New Threat for GlaxoSmithKline: Avandia Spammers (GSK)

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK-NYSE) has been under significant pressure of late because of the New England Journal of Medicine showing greatly increased risks of a heart attack for diabetes patients that have taken AVANDIA.  The news slowed AVANDIA sales down to a crawl after the published reports showed greatly increased risks of heart attack and death.  This wasn’t exactly a small drug either, because this was one of the more popular pharmaceuticals used to treat Type II diabetes. 

If things were bad enough for GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), they just got worse.  I went out for about an hour or so on an appointment and upon my return there were two separate emails regarding "AVANDIA LAWSUIT INFO" and after opening one to see if there was already a series of class action suits getting traction.  I was a bit suspicious since I have never had anything to do with AVANDIA nor with anything related to it.  Sure enough, these are both ".net" URL’s where the ".com" version of the site is a domain squatter and the home page is merely an "unsubscribe" page (and if you don’t know who is spamming you, you actually let them know that you are a real email address if you submit a "remove’ email).

Whether this ends being a real attempt for a law firm to drum up AVANDIA cases or not is yet to be known.  The truth is that a class action suit has already been filed on behalf of shareholders, but this is an entirely different matter because the spam emails today are for ‘those who took AVANDIA."  AVANDIA has already been ordered to carry a "black box" warning on its packaging by the FDA.

Even if this never comes to a real case against the company, it is yet one more bit of negative PR.

Jon C. Ogg
June 13, 2007