Bayer Follows Merck’s Strategy & Hires Outside Team To Investigate Itself
A few weeks ago Bayer admitted that it had failed to tell the Food and Drug Administration about data from an analysis of 67,000 hospital records indicating that its heart surgery drug Trasylol may be linked to the increased risk of death, kidney damage, congestive heart failure and other dangerous side effects.
Last week, Forbes.com reported that Bayer has hired a lawyer to investigate how the company could have made such an egregious mistake. (Sidney Wolfe of Public Citizen said that Bayer’s failure to disclose the data was illegal.)
Bayer’s move is reminiscent of the one Merck made after Vioxx was withdrawn from the market. It hired Judge John S. Martin Jr. to investigate the circumstances leading up to the Vioxx withdrawal. Critics have called Martin’s report, which exonerates Merck’s senior management of wrongdoing, a “white wash.â€
