Nexus - 0214 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

Corporate Crime in the Pharmaceutical Industry Part Two has been further demonstrated by Dr John Braithwaite; now a Trade Practices Commissioner, in his devastating exposé, Corporate Crime in the Pharmaceutical Industry (1984). Tis sordid behaviour of today's pharmaceutical corporations International bribery and corruption, fraud in the testing of drugs, criminal pe in the unsafe manufacture of drugs— the pharmaceutical industry has a worse record of !aw-breaking than any other industry. Describing many examples of corporate crime, which shows the depth and seriousness of the crime problem in the pharmaceutical industry, Dr Braithwaite's revealing study is based on extensive international research, including interviews of 131 senior executives of pharmaceutical companies in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Mexico and Guatemala. The book shows how pharmaceutical multinationals defy the intent of laws regulating safety of drugs by bribery, false advertis- ing, fraud in the safety testing of drugs, unsafe manufacturing processes, smuggling and international law evasion strategies. At the time of researching the subject, Braithwaite was a research criminologist at the Australian Institute of Criminology and a Fulbright Fellow affiliated to the University of California, Irvine, and the United Nations Center on Transnational Corporations. Fraud in Drug Testing “Data fabrication is so widespread," says Dr Braithwaite, "that it is called ‘making’ in the = R harmaceutical industry, ‘graphit- ing’ or ‘dry labelling’ in the United States." He further states: Pharmaceutical companies face great temptations to mislead health authorities about the safety of their products. It is a make or break industry—many companies get virtually all their profits from just two or three therapeutic winners. Most of the data that the Australian Drug Evaluation Committee relies upon in deciding questions of safety and effi- cacy is data from other countries, particularly the US. Inquiries into scientific fraud in the US have shown t is a substantial roblem of fraud in safety testing of drugs in the US, just as has ee documented in Japan. [Emphasis added.]? In his book Braithwaite cited former FDA Commissioner Goddard expressing his concerns over research dishonesty at a Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association Meeting in 1966: | have been shocked at the materials that come in. In addition to the problem of quality, there is the problem of dishonesty in the investigational new drug usage. | will admit there are grey areas in the IND situation, but the conscious withholding of unfavourable animal clinical data is not a grey matter. The deliberate choice of clinical investigators known to be more concerned about industry friendships than in developing good data is not a grey matter. The eg in journals of articles that begin to commercialize what is still an investigational new drug is not a grey matter area. These actions run counter to the law and the efforts governing drug industry [sic!] Published by: Campaign Against Fraudulent Medical Research PO Box 128, Cabramatta NSW 2166 Australia JUNE - JULY 1993 NEXUS¢21