Profits over safety for Toyota and GlaxoSmithKline
According to the WSJ, Toyota's top leaders in July rolled out a power point presentation from Toyota Safety Group that claimed a win when they convinced the National Highway Administration to allow Toyota to recall only 55,000 Lexus ES and Camry vehicles in response to complaints of sudden acceleration. This move saved Toyota 100 million dollars. Toyota president Akio Toyota will testify in front of Congress this Wednesday. The US Department of Transportation is investigating whether civil fines against the company for failing to comply with regulations governing safety recalls.
Profits over safety also include a recent FDA investigation. Glaxo makes Avandia a popular diabetes drug that is now and it appears, has in the past, been linked to heart attacks. The investigation is looking into why the FDA had ignored the studies that showed an increase risk of heart attacks. Global sales of this drug for 2009 were 1.2 billion dollars. And in the end, it will be shown that this drug should have been scrutinized more by the FDA and that Glaxo will end up in litigation and some time years from now, huge settlements will be settled.If you are on this drug, please be aware of the findings and risks.
posted by Jim Pillsbury @ 11:02 AM
6 Comments
6 Comments:
I would hope that the US people who allowed Toyota to get away with that small recall get in as much, if not more trouble than the Toyota execs get in. After all, Toyota is in the business of making cars and making profits. The agency that oversees the safety of those cars is in the business of making sure manufacturers make safe cars, and recall and fix thos that are not safe. I think the people here in the US that did not hold them accountable are more at fault than Toyota themselves.
The FDA seems to be doing a pretty lousy job of what they are suppose to be doing. I have a sister who can not get the drug she needs here in this country because it has not passed FDA trials, so she goes to Canada one a month and pays for it out of her own pocket, and has been doing it for 7 yrs now. But yet other drugs, like this one for diabetes, has a big problem, and it gets approved. How can this be right?
I got to say I be more than little concerned if I had to take drugs. The people in charges of making sure they safe don’t due there job very good. How they make so many mistakes that make us die and get a way with it? Mr. Pilsbury how we fix this?
Is this guy from Toyota testifying today? What do we expect to get out of that?
I believe the head of Toyota, Mr. Toyota himself will be before Congress tomorrow. Some at the table will scream and holler, some will demand more answers, but which one of the committee will ask, who in the government let this all happen?
The very same thing is going on with the FDA. The top dogs who approve drugs are also the same group of medical professionals who can take the drug off the market. A serious conflict, which has allowed some drugs to do real harm to society.
Many have said, there needs to be separation at the highest level of the FDA in deciding what drugs get pulled from the shelves for safety reasons. And still some call for the entire FDA get away from the politics and money of drug discovery and make rational decisions based on independent scientific fact, instead of industry sponsored studies that have over and over again, shown to be inaccurate.
Makes sense to me what you say about the FDA. Scientific fact is fact that is not impacted by the desires of some of the data suppliers. That is what the FDA should be doing.
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