Glaxo Payments in Paxil Suits

GlaxoSmithKline Plc has paid almost $1 billion to resolve lawsuits over Paxil since it introduced the antidepressant in 1993, including about $390 million for suicides or attempted suicides said to be linked to the drug, according to court records and people familiar with the cases. As part of the total, Glaxo, the U.K.’s largest drugmaker, so far has paid $200 million to settle Paxil addiction and birth-defect cases and $400 million to end antitrust, fraud and design claims, according to the people and court records.
Read article at bloomberg.com

Anti-depressant drug, Seroxat, may affect fertility, says study

Antidepressant drugs taken by tens of thousands of British men may damage sperm quality and harm fertility, researchers at the Cornell Medical Centre in New York have found. The doctors examined the effects of paroxetine (Seroxat) on men taking the drug over five weeks. Four weeks into the trial, tests revealed the men had sperm showing more than twice as much genetic damage as at the start of the study.
Read article in the Guardian (UK)

More comment about the Seroxat scandal

From the latest newsletter of The Dr. Rath Health Foundation:

Big Pharma really makes me feel sick
FOR CLARITY'S sake, remind yourself that nobody at GlaxoSmithKline , Britain 's biggest pharmaceutical company (2006 revenues: $42.8 billion; income $10.135bn), is to face prosecution. The company insists that it did nothing wrong with regard to the anti-depressant drug Seroxat. The Medical and Healthcare Regulatory Agency believes, on the other hand, that the company withheld the full results of trials, particularly those suggesting that the medication could increase the chances of suicide among teenagers. The government is content, however, to "tighten" rules on information disclosure as they affect an industry that ranks, after oil, as Britain 's second biggest export earner.
Read article by Ian Bell in the Sunday Herald (UK)
Comment: Cynics might argue that the British government’s decision not to prosecute GlaxoSmithKline for withholding the full results of drug trials is a direct result of the fact that Jean-Pierre Garnier, GlaxoSmithKline ’s CEO, is a member of Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Business Council…

Pharmaceutical industry condemned by Dr David Healy, the director of psychological medicine at the University of Cardiff

Pharmaceutical industry condemned by psychologist

Extract:

"The pharmaceutical industry has been criticised by a leading psychologist for misrepresenting the efficacy of the anti depression drug Seroxat.

Patients have been "betrayed" by the misrepresentation of the drug, said Dr David Healy, the director of psychological medicine at the University of Cardiff.

His comments came in the wake of a Panorama investigation that accused GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) of hiding evidence that Seroxat had performed badly in clinical trials.

Dr Healy said: "We are in a situation now where people who are ill generally have been deeply betrayed by the whole process, deeply betrayed by the pharmaceutical companies and by all the experts that have been willing to actually lend their name to the process.""

See also BMJ editor hits out at pharmaceutical industry