Written while prisoner in Moncef Slaoui’s home-town, Agadir, Morocco
In 2013, the Chinese authorities branded the international pharma giant GSK a “criminal godfather”, accusing it of running a £320m slush fund to bribe doctors and hospital officials with cash payments and visits to prostitutes. – The Guardian
American public couldn’t care much, but those events built up to Moncef Slaoui‘s nomination as Trump’s “vaccine czar”
If corruption was a company, it would be GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) with “Trump’s new vaccine czar”, Moncef Slaoui, at the helms of Research and Vaccines departments.
It all peaked in 2010-2015 with some of the most sordid scandals people have ever ignored. Many will pay attention now, when things escalated to truly painful levels.
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) can trace its roots back to a small apothecary in 18th Century London. Through multiple corporate mergers, GSK found its current form in 2001.
It is well-known for its asthma inhalers like Advair and Breo.
They have been constantly embroidered in scandals long before 2001.
Suffice for now to mention a case of actual officially-recorded conspiracy, as reported by New York Times:
In 1996 SmithKline Beecham was one of 15 drug companies that together agreed to pay more than $408 million to settle a class action lawsuit charging them with conspiring to fix prices they charged to thousands of independent pharmacies. In addition to contributing $30 million to the financial settlement, SmithKline agreed to supply the plaintiffs with a quantity of the generic version of its Tagamet ulcer medication worth $20 million.
We’re not going to review every GSK case in this investigation, just the truly spectacular and relevant ones from the more recent times, when the Research & Development and Vaccines departments were under Moncef Slaoui’s command.
A new name to most, the Moroccan scientist has been dubbed by US media “Trump’s vaccine czar”, a few days back, when the US president made him co-chief of Operation Warp Speed, the coronavirus mass-vaccination campaign about to start in US.
GSK has began to break records with its penalties and settlements in 2006, when it promised “it would pay $3.1 billion to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service to resolve a 17-year dispute over the tax treatment of transactions between the company’s U.S. operation and the parent company. The settlement, the largest in IRS history, focused on the issue of transfer pricing—a method by which transnational corporations artificially reduce their tax liabilities”, as New York TImes reported
Anthony Faucci, Trump’s Vaccine Czar Moncef Slaoui and WHO collaborated on the H1N1 scamdemic of 2009, a rehearsal for the Plandemic of 2020. Their vaccine destroyed thousands of children
“As chief of vaccines at GSK, Slaoui oversaw the development of the disastrous Pandemrix vaccine for swine flu, a shot that was rushed to market without proper testing in the midst of a 2009 epidemic, during which public health officials were shrieking about enormous death tolls that never materialized, with some claiming the death toll would rival the 1918 influenza pandemic (sound familiar?).” RT reported recently in a quite superficial review of the H1N1 scandal of 2009.
Let me give you the full picture.
A couple of recent articles by Prof Michel Chossudovsky for Global Research make a great review of the H1N1 2009 scamdemic, greatly completing my work. Chossudovsky practices practices the same old-school document-based style of journalism I was trained too, so I will copiously quote his work in this chapter, with regards and acknowledgements :
“In 2009, hundreds of thousands of pigs were executed Worldwide, despite the fact that the WHO had confirmed that there was no danger of transmission from pigs to humans.
And then what happened, an authoritative study by the John Hopkins School of Public Health was released saying that humans could infect the pigs. Putting Meat on the Table Industrial Farm Animal Production in Americas, see also Washington Post, May 9 2009).
Based on incomplete and scanty data, the WHO Director General nonetheless predicted with authority that: “as many as 2 billion people could become infected over the next two years — nearly one-third of the world population.” (World Health Organization as reported by the Western media, July 2009).
It was a multibillion bonanza for Big Pharma supported by the WHO’s Director-General Margaret Chan, (wife of a high Chinese government official – Silview’s note).
In June 2009, Margaret Chan made the following statement:
“On the basis of … expert assessments of the evidence, the scientific criteria for an influenza pandemic have been met. I have therefore decided to raise the level of influenza pandemic alert from Phase 5 to Phase 6. The world is now at the start of the 2009 influenza pandemic. … Margaret Chan, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO), Press Briefing 11 June 2009)
What “expert assessments”?
In a subsequent statement she confirmed that:
“Vaccine makers could produce 4.9 billion pandemic flu shots per year in the best-case scenario”,Margaret Chan, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO), quoted by Reuters, 21 July 2009)
Millions of doses of swine flu vaccine had been ordered by national governments from Big Pharma. Millions of vaccine doses were subsequently destroyed: a financial bonanza for Big Pharma, an expenditure crisis for national governments.(Global Research)
The media went immediately into high gear (without a shred of evidence). Fear and Uncertainty. Public opinion was deliberately misled
“Swine flu could strike up to 40 percent of Americans over the next two years and as many as several hundred thousand could die if a vaccine campaign and other measures aren’t successful.” (Official Statement of Obama Administration, Associated Press, 24 July 2009).
“The U.S. expects to have 160 million doses of swine flu vaccine available sometime in October”, (Associated Press, 23 July 2009)
Wealthier countries such as the U.S. and Britain will pay just under $10 per dose [of the H1N1 flu vaccine]. … Developing countries will pay a lower price.” [circa $40 billion for Big Pharma?] (Business Week, July 2009)
Of course Bill Gates was all over it too. Since he was already funding Slaoui’s malaria vaccine.
What was most governments’ vaccine of choice?
Pandemrix, elaborated by Moncef Slaoui and GlaxoSmithKline
But the H1N1 pandemic never happened.
There was no pandemic affecting 2 billion people…
The H1N1 scamdemic was endorsed in US by the CDC and the NIAID headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci.
NIAID Director Fauci also endorsed Moncef Slaoui’s Pandemrix vaccine, which turned out to be a multi-billion dollar life-ruining scam:
The Pandemrix vaccine made by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) was given to 6 million people in Britain and millions more across Europe during the 2009-10 swine flu pandemic, but was withdrawn when doctors noticed a rise in narcolepsy cases among those who received the jab.
Narcolepsy is a permanent condition that can cause people to fall asleep dozens of times a day, even when they are in mid-conversation. Some suffer from night terrors and a problem with muscular control called cataplexy that can lead them to collapse on the spot. (Guardian, September 25, 2015)
In UK, the result of the hasty approval process was an unsafe, ineffective shot that left over a thousand recipients permanently brain-damaged, some 80 percent of them children. Forty percent of NHS staffers were vaccinated under false pretenses, told the shot was safe and effective. The UK government was forced to pay out millions of pounds in compensation, as GSK had refused to supply the drug to governments until it was indemnified against lawsuits.
“The Pandemrix vaccine, made by GlaxoSmithKline, was given to high-risk groups, including children and those with asthma, diabetes and heart disease at the height of the 2009-10 swine flu pandemic. Across Europe, around 31 million people received the jab. The vaccine was made specifically to tackle pandemics and is very different to the normal seasonal flu vaccine which has not been linked to narcolepsy.
The condition is a rare but serious neurological disorder that affects about 31,000 people in Britain. The condition can cause massive sleep disruption. The worst hit are often young people who face enormous learning difficulties at school and university. The disorder can destroy self-esteem, and bullying is common. Adults can lose their jobs, their driving licences, and can have difficulties with relationships. Some narcoleptics have another condition called cataplexy, a total loss of muscle control.” – The Guardian 2013
In June, a 12-year-old boy was awarded £120,000 by a court that ruled he had been left severely disabled by narcolepsy caused by Pandemrix. The win ended a three-year battle with the government that argued his illness was not serious enough to warrant compensation.
The increased risk of narcolepsy after vaccination with ASO3 adjuvanted pandemic A/H1N1 2009 vaccine indicates a causal association, consistent with findings from Finland. – British Medical Journal
A Department of Health spokesperson said:
“Pandemrix was developed specifically for use in a flu pandemic when the number of lives lost and serious cases could have been enormous.”
“The decision to recommend that children got this vaccine during the flu pandemic was based on evidence available at the time, along with the advice from the European Medicines Agency which approved its use.
According to International Business Times UK in a 2014 report Patients who suffered brain damage as a result of taking a swine flu vaccine are to receive multi-million-pound payouts from the UK government.
The government is expected to receive a bill of approximately £60 million, with each of the 60 victims expected to receive about £1 million each.
Peter Todd, a lawyer who represented many of the claimants, told the Sunday Times: “There has never been a case like this before. The victims of this vaccine have an incurable and lifelong condition and will require extensive medication.”
Following the swine flu outbreak of 2009, about 60 million people, most of them children, received the vaccine.
It was subsequently revealed that the vaccine, Pandemrix, can cause narcolepsy and cataplexy in about one in 16,000 people, and many more are expected to come forward with the symptoms.
Across Europe, more than 800 children are so far known to have been made ill by the vaccine.
In a bitter irony, it was the UK Government (rather than GSK) that paid for the Vaccine Brain Damages in Children.
But the Brain Damage impacts documented in the UK and EU was but the tip of the iceberg.
Thousands of people got sick from the H1N1 Vaccine (reported and unreported cases).
GSK’s ArepanrixTD applied in Canada
The WHO’s H1N1 pandemic was declared in June 11, 2009. GSK was on contract to the Canadian government. The GSK’s ArepandrixTM vaccine was delivered to Canadian health authorities within less than four months.
“As a result, an impressive 45% of Canadians received protection from the H1N1 virus by being vaccinated with GSK’s ArepanrixTM” according to GSK’S President-CEO Paul Lucas in a statement on October 9 2009 to Canada’s Senate Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology.
Within four months?. Does that give them Time to Test????
Lots of people in Canada fell sick after receiving the H1N1 ArepanrixTD vaccine.
And that vaccine killed a little girl called Amina Abu, which then led to a ten year lawsuit against GSK.
A vaccine was rushed to market, and the five year old was among millions of Canadians to get the shot, amid widespread fears about the new pathogen.
Five days later, Amina’s older brother found her lying unconscious in the bathroom of the family’s east-end Toronto home. She was dead.
Her devastated parents came to blame the flu shot itself and sued the vaccine’s manufacturer, Glaxo Smith Kline (GSK), for $4.2 million. The little-noticed trial of that lawsuit drew toward a close on Tuesday, a rare judicial airing in Canada of a vaccine’s alleged side effects.
The parents’ lawyer, Jasmine Ghosn, alleged the preventive drug was brought out quickly and without proper testing during a chaotic flu season, as the federal government exerted “intense pressure” on Canadians to get immunized. (National Post, November 2019)
Screenshot of National Post. Death of Canadian girl in 2009 (Report is dated November 2019
It took ten years for a judgment. The Family lost. GSK declined responsibility for her death. And the Canadian government reimbursed GSK’s legal expenses.
That lawsuit against GSK should be reopened. Canada’s government bears the burden of responsibility.
ArepanrixTD (2009) vs PandemrixTM (2009)
GSK has casually acknowledged that the ArepanrixTD which was used in Canada is “similar” to the GSK’s PandemrixTM applied in the UK and the EU, which led to brain damage in Children. It was subsequently withdrawn. But ArepandrixTD applied in Canada prevailed. An ArepandrixTD (2010) was subsequently released the following year (and compared to PandemrixTD (2009)
GSK acknowledges that PandemrixTD (2009) causes narcolepsy, which is categorized as “a chronic neurological disorder that affects the brain’s ability to control sleep-wake cycles.”
The following is a “statement” by GSK aired on CTV in November 2013. Below are excerpts from the transcript:
3. To date, how many people/children in Canada have reported developing narcolepsy after getting vaccinated with Arepanrix? What provinces do they reside in Canada?
GSK reports all cases of adverse events which the company is aware of in accordance with national and regional regulations. We respectfully defer to the Public Health Agency of Canada to address this question in more detail.
4. We read that there is currently a Canadian study sponsored by GSK to assess the risk of occurrence of narcolepsy following the administration of Arepanrix – Why did you sponsor that study? When will the results of that study be published?
We are currently supporting a study that is being conducted in Quebec where Arepanrix™ (H1N1) was used. Further research is needed to evaluate the potential association between GSK`s adjuvanted H1N1 pandemic flu vaccine and narcolepsy in a country where a similar vaccine to Pandemrix™ (H1N1) was used, and where a more robust assessment of the potential association could be conducted, using a design aimed at limiting the impact of biases. The preliminary results of this study are anticipated to be published by early 2014.
There was no investigation into who was behind this multibillion fraud.
Several critics said that the H1N1 Pandemic was “Fake”
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), a human rights watchdog, is publicly investigating the WHO’s motives in declaring a pandemic. Indeed, the chairman of its influential health committee, epidemiologist Wolfgang Wodarg, has declared that the “false pandemic” is “one of the greatest medicine scandals of the century.” (Forbes, February 10, 2010)
The World Health Organization’s handling of the swine flu pandemic was deeply marred by secrecy and conflict of interest with drug companies, a top medical journal said Friday.
The British Medical Journal, or BMJ, found that WHO guidelines on the use of antiviral drugs were prepared by experts who had received consulting fees from the top two manufacturers of these drugs, Roche and GlaxoSmithKline, or GSK.
In apparent violation of its own rules, the WHO did not publicly disclose these conflicts when the guidelines were drawn up in 2004, according to the report, jointly authored by the London-based non-profit Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
The WHO’s advice led governments worldwide to stockpile vast quantities of antivirals, and its decision to declare a pandemic in June 2009 triggered the purchase of billions of dollars worth of hastily manufactured vaccines.
Much of these stocks have gone unused because the pandemic turned out to be far less lethal than some experts feared, fueling suspicion that Big Pharma exerted undue influence on WHO decisions.
The report also reveals that at least one expert on the secret, 16-member “emergency committee” formed last year to advise the WHO on whether and when to declare a pandemic received payment during 2009 from GSK.
Announcing that swine flu had become a global pandemic automatically triggered latent contracts for vaccine manufacture with half-a-dozen major pharmaceutical companies, including GSK. The WHO has refused to identify committee members, arguing that they must be shielded from industry pressure. “The WHO’s credibility has been badly damaged,” BMJ editor Fiona Godlee said in an editorial.
AFP June 4, 2010 (emphasis added)
In 2010, after 8 years of legal battles, it’s sentenced to pay $96 to a whistle-blower. who exposed serious contamination problems at GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK) pharmaceutical manufacturing operations.
“Cheryl Eckard’s payment is thought to be the biggest ever handed to a US whistleblower. It was awarded after an eight-year fight, which ended yesterday, when GSK agreed to pay the US government $750m to settle civil and criminal charges that it manufactured and sold adulterated drug products.” – The Guardian
One may argue the cases above may speak volumes about GSK, but this not Slaoui’s department, he probably had nothing to do with it. Yes, he may have not had his own hands in these particular scandal, but wait for it, as you will see, corruption is the norm at GSK, not something you can easily overlook, so unless he was forced to work for this corruption galore, he was an accomplice, at least ethically and morally, as all his colleagues are.
We get to Slaoui’s departments shortly.
Year 2012 finds GSK experimenting on Argentina’s poorest babies. Moncef Slaoui’s people were going to Argentina’s most disparaged areas, tracking and tricking the poorest and most illiterate people to allow vaccine trials on their kids and babies. 14 deaths ensued.
“The firm failed to get proper consent from the children’s parents before injecting Synflorix, one of its bestselling vaccines, according to a judge in Buenos Aires.
GSK was also criticised for keeping inadequate records of the children’s ages, medical histories and previous jabs.
Evidence from Argentina’s medical regulator said that, in a few cases, scientists working for GSK relied on permission from under-age parents or illiterate grandparents, The Times reported.
GSK and two of the scientists who led the trial have been fined a total of one million pesos (£150,000).
Jorge Yabkowsky, president of the Argentine Federation of Health Professionals, told The Times: “These are people who depend entirely on the state apparatus and who are most often illiterate.” – The Telegraph
“The Argentinian Federation of Health Professionals accuses drug maker GlaxoSmithKline of misleading participants and pressuring poor families into joining a trial for the Synflorix vaccine, which the company says protects against bacterial pneumonia and meningitis.”They recruited children in an irregular manner. … They did not do what they were supposed to. They did not inform. There were not independent witnesses. They pressured the mothers of poor children,” said Jorge Yabkowsky, the federation’s director.” – CNN
The trial, known as Compas, involved 15,000 Argentine babies and 9,000 in Colombia and Panama. It started five years before this scandal and continued long after, despite the fine, because that’s just “cost of business” on Planet Pharma.
But that was peanuts to GSK’s budget. considering same year, 2012, they paid a $3bn (£1.8bn) fine for misselling drugs in the US, “Largest Health Care Fraud Settlement in U.S. History” in the words of US Department of Justice.
DOJ further stated:
<<GSK agreed to plead guilty to a three-count criminal information, including two counts of introducing misbranded drugs, Paxil and Wellbutrin, into interstate commerce and one count of failing to report safety data about the drug Avandia to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Under the terms of the plea agreement, GSK will pay a total of $1 billion, including a criminal fine of $956,814,400 and forfeiture in the amount of $43,185,600. The criminal plea agreement also includes certain non-monetary compliance commitments and certifications by GSK’s U.S. president and board of directors. GSK’s guilty plea and sentence is not final until accepted by the U.S. District Court.
GSK will also pay $2 billion to resolve its civil liabilities with the federal government under the False Claims Act, as well as the states. The civil settlement resolves claims relating to Paxil, Wellbutrin and Avandia, as well as additional drugs, and also resolves pricing fraud allegations.
“Today’s multi-billion dollar settlement is unprecedented in both size and scope. It underscores the Administration’s firm commitment to protecting the American people and holding accountable those who commit health care fraud,” said James M. Cole, Deputy Attorney General. “At every level, we are determined to stop practices that jeopardize patients’ health, harm taxpayers, and violate the public trust – and this historic action is a clear warning to any company that chooses to break the law.”>>
Rewind that: A Deputy Attorney General said in a DOJ press release that GSK “jeopardized patients’ health, harmed taxpayers, and violated the public trust“.
You think that’s bad? Reading further in the DOJ press release we find out that Bill Corr, Deputy Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) really called it out:
“cheaters who thought they could make an easy profit at the expense of public safety, taxpayers, and the millions of Americans who depend on programs like Medicare and Medicaid”
Bill Corr, Deputy Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services
“GSK, one of the world’s largest healthcare and pharmaceuticals companies, admitted to promoting antidepressants Paxil and Wellbutrin for unapproved uses, including treatment of children and adolescents.
The illegal practice is known as off-label marketing.
The company also conceded charges that it held back data and made unsupported safety claims over its diabetes drug Avandia.
It agreed to resolve civil liability for promoting asthma drug Advair and two lesser-known drugs for unapproved uses.
In addition, GSK has been found guilty of paying kickbacks to doctors.” – BBC
“The sales force bribed physicians to prescribe GSK products using every imaginable form of high-priced entertainment, from Hawaiian vacations [and] paying doctors millions of dollars to go on speaking tours, to tickets to Madonna concerts”
US attorney Carmin Ortiz
The public hardly got scandalized and mostly by the bribes, but the most serious crime is the one committed by Slaoui’s department, Forbes being one of the very few media that nailed this:
“Keeping safety data secret: Federal investigators say that between 2001 and 2007, GlaxoSmithKline failed to disclose safety data from certain studies of Avandia to the Food and Drug Administration. This is, ethically, perhaps the most serious of the charges. Glaxo’s handling of the Avandia matter was fraught with bad disclosure bordering on deceit. During that time period, Avandia became the best-selling diabetes drug in the world. Now it not only bears warnings that it might cause heart attacks, its use has been so restricted that the drug has nearly vanished off Glaxo’s ledgers. To the extent that Glaxo kept Avandia’s heart risk from being recognized, that means that patients were exposed to added risks. For this, Glaxo is paying a fine of $243 million.”
As part of the settlement, GSK agreed to be monitored by US government officials for five years.
Only to see the company embroiled in another humongous scandal within a year, as they re-based their corruption in China.
The 2013 scandal “started with sex tapes of the company’s China head, Mark Reilly and his Chinese girlfriend at a Shanghai department, which were sent to several senior executives of the company. The company’s investigations into the sex tapes made the paid investigator Peter Humphrey and his wife Yu Yingzeng in jail in China due to their breach of privacy law. With the bribery scandal made public by the Chinese police since June 2013, GSK had to admit its pervasive corruption in China.
After tried in Changsha in September 2014, the company apologized to the Chinese people, and paid one of the biggest fines in Chinese history worth ¥3bn (£300m; €350m; $490m). 4 executives of the company, including Mark Reilly, the only foreign citizens involved, were sentenced to jail. Reilly was deported from China as well. The sequent US Securities and Exchange Commission investigation was settled by GSK with a $20 million civil penalty in 2016, yet the UK Serious Fraud Office failed to finish the expensive investigation which was officially ended in 2019.” Wikipedia
The corruption at GSK was multi-levelled and ubiquitous, it wasn’t just bribes for sales, that’s why the scandal needed about 5 years to find closure, more or less.
GSK board received an email in January 2013 where how China’s branch committed fraud in its operations was detailedly described in 5,200 words. The email was well written in English. The email said that GSK China disguised tourist travel in the disguise of international academic meetings. The company paid for the airline tickets and hotel rooms for such meetings to bribe Chinese medical professionals. The email continued by accusing GSK China of falsifying its books and records to illegally market drugs in China. The whistleblower made examples by the drug Lamictal, which was approved in China only for treating epilepsy, but was marketed as a drug for bipolar disorder aggressively. The drug killed a patient due to false marketing, but GSK chose to pay around 9,000 US dollars to silence the patient.
From 2013’s ScienceMag we find out that “accusations of data fabrication at GlaxoSmithKline’s China research site are quite real. That’s what we get from the latest developments in the case, as reported by BioCentury, Pharmalot, and the news section at Nature Medicine. Jingwu Zang, lead author on the disputed paper and former head of the Shanghai research site, has been dismissed from the company. Other employees are on administrative leave while an investigation proceeds, and GSK has said it has begun the process of retracting the paper itself.
As for what’s wrong with the paper in question, BioCentury Extra has this:
GSK said data in a paper published in January 2010 in Nature Medicine on the role of interleukin-7 (IL-7) in autoimmune disease characterized data as the results of experiments conducted with blood cells of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients “when, in fact, the data reported were either the results of experiments conducted at R&D China with normal (healthy donor) samples or cannot be documented at all, suggesting that they well may have been fabricated.”
The pharmaceutical giant’s head of global research & development at the time, Moncef Slaoui, received a total remuneration package of $8.4m for his work in 2013, up from $6.6m in 2012.“
Moncef Slaoui was very close to the Chinese GSK division because, as I pointed out in my previous article, in 2007, he announced plans to establish a neurosciences research group in Shanghai that would employ a thousand scientists and cost $100 million. This was one of his biggest projects at GSK, so much of his time and energy were spent through at the China branch.
Slaoui’s megalomaniac plans failed miserably and ceased operations in August 2017, which is the most probable cause of his departure from GSK same year.
The following year, 2014, “the pay packets of finance boss Simon Dingemans and vaccines head Moncef Slaoui also took a hit last year. Mr Dingemans received £1.9m, down from £3.3m the year before. Dr Slaoui got $4.3m (£2.8m), compared with his $8.4m remuneration in 2013.”, reported The Telegraph. GSK had to recover from one of the biggest fines in history!
“China has fined UK pharmaceuticals firm GlaxoSmithKline $490m (£297m) after a court found it guilty of bribery” – BBC, 2014
<<The record penalty follows allegations the drug giant paid out bribes to doctors and hospitals in order to have their products promoted.
The court gave GSK’s former head of Chinese operations, Mark Reilly, a suspended three-year prison sentence and he is set to be deported.
Other GSK executives have also been given suspended jail sentences.
Chinese authorities first announced they were investigating GSK in July last year (2013 – the year Slaoui was cashing big bonuses – Silview’s note), in what has become the biggest corruption scandal to hit a foreign firm in years. The company was accused of having made an estimated $150m in illegal profits.
GSK said it had “published a statement of apology to the Chinese government and its people”.
“Reaching a conclusion in the investigation of our Chinese business is important, but this has been a deeply disappointing matter for GSK,” said chief executive Sir Andrew Witty in a statement. “We have and will continue to learn from this. GSK has been in China for close to a hundred years and we remain fully committed to the country and its people,” he said.
“We will also continue to invest directly in the country to support the government’s health care reform agenda and long-term plans for economic growth.”
Mick Cooper, analyst at Edison Investment Research in London, said: “GlaxoSmithKline will hope that this will draw a line under events in China, but it will take time for its Chinese commercial operations to recover.>> – BBC, 2014
US authorities then investigated whether GSK breached the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, while the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) launched a formal criminal investigation into its overseas practices in May. “The SFO criminal investigation into the commercial practices of GlaxoSmithKline and its subsidiaries continues,” a spokeswoman at the SFO told Reuters in 2014.
Funnily, this event is what changed Slaoui’s course of life and made him a candidate for Trump’s Operation Warp speed. Because the scandal shook GSK’s hierarchies, with Slaoui moving from R&D to heading the vaccines branch.
The scandal had wiped out two-thirds of GSK’s business there. Sales in China have recovered somewhat since then.
Same 2014 year, a £2.8m grant from the Wellcome Trust eugenicists association, the Medical Research Council and the Department for International Development funded safety tests for the swine flu vaccine by a team led by Prof Adrian Hill, director of the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford.
The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has begun discussions with ministry of health officials in Nigeria about conducting a phase 1 safety study of the vaccine among healthy adults.
The Oxford study involved 60 healthy volunteers, while those in the Gambia and Mali will each involve 40.
Hill said: “The tragic events unfolding in Africa demand an urgent response. In recent years, similar investigational vaccines have safely immunised infants and adults against a range of diseases including malaria, HIV and Hepatitis C. We, and all our partners on this project, are optimistic that this candidate vaccine may prove useful against Ebola.”
The experimental vaccine is against the Zaire species of Ebola, which is the one circulating in west Africa and for which there is no cure. The vaccine was designed by Nancy J Sullivan, the head of the biodefence research section in NIAID’s Vaccine Research Centre (part of NIH), in collaboration with researchers at the Swiss-Italian biotech firm Okairos, acquired by GSK last May for €250m (£150m), The Guardian reported in 2014
Same Adrian Hill we find later co-authoring the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine under his own company Vaccitech.
Two scientists behind Oxford University’s coronavirus vaccine could pocket a hefty sum of money if the jab proves successful, it emerged today.
Several private investors, including the controversial Chinese firm Huawei, are also poised to profit if the vaccine — called AZD1222 — goes to market.
Oxford professors Sarah Gilbert and Adrian Hill co-founded Vaccitech in 2016. The start-up created the experimental jab — still in human trials — alongside experts at the university’s Jenner Institute.
Company House records show the experts own roughly 10 per cent of the company, which was valued at £65.8million last year before the pandemic hit. It means the pair will be entitled to their share of revenue if the Covid-19 jab makes it to market and is sold for profit.
For comparison, influenza vaccines make around £4billion profit for pharmaceutical companies every year, globally.
Several Chinese investors, including a Dutch arm of Huawei, also own shares in the company listed as Vaccitech’s biggest funder.
It means Huawei — which has been blacklisted by the UK and US amid fears it could use its tech to spy on the West — may also gain handsomely if the Covid-19 jab is proven to work and be safe over the next few months.
…
Eyebrows will also be raised about the fact Huawei, which was banned from operating the UK’s 5G mobile network last month amid spying fears – is in line to profit from the vaccine if it is proven to be successful.
The telecoms giant is a shareholder in Oxford Sciences Innovation (OSI), a venture capital company that seeks investment to fund new technologies and research projects.
Public records show Huawei Technologies Cooeperatief, a Dutch arm of the maligned firm, bought 4.1million shares in OSI last July, roughly a 0.7 per cent stake, the Financial Times reports.
OSI has raised £600m in four years from 70 shareholders, including Temasek Holdings, which is owned by the Singapore government, GV, an investment firm owned by Google, the Chinese drugmaker Fosun Pharma, and the Wellcome Trust, a research charity based in London.
OSI has a breadth of startup tech companies under its portfolio including Oxford Nanoimaging, a microscope manufacturer, Oxford Flow, which designs pressure control equipment for the oil and gas industry, and vaccine maker Vaccitech.
As Vaccitech’s biggest investor, OSI owns a 46 per cent stake in the company. The UK Government has also invested about £5million in the jab maker at the start of the pandemic.
Last month, the Government banned mobile providers from buying new Huawei 5G equipment amid fears the Chinese firm would use its tech to spy on the West.
UK companies using Huawei kit must strip it out of their networks by 2027, in a move that will slowdown the rollout of 5G in the UK by at least a year.
The move brought the UK closer in line with the US, where Huawei has been banished from selling even its smartphones to Americans.
Washington claims the firm poses a national security threat because it takes orders from China’s Communist Party.
The Oxford vaccine is one of the frontrunners to become the first jab against Covid-19.
But the researchers behind the trials have had to move their studies abroad to South Africa and Brazil — where Covid-19 is still rife — to speed up the so-called efficacy trials.
There has been growing concern not enough people are catching the virus in the public in the UK anymore, which makes it hard to test whether the jab actually protects people from catching it. – Daily Mail
Why do they always “speed up” trials in the poorest areas of Africa and South America? See below.
GlaxoSmithKline bribery scandal led to 13-fold increase in China whistleblower reports –The Telegraph 2015
Drug maker received 652 reports of misconduct in China in 2014, up from 48 in the previous year
Did a any of that slow the corruption machine down, did they ever stop?
On 2014-15 they were also investigating other allegations that GSK paid incentives to secure sales of its products in countries including Romania, Syria, Poland, Iraq, Jordan, UAE and Lebanon.
Wall Street Journal, April 6th 2014:
“Glaxo Investigates Bribery Accusations in the Mideast
Emails to U.K. Drug Maker Allege Corrupt Practices in Iraq
GlaxoSmithKline PLC is investigating allegations of bribery by employees in the Middle East, according to emails reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, opening a new front for the company as it manages a separate corruption probe in China.
A person familiar with Glaxo’s Mideast operations emailed the U.K. drug company late last year and earlier this year to report what the person said were corrupt practices in Iraq, including continuing issues and alleged misconduct dating from last year and 2012″
The Guardian, April 7th 2014:
“GSK looking into claims that it hired 16 Iraqi government doctors and pharmacists to improperly boost its sales
Details of the allegations, which are said to have originated in 2012 but continue to this day, were sent to company executives by a whistleblower, according to the Wall Street Journal. The emails claim the alleged malpractice breaches the UK’s Bribery Act and the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which ban bribery of foreign officials.”
The Guardian, April 14th 2014
“GSK acknowledged the Polish allegations dating from 2010 after an investigation by the BBC’s Panorama programme
GlaxoSmithKline, the British drug company embroiled in bribery scandals in China and Iraq, has been accused of bribing doctors in Poland in the latest corruption furore to hit the business.
The company, which has made a series of public promises to “root out corruption wherever it exists” following allegations that it bribed doctors with £320m worth of cash and sexual favours in China, admitted on Monday that a GSK employee was disciplined in relation to the Polish allegations.
GSK, which has repeatedly trumpeted its “zero tolerance” corruption policy as it battles to salvage its corporate reputation, only acknowledged the Polish allegations – which date back to 2010-12 – after an investigation by the BBC’s Panorama programme.”
The Guardian, April 16th 2014:
“GlaxoSmithKline says it is investigating bribery claims in Jordan and Lebanon
Allegations say GSK sales representatives bribed doctors by issuing free samples that they were then allowed to sell on”
Reuters, August 11th 2014:
“Exclusive: GlaxoSmithKline faces fresh drug bribery claims in Syria
Reuters last month reported allegations of corruption in GSK’s Syrian consumer business, which sells products including toothpaste and painkillers. The consumer operation was closed in 2012 due to the worsening civil war in the country.
The Syrian prescription pharmaceuticals business remains operational, however, and GSK said it was committed to supplying safe and effective drugs and vaccines to patients in need.
The new corruption claims involve alleged bribes paid to boost sales of various medicines, including ones to treat cancer and to prevent blood clots.”
Reuters, July 25th, 2015:
“Exclusive: GSK faces new corruption allegations, this time in Romania
The latest allegations say GSK paid Romanian doctors hundreds, and in one cases thousands, of euros between 2009 and 2012 for prescribing its medicines, including prostate treatments Avodart and Duodart and Parkinson’s disease drug Requip.
According to the email, the doctors were notionally paid for speaking engagements, but in three out of six cases, including the most highly paid one, they did not give any speech. The other three medics gave only one speech each, despite receiving multiple payments.
GSK also provided doctors with many international trips and made payments to them under the guise of participation in advisory boards, the email said.”
Securities and Exchange Commission, September 30, 2016 (PDF):
“GlaxoSmithKline plc (“GSK”) has agreed to pay $20 million to settle charges that it violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) when its China-based subsidiaries engaged in pay-toprescribe schemes to increase sales.
An SEC investigation found that the schemes spanned a period of years and involved the transfer of money, gifts, and other things of value to health care professionals, which led to millions of dollars in increased sales of GSK pharmaceutical products to China’s state health institutions.
The participants included certain complicit sales and marketing managers within GSK’s Chinabased subsidiaries. GSK failed to devise and maintain a sufficient system of internal accounting controls and lacked an effective anti-corruption compliance program to detect and prevent these schemes. As a result, the improper payments were not accurately reflected in GSK’s books and records.
The SEC’s order finds that GSK violated the FCPA’s internal controls and books-and-records provisions. GSK consented to the order without admitting or denying the findings, and agreed to pay a $20 million civil penalty. GSK also agreed to provide status reports to the SEC for the next two years on its remediation and implementation of anti-corruption compliance measures.”
Moncef Slaoui leaves GSK in 2017, after having brought the company on the brink of disaster, together with the Chinese division.
Together with GSK’s #1 through this period, the disgraced CEO Andrew Witty, one of the darkest figures in medicine’s history, Moncef Slaoui moves to become a Pharma investor aboard Medicxi Capital, a biotechnology venture capital firm in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area.
The rest is business as usual.
To be continued
LATER UPDATE:
LATER UPDATE 2, For the giggles: This is how Dork Suckerborg of Fakebook fame is doing damage control for this investigation
And this is how I do Suckerborg control. Guess what? Five minutes after I posted the thing below, Suckerborg re-instated the original post and deleted this from the group, Of course I posted it back in the comments of the original.
Take your time to enjoy the multilevel beauty here, then tell me about 3d chess…
To be continued?
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