Who the fruck do GSK think they are?

Today it has emerged that Glaxo-Smith-Klein, a British drug company and one of the richest and most powerful in the world, is under investigation for trying to persuade their competitors to delay marketing the generic alternative to their brand-name antidepressant Seroxat. Why would they do that? you may ask. The answer is money, stupid. Do try to keep up.

They have reacted with horrified denial to these claims, but then as Mandy Rice-Davies famously put it, well they would, wouldn't they?

They did the same to accusations in the US that they bribed doctors to use the drug in children, despite the fact that they had no licence to use the drug in that age group. Despite that they were found guilty and fined $3 billion, one of the biggest fines ever imposed. This doesn't say a lot for the doctors who took the money either. What kind of monsters were they, that they put a few dollars ahead of the safety of their young patients?

 After a brief vogue in the 90s for Seroxat, by 1998 most clinicians had realised it was actually a rubbish drug: no better than other cheaper alternatives but with lots of side effects, including an occasional tendency to develop suicidal violence and worst of all, it is one of the most difficult drugs to withdraw from (always good thing for a drug manufacturer; you have to keep on prescribing it).

So to answer my own question: who do the bosses of GSK think they are? I'll tell you. They think they're better than you. The normal rules of ethical behaviour don't apply to them.They think profit, like winning, is not everything, it's the only thing. And if they have to do a bit of lying and cheating along the way to maximise their profits, who cares, as long as they don't get caught. I've said it before and I'll say it again: capitalism sucks.