August 6, 2012

Academic Researchers Escape Scrutiny in Glaxo Fraud Settlement

Academic Researchers Escape Scrutiny in Glaxo Fraud Settlement 1

Toby Melville, Reuters, Newscom

A building in London bears the GlaxoSmithKline logo. A 2007 BBC documentary explored the fraud accusations that led to the recent U.S. settlement, in which the British company has agreed to pay $3-billion.

By Paul Basken

Federal prosecutors triumphantly announced the nation's largest-ever health-care-fraud settlement last month, when the pharmaceutical maker GlaxoSmithKline admitted marketing its drugs for unapproved purposes.

Virtually unpublicized was a key detail: One of the central pieces of evidence in the case was a 2001 scientific journal article listing 22 authors, most of them university researchers, that was actually written by Glaxo-hired authors to overstate the benefits and understate the