According to The Wall Street Journal, coming soon to your local newspaper is a report from Senator Grassley on e-mails his staff has reviewed concerning Avandia. (Of course, the report has been leaked to The Wall Street Journal.)
The Senator is concerned that GSK had conducted their own meta-analysis of the data surrounding the cardiovascular disease deaths and Avandia and found similar conclusions of Dr. Steve Nissen of the Cleveland Clinic.
"The numbers are the numbers, the analysis is very similar to our own," wrote the company's senior consultant in an e-mail days before the study was published in The New England Journal of Medicine. He added that Glaxo could not "undermine" the figures but might find a way to explain them.
This is the kind of advice anyone would expect to see from a consultant in any industry. It is clear that GSK is not trying to hide anything.
This report will then be used by plaintiffs’ attorneys against GSK in their lawsuits to show harm by patients who took Avandia. Of course, there will be huge settlements.
GSK has taken the opportunity to make the authors of the e-mails available for interviews. They also dispute the wording of the e-mail in question from Senator Grassley, that the writer later presented what he considered a more accurate assessment before a Congressional hearing.
GSK should take this opportunity to open up their e-mails to an independent review, which would take into account the context in which the e-mails were sent. E-mails taken out of context can be portrayed as bad, given that the context is not provided.
It serves as a rule for us to be diligent in our communication to ensure that if taken out of context, they could not be used against us. Before you push the send button, remember Senator Grassley is looking over your shoulder.
Wall Street Journal: Glaxo's E-mails on Avandia Reveal Concern