Doctors Accused of Leaking Avandia Report
January 31, 2008
Boston (dbTechno) - A researcher from Texas has admitted to leaking results of a report on Avandia to the drug maker, GlaxoSmithKline. The report detailed the results to Glaxo before they went public regarding their diabetes drug. This has raised a big warning flag in terms of doctors releasing info before it goes public.
The report was released to the public in May of last year and stated some pretty bad results for avandia.
It was found that patients who took avandia were at a 43% increased risk to have a heart attack.
The researcher who admitted to leaking this to Glaxo prior to it going pubilc is Steven Haffner.
Nature quoted Haffner, who works at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, saying “Why I sent it is a mystery. I don’t really understand it. I wasn’t feelingw ell. It was bad judgment.”
The New England Journal of Medicine released a statement which read that “Any breach of ethics by a reviewer would be taken very seriously by the editors.”
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I’m unclear on the issues of morality in this case and what went wrong. If neither Haffnor or Glaxo employees traded stocks on insider info, what is wrong with Glaxo getting information early? Is it thought that Glaxo knew about the dangers of Avandia and were hiding them? If I assume Glaxo didn’t know about the nature, or at least the extent of the problem, isn’t it best for them to warn doctors prescribing the drug as quickly as possible? What part of this story am I missing?