-apology was mere pages away from the article about Dr. Buse's testimony.