No, really? I don't know whether to be surprised or disappointed...

From the BBC:

UK drug company GlaxoSmithKline is facing a criminal investigation in Poland for allegedly bribing doctors, BBC Panorama has discovered. Eleven doctors and a GSK regional manager have been charged over alleged corruption between 2010 and 2012...

A former sales rep for GSK in the Polish region of Lodz, Jarek Wisniewski, said:

"There is a simple equation... We pay doctors, they give us prescriptions. We don't pay doctors, we don't see prescriptions for our drugs.

"We cannot go to doctors and say to them, 'I need 20 more prescriptions'. So we prepare an agreement for them to give a talk to patients, we pay £100, but we expect more than 100 prescriptions for this drug..."

One doctor has already admitted guilt, been fined and given a suspended sentence. He said he accepted £100 for a single lecture he never gave, but only under pressure from a GSK drugs rep.

He told Panorama: "They kept tempting, and I am just a man."

See also Newsthump.

See also Poland was the only EU country that refused to order [Tamiflu] when the pandemic was announced last autumn.