"Unfounded" claims, but GSK exec quits Ofsted

The political row in the UK over the appointment of Paul Blackburn, a senior executive from the country's biggest drug major, GlaxoSmithKline, has been resolved with his speedy resignation from the board of the national school inspectorate body, Ofsted. Despite all sites stating that the various allegations made against Mr Blackburn's appointment were "unfounded," the national schools regulator demanded the GSK senior vice president and financial controller leave his post shortly after the publication in the Sunday edition of the Daily Mail, of a series of accusations against the drugmaker (Marketletter July 14).

One of the complaints made concerned the allegation of "an unhealthily cosy relationship between the [Labor] government and GSK," which was made by the conservative-oriented newspaper. To some extent, Mr Blackburn appears to have been the victim of an embarrassing coincidence: his appointment, to provide the insight of a successful UK business to Ofsted's management came only two weeks after GSK had won a L100.0-million ($196.9 million) contract over the human papillomavirus vaccine Cervarix (Marketletter June 23). Given the controversy in recent years over another child immunization program, for the combination measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, which resulted in the UK authorities, including Ofsted, being accused of "bullying" parents into compliance, Mr Blackburn's position was always likely to attract media controversy.

Other allegations made by individuals cited by the Daily Mail concerned controversial pediatric clinical trials and have been firmly denied by GSK. In a statement released by the firm, Mr Blackburn stressed that "I wish to make it clear that this decision should in no way give credibility to the spurious allegations which have been reported regarding GlaxoSmithKline." He added that "these are entirely without foundation and have been previously addressed by the company."