EFF in Ely Lilly Zyprexa case
p2pnet.net News:- Mega pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly wants a site which heavily criticizes its best-selling prescription drug Zyprexa taken offline.
Internal memos, “indicate that Eli Lilly knew that the drug raised the risk of diabetes in patients and didn’t act appropriately,” says the Zyprexa blog, going on:
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.
Zyprexa is used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and yesterday, the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) asked a judge to, “remove the legal muzzle on citizen journalists caught up in a court battle over documents relating to the controversial prescription drug Zyprexa,” says the foundation.
An injunction against publication of the documents online goes against free speech and is also a violation of First Amendment rights, the EFF argues.
The papers quoted on the blog were leaked from an ongoing product liability lawsuit against Eli Lilly over Zyprexa and were the basis for a front-page story in the New York Times in December of 2006, says the EFF, going on:
“Eli Lilly has since obtained an injunction that forbids 11 individuals and five websites from posting or linking to the documents. In a brief filed with the court Wednesday, EFF explains that this is the digital equivalent of a ’stop the presses’ order on individuals who were not involved in the leak. The documents remain readily available on the Internet from a variety of sources.”
The internal 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, adding:
“Eli Lilly has paid more than $1.2 billion to resolve lawsuits involving Zyprexa.”
Also See:
EFF – EFF Fights to Unmuzzle Citizen Journalists, February 8, 2007
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February 11th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
Mr. Haszard, your site on the web is the only place where litigants have had to turn. The main topic for several months has been when are the litigants going to be paid. For the majority in the first group of 8000, not a dime has crossed their doorstep, but you have truly done a public service for people who otherwise feel very isolated, anxious, or worried. For many, their attorneys have made themselves inaccessible, because they don’t have any answers. I think this is dispicable, given that they will receive over a third of any awards given.
I don’t care about the award, seeing it as an insult to my dead son. What I want more than anything else is to see Lilly executives go to jail for murder. I just hope attorneys general across the U.S. will see it this way as well. Our own attorneys had the nerve to agree to keep this horrible secret, thus permitting others to die and get diabetes. I guess they did this so that they could keep taking more cases and making more money.
The only people who seem to be clean in this whole sordid affair are grieving families, and those alive suffering from diabetes. What a cruel blow it has been, and will always be.