Tag Archives: Drew Pinsky

Natural News: GlaxoSmithKline Bribery Admissions

(NaturalNews) Radio personality Dr. Drew Pinsky once touted GlaxoSmithKline PLC’s antidepressant Wellbutrin as one of a few such medications he prescribed to patients suffering from depression because it “may enhance or at least not suppress sexual arousal” as much as other antidepressants.

What he didn’t tell listeners during that 1999 endorsement; however, was that two months earlier Dr. Pinsky – who rose to fame as “Dr. Drew,” co-hosting a popular radio sex-advice show, “Loveline” – received the second of two payments from GSK for a total of $275,000 for “services for Wellbutrin,” The Wall Street Journal reported.

The paper said the payments were made to Pinsky via a communications firm that worked for GSK, according to revelations in an attachment to a complaint filed by the U.S. government in October 2011 in a Massachusetts federal court. The documents were disclosed in early July after the Justice Department announced a $3 billion criminal and civil settlement with GSK over illegal medication marketing, among other things.

Feds Say Dr. Drew Was Paid By Glaxo To Talk Up Antidepressant

Part of the case made by U.S. prosecutors that led to GlaxoSmithKline‘s $3 billion settlement today is that the company used a network of paid experts, speaking to doctors and to the press, to promote uses of its drugs that had not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. According to the Department of Justice’s complaint, one of those paid experts was celebrity physician Dr. Drew Pinsky, then the host of the radio show Loveline, which was also being broadcast on MTV. Pinsky has gone on to host Celebrity Rehab, Dr. Drew on HLN, and Dr. Drew’s Lifechangers on the CW.