Glaxo Fights Against Public Paxil Trials

SAVE AS FAVORITE

VIEW FAVORITES

By Evelyn Pringle (about the author) Page 4 of 7 page(s)

opednews.com Permalink

Dr Katz told Dr Mosholder that the FDA had asked Glaxo to elaborate on the events listed under the term emotional lability and further stated:

"We received this partial response, and almost all of these events related to suicidality. The bottom line is that when data from the controlled trials in depression, OCD, and Social Anxiety are pooled, for "possible suicide related" events occurring during treatment or within 4 days after discontinuation, the rate is 0.14/patient-year on drug, and 0.05/patient-year on placebo, p=0.02."

"We have some problems with the methodology they used to capture cases, but this is the major finding, and it has us worried," he wrote.

"We are planning to look at the NDAs for other SSRIs to see whether or not similar events are being hidden by various inappropriate coding maneuvers, but we'd also like to compare the drugs in other meaningful ways if we can," Dr Katz informed Dr Mosholder.

A report by Harvard psychiatrist, Dr Joseph Glenmullen, retained by Baum Hedlund as an expert witness in the Bratt case shows that Glaxo knew as early as 1989 that patients who received Paxil in clinical trials showed an 8-fold increased risk of suicidality compared to patients who received placebos. Dr Glenmullen's report was initially filed under seal, however, on January 30, 2008, the majority of the report was unsealed.

In the report, Dr Glenmullen also notes that, when Glaxo coded suicidal behavior in its computerized database, most of the suicides and suicide attempts were coded as "emotional lability," which he says is "a technical term for rapid mood swings, for example from crying to laughing."

Another claim consistently made by both the Bush Administration attorneys and the attorneys for the SSRI makers, is that the FDA's failure to make the companies issue warnings somehow means the FDA considered and rejected offers by the companies to add warnings about the suicidality risk.

However, Dr Katz specifically notes in his email that Glaxo never offered to add a warning to the label in the US, even after the FDA became aware of the increased suicide risk and discussed the issue with Glaxo.

"The sponsor has not proposed labeling changes and makes a feeble attempt to dismiss the finding," he told Dr Mosholder in the email.

In the first SSRI case where preemption was raised (the company lost the argument), Motus v Pfizer, the judge wisely observed that, "although the FDA did not require Pfizer to include suicide-related warnings in Zoloft's label, FDA has not prohibited Pfizer from doing so" and the "FDA never stated that it would be impermissible to include additional warnings." Likewise, because Glaxo never sought to add a suicide warning, it is not possible that the FDA considered and a suicide warning.

On June 10, 2003, the UK's Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency issued the warning: "It has become clear that the benefits of Seroxat in children for the treatment of depressive illness do not outweigh these risks."

In the June 11, 2003 New York Times, Gardiner Harris reported that Alan Metz, the vice president for clinical development at Glaxo, said the company was not warning American doctors against using the drug with depressed children in the US.

Dr Metz acknowledged that Paxil was not approved for treating children in the US but that many doctors prescribed the drug for children anyway. Mr Harris pointed out that Glaxo had applied for approval from the FDA to sell Paxil to children with obsessive compulsive disorder and the application was pending at that time.

On June 20, 2003, the Times reported that the FDA's reanalysis found that the risk of suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts was 3 times greater among children using Paxil, mostly teenagers, than among children given placebos.

On August 12, 2003, the Times ran a commentary by Richard Friedman, a psychiatrist and director of the psychopharmacology clinic at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, which stated in part:

"What is disturbing about the recent report is that the purported link between Paxil and suicidal thinking comes from an unpublished study sponsored by Paxil's manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline."

"In fact, GlaxoSmithKline has published only one of its nine studies of Paxil in children and adolescents to date," he reported.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7