{"id":45421,"date":"2014-04-07T18:19:56","date_gmt":"2014-04-07T22:19:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=45421"},"modified":"2014-04-07T19:03:32","modified_gmt":"2014-04-07T23:03:32","slug":"the-whole-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2014\/04\/07\/the-whole-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"the whole industry…"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
If Glaxo’s CEO wants to be Mr. Clean, he needs to pick up a broom <\/a><\/div>\n
Fierce PharmaMarketing <\/font><\/strong><\/div>\n
By Tracy Staton <\/div>\n
April 7, 2014<\/div>\n

GlaxoSmithKline [$GSK] says it’s rolling out sales and marketing reforms around the world. Apparently, the changes come none too soon. The British drugmaker opened another bribery investigation, this time in Iraq, to check out allegations that it paid government-employed physicians to promote its products. And Glaxo hasn’t yet finished working through the scandalous Chinese bribery allegations that kicked off an industry-wide corruption crackdown. <\/p>\n

So, CEO Andrew Witty and his team sound a bit … conflicted. On the one hand, Witty sounds the perfectly contrite corporate leader. He apologized for the marketing allegations that ended with a $3 billion Department of Justice settlements. He’s promised good behavior and touted those worldwide sales reforms. But on the other, the company is digging into at least two sets of corruption accusations, and faces related repercussions at home and in the U.S. Two bribery probes in two different geographic divisions? That’s a systemic problem. <\/p>\n

When the Chinese bribery scandal hit, Glaxo’s U.K. headquarters was quick to say that head-office executives didn’t know about any malfeasance in its China subsidiary. That may be so. But if HQ didn’t know, that means HQ was either turning a blind eye or failing to pay enough attention. Either way, that’s not a good thing for a company trying to clean up its image. <\/p>\n

If Witty really wants to reform GSK, then he and his top managers need to move beyond plausible deniability. They can’t just launch new quota-free sales-rep compensation and promise to stop paying speaking fees to doctors in the U.S. and beyond. Painful follow-through has to happen. <\/p>\n

We need to see Glaxo execs take out their brooms, and move into global operations to sweep out misbehavior. If they don’t, whistleblowers and government investigators will. And that makes all those the sales-and-marketing changes look like little more than window-dressing.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Just a fluff piece to fill a column? I don’t think so. I think Tracy Stanton is on to something that Sir Andrew Witty and others need to listen to carefully. I don’t think the time honored method of putting a few platitude band-aids on a problem and waiting for the news cycle to pass is going to work very well. We’re onto that maneuver – a lesson learned in the school of hard experience. I was looking over some old posts and ran across any number of excuses, press releases, and statements in response to accusations in years past, and most of them would be laughed at these days or at least send eyes rolling. And plausible deniability is on top of the list of worn out spinning wheels. Two early versions came from my favorite bad example, Dr. Charles Nemeroff, when he was busted for leaving out conflict of interest declarations:<\/div>\n
\n
Undisclosed Financial Ties Prompt Reproval of Doctor <\/a><\/div>\n
New York Times <\/font><\/strong><\/div>\n
By MELODY PETERSEN<\/div>\n
August 3, 2003<\/div>\n

Two scientists are raising concerns about an article in a medical journal that described experimental treatments for depression because an author did not disclose his significant financial ties to three therapies that he mentioned favorably. The executive editor of the journal said it had not required disclosure of the potential conflicts, but was considering changing its policy in light of the criticism. The ties between pharmaceutical companies and researchers have come under increasing scrutiny in recent years.<\/p>\n

The lead author of the article, Dr. Charles B. Nemeroff, chairman of the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Emory School of Medicine in Atlanta, said he would have reported the conflicts of interest, which include owning the patent on a treatment he mentioned, if the journal had asked him to. ”I have always been totally compliant, probably gone overboard, with disclosure,” Dr. Nemeroff said. ”If there is a fault here, it is with the journal’s policy.”<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\n
Medical reviews face criticism over lapses<\/a><\/div>\n
The Wall Street Journal<\/font><\/strong><\/div>\n
By David Armstrong<\/div>\n
July 19, 2006 <\/div>\n

Charles Nemeroff, one of the nation’s most prominent psychiatrists, edits the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, which this month favorably reviewed a controversial new treatment for depression. But Tuesday, the journal said it plans to publish a correction because it failed to cite the ties of the article’s eight academic authors to the company that makes the treatment, including the article’s lead author: Dr. Nemeroff.<\/p>\n

The journal’s nondisclosure of the financial ties of its own editor as well as those of the other authors highlights the failure of many respected medical journals to identify relationships between academic researchers and medical companies that may benefit from positive research reports. A spate of recent lapses is prompting calls for more journals to ban offending authors from publication. In addition, medical schools are being urged to regulate relationships between their researchers and industry more closely…<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
His excuse that second time – clerical error<\/em>. It didn’t work so well as the first one and he decided to step down <\/em>as editor shortly thereafter. We can thank Drs. Bernard Carroll and Bob Rubin for both of those exposures. They came early and got the ball rolling. The investigations of Senator Grassley and Paul Thacker came next, and then the epidemic of suits against the Pharmaceutical companies with the release of enough incriminating documents to convince any doubters. So we’re now veterans of ten years learning that plausible deniability<\/em> simply equaled a<\/em> lie<\/em>, and we’re not likely to buy such things anymore, almost by reflex.<\/div>\n

I was a retired person before I was capable of believing that Doctors, Academic Department Chairmen, and Pharmaceutical Companies named after long-dead men with handle-bar mustaches were capable of the kind of deceit we’ve all seen in recent decades – but our naivety has given way to, at the least, a careful suspiciousness, even paranoia about such matters. And GSK has placed itself in a goldfish bowl that’s going to be hard to escape. <\/p>\n

So when Tracy says, "We need to see Glaxo execs take out their brooms, and move into global operations to sweep out misbehavior<\/em>" she’s not just moralizing, she’s giving GSK an appropriate heads up<\/em> they really need to hear – not just GSK, the whole industry. We’re veterans now… <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If Glaxo’s CEO wants to be Mr. Clean, he needs to pick up a broom Fierce PharmaMarketing By Tracy Staton April 7, 2014 GlaxoSmithKline [$GSK] says it’s rolling out sales and marketing reforms around the world. Apparently, the changes come none too soon. The British drugmaker opened another bribery investigation, this time in Iraq, to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45421"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45432,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45421\/revisions\/45432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}