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. 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 enough, and scolded GSK for withholding data.

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

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