Garnier hangs up on BBC interview

The British press is abuzz today with the fact that outgoing GlaxoSmithKline CEO Jean-Pierre Garnier abruptly ended a BBC interview when it turned adversarial. Apparently, Garnier agreed to appear on the program to talk about GSK's new pandemic flu vaccine, Prepandrix [1]. But host James Naughtie deviated from the subject, asking about the recent dust-up over Seroxat (Paxil). Garnier got increasingly agitated as Naughtie repeated the same queston--seven times!--then politely cut off the interview and hung up.

You'll recall that the U.K. government had been investigating GSK's handling of data about potential Seroxat safety problems in children; though investigators concluded the company hadn't broken the law, they said the real problem was that the law wasn't stringent en [2]ough, and scolded GSK for withholding data.

- read the item [3] at The Guardian's TV and radio blog
- see the story [4] in The Times
- get more [5] from The Herald

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GSK's Garnier gets $4.9M handshake [6]
GSK's Garnier to join Dubai equity firm [7]