Eli Lilly and the Dangers of a Drug

Cyrus Dugger

A letter to the editor from the Executive Director of the Center for Justice & Democracy. The letter is in response to this NY Times article:

Eli Lilly Said to Play Down Risk of Top Pill By ALEX BERENSON
The drug maker Eli Lilly has engaged in a decade-long effort to play down the health risks of Zyprexa, its best-selling medication for schizophrenia, according to hundreds of internal Lilly documents and e-mail messages among top company managers.

The documents, given to The Times by a lawyer representing mentally ill patients, show that Lilly executives kept important information from doctors about Zyprexa’s links to obesity and its tendency to raise blood sugar — both known risk factors for diabetes. (link)

To the Editor:
“Eli Lilly Said to Play Down Risk of Top Pill” (front page, Dec. 17), about the company’s decision to cover up health effects of its top-selling schizophrenia medication, Zyprexa, is a good example of the strong link between product safety and product liability.

Lawsuits are often the only means for the public to learn about dangerous drugs. This is especially true today, as the Food and Drug Administration has proved unable to keep some unsafe drugs off the market.

The article also illustrates the problems caused when companies settle cases and force the injured to sign confidentiality agreements, as was apparently done in this case. In such cases, wrongdoers can prolong misconduct and suppress information for years.

If lawsuits had not been brought in this case and a lawyer who was not bound by a confidentiality agreement had not come forward, the dangers of this drug would never be known to the wider public.

Joanne Doroshow
Executive Director
Center for Justice and Democracy
New York, Dec. 17, 2006 (link)

To read additional letters on the same topic, click here.

Posted at 1:00 PM, Dec 20, 2006 in Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Comments

Obesity and high rates of diabetes were described in psychiatric patients in the 1920's before these medicines. There is an epidemic of these conditions worldwide in people not on any medicine. People with diabetes have high rates of psychiatric disease. The same artery clogging conditions that damage their internal organs, damage their brains. Those prone to diabetes are more likely to require treatment.

Any claim of causation must prove the risk of olanzapine (Zyprexa) exceeds that of having diabetes from mental illness, the world epidemic of diabetes, and the false attribution of diabetes to the medicine, rather than the necessity of the medicine for mental illness from diabetes.

In this study, olanzapine proved to be the drug with the longest acceptance by patients. If treatment requires compliance with medication, attacks on this drug in court may deter doctors from using this patient accepted drug.

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/healthinformation/catie_qa.cfm

At a glance,zyprexa was promoted 'off label' to uses that weren't FDA approved.This opens up a can of worms for patients like myself took it for PTSD for which it was ineffective and moreover gave me diabetes.

True,leaked documents don't convey the 'whole picture' but what is compelling is that zyprexa is the 7th some say 5th largest drug sell in the world and Eli Lilly's #1 drug sale by their own admission.
This is for a drug that won't get you "high" cost $2.50 a pill and only indicated for less than 1% of the population.
Hello! Somebody in Lilly land is pushing zyprexa hard-Daniel Haszard