Avandia fraud explained: Why Big Pharma keeps lying about its drugs

The Author Points Out:

Actos and Avandia can cause heart failure. They both come from the thiazolidinediones family of diabetes drugs, and they're both potentially dangerous. In fact, both drugs bear the FDA's "black box" warning label, which is the agency's most extreme warning label.

So you've really got these two drug companies arguing over which of their drugs kills fewer people. And achieving that requires distorting a lot of clinical trials, burying other trials, spreading the money around to FDA panel experts and other similar criminal activities which now seem to typify Big Pharma.

What's now obvious to us all is that GSK lied about the safety of Avandia, and it has harmed untold numbers of people as a result. According to a statistical analysis in the Senate Finance Committee report, more than 83,000 heart attacks have been caused by Avandia. Several hundred people reportedly die every month because of Avandia.

So removing Avandia from the market is only a very small part of the equation. True justice will be served when GSK is held criminally responsible for lying to the FDA and deceiving the public. GSK's greed is harming and killing thousands of people every single year, and regulators are bickering over whether or not Avandia is a little more dangerous than Actos. Something is seriously wrong with this picture.