Blood Money

 

On Sunday April 12th Dominic Cummings took a drive to Barnard Castle to 'test his eyes'. Drug company, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has one of its UK production centres there, and two days later on 14th April they signed a letter of intent to collaborate with the French company, Sanofi, in the development of a vaccine against the novel coronavirus.

This brings together two of the world’s largest vaccine companies. Emma Walmsley, chief executive of GSK, said, “By combining our science and our technologies, we believe we can help accelerate the global effort to develop a Covid-19 vaccine.”

Of course there is no connection between the two events. Read my lips, but I do know a little about vaccines.

In 1973 when my son, Ben, was six months old he was given a triple vaccine for the prevention of whooping cough, diphtheria and tetanus. A few hours after arriving home he started fitting. My wife and I watched as our baby writhed in pain, his body jack-knifing. 

 

He was taken to London's University College Hospital where he was diagnosed with Salaam epilepsy which is characterised by seizures. The doctors told us that the severity of these fits can kill or leave an infant severely brain-damaged. Steroids would have to be used to stop them.

After 24 hours, the fits stopped, but Ben was so weakened by the drugs he contracted pneumococcal meningitis. He looked dazed, his eyes little windows into his confusion. He then developed hydrocephalus and was moved to Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital. There he had an operation to fit a Spitz-Holter shunt inside his skull to drain fluid from his brain to his heart.

Ben’s consultant told us that if he survived, he would need special care.

 

Some years later, my wife met the consultant and when she told him that Ben was still alive, he told her that he was surprised we hadn’t sued.

What had he meant?

In June 2002 Anthony Barnett wrote in the Observer that GSK had admitted that between 1972 and 1974 infants were given faulty vaccines to prevent whooping cough, diphtheria and tetanus. Thousands of doses had been injected. At the time, doctors reported that inoculated babies from some of these Glaxo batches had suffered convulsions.

In his article Barnett concluded, “Some experts believe that these Trivax vaccines - which had not passed critical company safety tests - may have caused permanent brain damage and even fatalities in young children."

The Health Minister at the time, Hazel Blears, said, “Unfortunately GSK no longer have details of the quantities of vaccine or the places where the vaccine was supplied."

Ten years later in 2012, GSK pleaded guilty in a US lawsuit to the promotion of drugs for unapproved use, failure to report safety data, and kickbacks.

They agreed a $3 billion settlement because they had illicitly promoted the anti-depressants Paxil and Wellbutrin. They had failed to report safety data about the diabetic drug Avandia; the bronchitis drug Advair; the asthma drug Flovent; cancer drug Zofran; irritable bowel’s Lotronex, the pain killer Valtrex and migraine treament drug Imitrex.

The settlement also covered kick-backs to physicians, false pricing, underpayment of rebates, payments for ghost-written articles placed in medical journals and even all-expenses-paid hunting trips,

Four years later in 2016, UK GSK was fined £37 millIon for keepinggeneric varieties of the anti-depressant Paroxetine out of the country.

Cummings’ Barnard Castle drive may have been a test drive for his eyes. My son’s disabled life may not be connected to the actions of GlaxoSmithKline. But GSK has proved itself to be guilty of profiting on blood money.

Do they have an approved drug for anger management?