EFF in Zyprexa battle
p2pnet.net News:- Zyprexa is an ‘atypical’ neuroleptic, or ‘anti-psychotic’, drug approved to treat schizophrenia and acute mania, says a post on the Zyprexa blog.
It goes on:
At about $2.50/pill, it is a big money maker for Eli Lilly, somewhere on the order of $4 Billion a year. By themselves these facts are not controversial.
However, it seems that some internal memos indicate that Eli Lilly knew that the drug raised the risk of diabetes in patients and didn’t act appropriately. They may have even misreported clinical trial data about blood-sugar risks to doctors. There is currently a class action lawsuit underway to hold Lilly accountable. These memos indicate that Lilly initiated an internal marketing campaign to willfully downplay these deleterious effects.
There may be other risks that the company knew about but was hiding.
Incidentally, Lilly’s second most profitable drugs treat diabetes.
Predictably, Eli Lilly wants the site taken offline and yesterday, federal district judge Jack B. Weinstein, “refused to change his order blocking publication of material that would ‘facilitate dissemination’ of the Lilly documents,” says the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation), which is defending the person who posted the material.
“Eli Lilly complained, and Judge Weinstein issued his order on January 4.,” says the EFF. It challenged the order, “as an unconstitutional prior restraint on free speech in violation of the First Amendment,” and to, “ensure that the right of nonparties in the litigation to link to publicly important information remains protected”.
The New York Times says the Eli Lilly documents show the company intentionally downplayed the drug’s side effects, including weight gain, high blood sugar, and diabetes, and marketed the drug for ‘off-label’ uses not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), says the EFF.
“The documents were leaked from the ongoing Zyprexa products liability lawsuit, where Weinstein is the presiding judge,” it points out, going on:
“Copies of the leaked Eli Lilly documents have appeared on a variety of websites and other Internet sources. The links to the documents that were posted on the wiki at http://zyprexa.pbwiki.com were part of extensive, in-depth analysis from a number of citizen journalists.”
Last week, Eli Lilly agreed to pay up to $500 million to settle claims relating to Zyprexa, says the story, adding:
“This latest settlement brings the total paid by Eli Lilly to resolve lawsuits involving Zyprexa to more than $1.2 billion.”
Also See:
EFF – EFF Defends Right to Link from Internet Wiki, January 8, 2006
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