The sketchy past of Trump's covid vaccine czar
(I have been cautiously optimistic about a safe and effective vaccine in the relatively near future but I find this sobering to say the least.)
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-sketchy-past-of-moncef-slaoui-trumps-coronavirus-vaccine-czar
.... "An understanding of Slaoui’s biography and his time at GSK may add to those concerns. While working for the Pharma giant, Slaoui helped misrepresent scientific research on a drug that had harmed tens of thousands of Americans. Since the Trump administration has shifted its COVID-19 strategy to favor vaccine development, this means America’s hopes for addressing the pandemic rests with someone who was at the epicenter of one of the more controversial episodes in recent drug development.
Back in 2007, Avandia was GSK’s $3 billion-per-year blockbuster diabetes drug, when Dr. Steve Nissen of the Cleveland Clinic published a study in the New England Journal of Medicine that found that it increased the risk of heart attacks and deaths in patients. With the future of Avandia in doubt, the company’s share price fell 7 percent, wiping out billions of dollars of value. GSK was in a serious bind. But instead of opening its books, it responded by misleading the public, federal agencies, and Congress about the drug’s dangers. Slaoui helped the company in this deception. At the time, he was GSK’s chairman of research and development, and when he was hauled before Congress to testify to Avandia’s safety, he offered a rosy assessment that downplayed the drug’s risks.
...
For GSK, the NEJM study finding harm was a massive problem. But how they reacted to it made matters even worse. When a scientist submits a study to a journal, that journal’s editors have the manuscript reviewed by outside experts called peer reviewers. As we documented in the Senate Finance report, shortly after Dr. Nissen of the Cleveland Clinic submitted his paper on the dangers of Avandia to the NEJM on May 2, 2007, a peer reviewer breached the journal’s ethical rules and leaked the study to GSK. This gave the company several weeks to go over the study and prepare a public relations campaign to undermine it, all before it was made public. And that’s precisely what they did, circulating the paper to dozens of GSK’s executives to analyze.
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I know this, because I was the U.S. Senate Finance Committee’s lead investigator on the bipartisan investigation of GSK and Avandia, and our reports found that GSK had bullied critics of the drug, hid data, and misled the public. By testifying before Congress and the American public that the drug was fine and by working with his colleagues to undermine a study that found it was dangerous, Slaoui assisted GSK’s strategy to deny the drug’s dangers, which ultimately led to a $3 billion federal fine to settle criminal and civil liability related to several of the company’s drugs, including Avandia. The month after Slaoui testified, FDA scientists presented an analysis estimating that Avandia had caused approximately 83,000 excess heart attacks in America since coming on the market."...(more)
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