GlaxoSmithKline Fined for Corrupted Products and Ineffective Drugs like Avandia

I have written many articles on the corruption in the pharmaceutical industry. They produce drugs for their profit, not your health. The majority of drugs solve one problem while creating worse ones. What good is a depression drug, if it destroys liver and kidney function. Here we have GlaxoSmithKline who for years has been pushing 20 drugs including Avandia produced in Puerto Rico under contaminated manufacturing conditions. The companies quality control manager tried to fix these problems but got fired instead. Drugs including Avandia, Bactroban, Coreg, Paxil, and Tagamet were all produced from this facility. They agreed to pay $750 million to settle criminal and civil complaints on the manufacture of these drugs. Even paying out $750 million, they still made profits. They made profits on your health.

The lawsuit they paid out does not include the 10,000 individual lawsuits ongoing in court against Avandia. They have agreed to pay out 460 million to resolve those patient lawsuits. Most patients will receive about $46,000 a piece. Does $46,000 compensate patients and their families for the death of their loved one or the quality of their life after the drug caused a heart attack or stroke? No, it doesn't. $46,000 does not mean much when you are in a wheel chair with a useless left arm or leg. Perhaps your eye droops or your mouth won't close, it hangs open all the time. The effects of a stroke if it does not kill you, leaves you with a body that does not move well, speech problems, and mental disabilities. This is the price you paid because of a greedy drug company who could have cared less about your getting better.

This company withheld data showing that Avandia was no better than Actos produced by Takeda and put patients in a higher risk group for heart issues and strokes. This data was hidden from the FDA so they could push the drug though. This goes on everyday with drug companies. It is only after patients suffer from the drug that something is done. Avandia is still on the market being sold with a black box warning. This drug should be banned from sale period. It does more harm than good.

Now this same company is facing more lawsuits from its products, Poligrip, for dentures. The Zinc in the product can cause neurological damage, blood pressure abnormalities, nerve damage, and loss of feeling in the hands and feet. They have recalled their products due to this evidence and the lawsuits. They made $520 million off the products. They hid data on the relationship between Zinc and nerve damage from the FDA and from consumers. The problem was identified by the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, TX. The university research blew the whistle on the products.

When a company repeatedly produces drugs and products that harm people, why are they allowed to continue in business. They are shafting the public both in their health and finances. The government slaps their hands, fines them, but allows them to continue in business despite repeated dangerous business behavior that harms the public. Government makes money from the sale of these drugs and so do physicians. This is so amazing to me, that they are allowed to stay in the business of manufacturing drugs. They have great power and lobbyists in government which keeps them advertising drugs that harm your health. This needs to be stopped. People need to stand up and put pressure on the FDA to close these companies down permanently not just slap them with a fine. You need to write your government representatives and the FDA to protest their failure to protect you from these companies and their bad drugs.

GlaxoSmithKline is not the only company with billion dollar lawsuits against it. The drug companies are in business to make money and they don't care until they are caught, that your health will be made worse by the drug. The drug reps train the doctors and they give you this same corrupted information. You take the drug because you are supposed to be able to trust your doctor. Trust has to be earned. Doctors who are pushing the drugs onto their patients are as much to blame as the pharmaceutical companies. They just go with the flow. It's time that doctors start paying attention and refuse to prescribe these harmful drugs. It is time for you as patients to stop using blind faith and start researching your health problem for yourself. We are on more drugs in this country than in any other time period. It because of the power, money and greed that these companies yield. It's up to you to stop them.

References:

http://injury-law.freeadvice.com/defective_products/poligrip-denature-cream-lawsuits.htm

http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/articles/14693/paxil-side-effects-lawsuit-birth-defects-20.html

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/company-news/glaxosmithkline-settles-avandia-lawsuits-fda/19552849/

http://www.aboutlawsuits.com/glaxosmithkline-whistleblower-lawsuit-settlement-13815/