[SaneVax: If, as alleged, GSK will stoop to bribing doctors to prescribe drugs for off-label uses that are not approved by the FDA – one has to wonder what is going on in the vaccine division. For any drug not classified as a vaccine, the manufacturer still has to stand behind their product in a court of law when the nedication does not live up to stated claims. Vaccine defects do not have the same consumer protection measures. Should a person experience an adverse reaction that is not listed on the ‘injury table’ it is basically up to the victim to prove their reaction was caused by the vaccine. Logic says this would promote even more abuses in the vaccine arena – why not? There is limited liability at best.]

The Gates Foundation connection to the Glaxo drug fraud scandal

By Tom Paulson

In a ‘landmark’ legal case, the pharmaceutical giant firm GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) pled guilty this week to engaging in fraudulent, criminal behavior which included covering up adverse drug side-effects, promoting ineffective therapies and hiding unfavorable data — and will pay a record $3 billion in fines.

Most news reports quoted GSK’s CEO Andrew Witty blaming the misconduct on others and “a different era for the company,” adding that such behavior will not be tolerated. “I want to express our regret and reiterate that we have learnt from the mistakes that were made.”

One of the most high-profile GSK executives alleged to have engaged in misbehavior is Tachi Yamada, former head of global health for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation who was before that head of research and development for GSK.

Yamada, while he was head of global health for Gates Fdn, was accused in a U.S. Senate hearing of bullying a scientist to not publish negative findings about a GSK diabetes drug. This was fairly big news at the time and such behavior is part of the federal complaint against the drug firm.

As a journalist blogger, I don’t have as much time as the major news outlets to do a lot of original reporting so I count on the big guns to do the work which I can then plagiarize, uh, I mean ‘curate.’

But so far as I can tell, nobody has made any mention of Yamada’s role in this case. Yet he was pretty high profile — at the center of the controversy surrounding the drug company’s attempt to cover-up adverse side effects of its diabetes drug Avandia.

Here are some of the stories that came out years ago, while he was at the Gates Foundation:

CBS News Meet Glaxo’s Fixer

Guardian Glaxo’s handling of drug Avandia damned by US Senate

ABC News Charity chief accused of bullying critic

Wall Street Journal Glaxo’s criticized for response to critics

Yet none of the news stories about this record-setting case mentions Tachi Yamada.

Read the entire article here.