Seroquel Trial: More Emails From MacFadden, AZ's Sex-for-Studies Exec, Emerge

Yesterday’s release of more AstraZeneca documents in the federal Seroquel litigation provided yet another batch of letters from Wayne MacFadden, psychiatry’s greatest lover. BNET readers will remember that plaintiffs are alleging that MacFadden, AZ’s director of clinical research on Seroquel, used sex to get the results he wanted in some of the studies he was supervising. (The trials themselves are about whether AZ adequately warned patients that the drug might give them diabetes.)

In this week’s set of emails, we get a closer look at Sexoquel MacFadden’s writing style. The messages are by turns heartfelt, intimate and slightly kinky — the kind of stuff we all write in the first blooms of love. (Except in this case MacFadden was cheating on his wife, and using company email to do it. D’oh!)

Later, we find a darker period in MacFadden’s life, where his own messages give the impression that he has a drinking problem.

The lawyers releasing the letters seem to have had a sudden attack of prudity, redacting the steamier bits. While some redactions are merely the removal of innocent names, you can tell by others that they’re censoring MacFadden and his lovers in flagrante delicto. The result is to render parts of the emails unintentionally hilarious, such as, “I am desperately longing to see you face to face and look into your beautiful eyes, and whisper REDACTED nothings in your ear.”

See for yourself (Philip Dawdy has a complete collection of the originals here). A digest of the highlights follows:

March 29, 2002, from MacFadden:

Hello again, My Venus Princess,

I was wondering what you were doing at this time…must by 8P or so …. perhaps giving yourself a bubble bath with candlelite, REDACTED? (Am I even close??)

OK since I am officially on the meter (i.e. working) today, a few words re: drug abuse …

Jan 2, 2003, from MacFadden:

Dear REDACTED,

Please see the attached file. Feel free to suggest or make changes. I shall be very displeased if I do not hear back from you promptly, as your presence is requested at this “meeting.”

Moreover, I would hate to have to restrict you to your living quarters REDACTED on those dates, but if my affection for you is questioned again, I may have no choice …

Dec. 5, 2003, from MacFadden:

REDACTED your beautiful eyes, REDACTED … this gap between visits seems enormous…but our first embrace, our first kiss, REDACTED …

Tuesday Dec. 23, 2003, from MacFadden:

I am desperately longing to see you face to face and look into your beautiful eyes, and whisper REDACTED nothings in your ear, REDACTED … I’m going to leave in a few minutes, but just wanted to get this started - feel a bit funny doing it on the network (though I think it’s pretty safe) so in future will probably write on my laptop …

Dec. 22, 2005, MacFadden refers his lover to Dr. REDACTED, who studies bipolar depression.

The lover responds: The bitch finally got back to me!

MacFadden: Maybe she wants to REDACTED.

Jan. 13, 2006, from REDACTED to MacFadden:

Just a quickie as I’m writing frantically at my desk trying to finish my quetiapine paper; hope your day is going well. Was wondering if you have access to a paper (you won’t like it much because it says that quetiapine isn’t as effective as olanzapine or risperidone!!!)…In fact I will probably need to be punished for even looking at it.”

MacFadden’s Reply:

Hi, doll, logged off early to hang with the kids … hope this is not getting to you too late!!! And yes, you will be punished (in the usual fashion!) when I see you … but perhaps more harshly this time!!!

June 27, 2006, from MacFadden:

well there are the obvious foot-rubs, or REDACTED which are always good options …

The emails make frequent references to alcohol and needing a drink. Then, in January 2006, MacFadden admits he had a “near car accident driving home” and “I woke up intoxicated  … not good!”

In an undated message, MacFadden described sneaking away from his kids at a baseball game in order to drink:

I had to sneak in the alcohol, as everyone is hypervigilant about booze since A’s sister’s death … so a few times, I left the kids in their seats, went off to the loo, & on the way back got a beer (no liquor there, unfortunately), and guzzled it before returning to my seat …after 3 such trips, I began to enjoy the evening much more!

MacFadden — who was later “offered the opportunity to resign” after AZ discovered the affairs — also leaves his colleagues with a mystery. He had nicknames for his colleagues, including a supervisor he called “the shrimp” and another exec he named “the creampuff.” BNET would love to hear your guesses via email (jim edwards 123 at hot mail dot com) as to who those two execs were.

• Previously:
• AZ Seroquel Emails Detail Off-Label Promotion; What Did CEO Brennan Know?
• AstraZeneca Q1: Seroquel Sales Up; Faces 10,000 Lawsuits; Company Thinks It Will Beat the Rap
• AstraZeneca’s “Smoke and Mirrors” Man Has New Job in Medical Writing
• AZ Seroquel Trial: Was It “Ghostwriting” or “Professional” Writing?
• AstraZeneca’s Seroquel Research Director Confessed to Sex-for-Studies Affairs
• E-Mail: AstraZeneca Knew in 1997 that Seroquel Caused Weight Gain
• Exec Warned AZ on Negative Seroquel Results: “We Cannot Hide Them”; Info Later “Buried”
  
• AstraZeneca’s Sex-for-Studies Seroquel Scandal: Did Research Chief Bias the Science?
• Seroquel Trial: Allegations of Sex-for-Secrets; AZ Wants Papers Sealed
• FDA Asks AZ to Tighten Seroquel Label; 9,000 Lawsuits Start Trials Next Week
  
• The History of AstraZeneca’s Mismarketing of Seroquel
  
• FDA: J&J’s Risperdal and Lilly’s Zyprexa Are Over-Used in Kids
  
• AstraZeneca Allegedly Recruits Tigger and Eeyore to Sell Seroquel