News: Criminal Prosecution of Lilly Sought Over Zyprexa

Thu Jan 4 10:51:40 CST 2007

OpEdNews - January 4, 2007 at 04:08:24

Criminal Prosecution of Lilly Sought Over Zyprexa

by Evelyn Pringle

http://www.opednews.com/articles/ 
genera_evelyn_p_070104_criminal_prosecution.htm

California Attorney, Ted Chabasinski, is calling for the criminal  
prosecution of Eli Lilly executives for hiding the adverse effects of  
Zyprexa, based in part on articles last month in the New York Times  
which quote internal company documents that revealed that Lilly knew  
about the adverse effects for a decade but kept the information hidden.

Mr Chabasinski, appeared by teleconference in US District Court for  
the Eastern District of New York, on January 3, 2007, before Judge  
Jack Weinstein, on behalf of MindFreedom, a non-profit human rights  
organization, in response to a motion by Lilly basically filed to  
keep the incriminating information hidden, to defend the public's  
right to know the contents of the secret Lilly documents concerning  
Zyprexa.

Mr Chabasinski told the judge that the documents are evidence of  
Lilly executives' "criminal behavior" and "willingness to kill people  
for profit."

The court granted MindFreedom's request for more time to respond to  
Lilly's motion, and another hearing is set for January 16, 2007.  
Meanwhile Judge Weinstein said that he was taking "no position" about  
those people who were not named but who already have copies of the  
Lilly files on Zyprexa.

Prior to the hearing, in a letter to the judge, Mr Chabasinski  
pointed out that while the underlying case in which the documents  
were under seal is civil, the documents reveal criminal behavior on  
the part of Lilly's executives. "They have chosen a course of  
action," he told the judge, "lying about and hiding the real effects  
of Zyprexa, that they knew would lead to the injury and death of  
literally thousands of people."

"If this isn't criminal," he stated, "I don't know what is."

The company documents also show that Lilly engaged in a massive  
illegal off-label marking campaign to get primary care physicians to  
prescribe Zyprexa for uses never approved by the FDA to increase  
profits.

The whole saga began when Dr David Egilman, MD, MPH, revealed the  
documents to Alaskan attorney, Jim Gottstein. Dr Egilman reviewed the  
documents and learned of Lilly's illegal conduct a few years ago when  
he served as an expert in a lawsuit. However, the case was settled  
out of court, and Dr Egilman was effectively muzzled when the judge  
granted Lilly's request to keep the documents secret with a court order.

To settle the lawsuit, Lilly agreed to pay close to $700 million to  
roughly 8,000 Zyprexa victims or their family members, with the  
provision that each person would sign a confidentiality agreement not  
to discuss Zyprexa or the terms of the settlement agreement in return  
for the money.

Being Lilly obviously planned to keep the information about Zyprexa a  
secret, as a physician, Dr Egilman likely found himself between a  
rock and a hard place. If he did not find a way to warn the public,  
at best he would be guilty of negligence, and at worst considered  
complicit in Lilly's elaborate scheme to use the court system to keep  
the information hidden so as not to effect the booming sales of its  
top selling drug bringing in over $4 billion a year.

Mr Gottstein obtained the documents for use in another lawsuit, and  
after seeing that Lilly knew 10 years ago that Zyprexa caused drastic  
weight gain and diabetes and realizing the extent of the off-label  
marketing of the drug, he turned the documents over to the New York  
Times, obviously in hope that the Times would warn the public and  
medical professionals who were prescribing Zyprexa for every ailment  
known to mankind, without knowledge of the serious health risks  
associated with the drug.

Since the New York Times' articles were published, Lilly's legal team  
has been working day and night right through the holiday season  
trying to use the court system to muzzle the messengers and get the  
incriminating information back under seal.

In reviewing all the legal paperwork including letters, injunctions,  
and motions flying around on the internet, its worth noting that not  
once do Lilly attorneys, or the judges handling the case, refer to  
the underlying illegal conduct disclosed in the documents that Lilly  
is working so hard to keep hidden.

The drug maker has been able to obtain injunctions ordering Mr  
Gottstein to return the documents and requiring him to provide the  
names of all persons and organizations that he provided them to or  
discussed them with. The injunctions bar further disclosure and  
specifically name individuals and organizations who are believed to  
have copies of the documents.

Mr Chabasinski is representing author, Judi Chamberlin, and  
MindFreedom International, who are both named in a December 29, 2006,  
temporary injunction. "As everyone is aware at this point," Mr  
Chabasinski says, "there are thousands of copies of the documents in  
question circulating on the Internet and in the hands of innumerable  
people."

He says Lilly knows full well that any attempt to recover the  
documents is a "futile gesture" and there is no way to keep them  
secret. "While the injunction purports to be an attempt to recover  
the documents," Mr Chabasinski wrote in the letter to the judge, "it  
is clear that its real purpose is to intimidate Lilly's critics, and  
the court should refuse to cooperate with this."

As for Lilly's payment of $700 million to settle the lawsuit, Mr  
Chabasinski told the judge, "when a company is making billions of  
dollars from some drug, a few hundred million
dollars is simply a cost of doing business."

"But if drug company executives know they may face long prison terms  
for their willingness to kill people for profit," he states, "they  
will think more than twice about what they do."

"If executives can go to prison for stealing their companies' money,"  
he told the judge, "surely those who steal people's lives deserve at  
least the same fate."

Mr Chabaskinski says Lilly's biggest worry is that the documents will  
be reviewed by some prosecutor and that the real purpose of the  
injunction is to frighten people into giving up their First Amendment  
right to petition the government for redress of grievances, "which in  
this situation," he says, "means putting these documents into the  
hands of as many potential prosecutors as possible."

He points out that Lilly has created a massive public health problem  
by convincing doctors to prescribe Zyprexa to many thousands of  
people, whose drug-caused disabilities will now drain the public  
health system for years to come. "It is not in the public interest,"  
he told the court in the letter, "to keep documents secret when it  
will have the effect of making it much more difficult to prevent the  
disability of thousands of people."

The pursuit of Mr Gottstein by Lilly attorneys could almost be  
likened to being chased around the country by a group of terrorists.  
Lilly wants the court to charge him with criminal contempt complete  
with sanctions.

Their conduct is clearly an abuse of the legal system, funded by the  
ill-gotten profits of Zyprexa, to run up costs for Mr Gottstein, by  
harassing him and anyone that he may associate with. At the court  
hearing on January 3, 2007, Lilly attorneys asked the judge to issue  
an order requiring Mr Gottstein to travel to New York City for a  
deposition within 5 days, and:

"Requiring Mr Gottstein to immediately produce ... copies of any and  
all documents and information including, but not limited to, all  
computer(s), hard-drives, other electronic storage media, hardcopy  
documents, emails, e-documents, text messaging, instant messaging,  
phone records and voice mails, that refer or relate to Zyprexa".

And talk about chilling the freedoms of the First Amendment, Lilly  
wants the court to force Mr Gottstein to produce: "Communications he  
had with anyone relating to these documents, including but not  
limited to, his dissemination of or discussions relating to the  
documents".

Lilly also asked for the order to include individual reporters and  
the top experts on psychiatric drugs in the US, in demanding that Mr  
Gottstein's disclose his communications with "any person,  
organization or entity who received these documents including, but  
not limited to, Terrie Gottstein, Jerry Winchester, Alex Berenson,  
Dr. Peter Breggin, Dr. Grace Jackson, Dr. David Cohen and Bruce  
Whittington, Dr. Stefan Kruszewski, Laura Ziegler, Judy chamberlin,  
Vera Sherav, robert Whitaker, Steve Shaw, Will Hall, Singeha Prakash,  
or anyone associated with the Alliance for Human Research Protection  
or MindFreedom; and his efforts to retrieve these documents from the  
individuals to whom they were improperly disseminated."

Lilly is also requesting that if anything responsive to their request  
has been deleted or destroyed in computers, that Mr Gottstein be  
required to haul "any and all relevant computers" to New York City  
for the deposition, and permit "forensic examination and recovery of  
such documents."

In addition to the big bucks being made by thinking up ways to harass  
Mr Gottstein, Lilly attorneys at the Pepper Hamilton Law Firm are  
making money hand over fist by scouring the internet looking for more  
people to harass. On December 30, 2006, they were apparently working  
overtime on the Saturday of the biggest holiday weekend of the year,  
when they began threatening a private citizen, Eric Whalen, in emails  
ordering him to remove the Lilly documents from his web site stating:

"You are facilitating the violation of a Federal Court order. Please  
immediately remove the link to the file "ZyprexaKills.tar.gz" (or its  
mirror), including all cached materials, or we will take further  
legal action against your website."

In another email, they told Mr Whalen, "You have been on notice now  
for several hours that you are operating in violation of a Federal  
Court Order, and you have thus far, refused to assure your compliance."

"You must take the link down immediately," they wrote, "or we will  
take further legal action to shut down your website, and seek all  
available remedies."

In his own defense, Mr Whalen replied to the emails and stated: "The  
documents linked to on my website were downloaded from an anonymous  
source. As far as I know I'm not under any court order. Dissemination  
of the contents of the documents is clearly in the public interest.  
Is there a legal basis for you[r] request?"

To avoid having my name added to the dastardly list above and the  
risk of being subjected to the harassment tactics of Lilly attorneys,  
I hereby declare for the record, that I did not receive copies of the  
Lilly documents from Mr Gottstein.

Evelyn Pringle
evelyn-pringle at sbcglobal.net

Evelyn Pringle is a columnist for OpEd News and investigative  
journalist focused on exposing corruption in government and corporate  
America.

- end of article -

~~~~~~~~~~~

MindFreedom Call for ACTION:

1. Outwit Eli Lilly censorship! Please redistribute this news story  
to all appropriate places on and off the Internet.

2. File a complaint with your State Attorney General, here's a list  
of contact information that includes newly elected AG's:

http://naag.org/attorneys_general.php

3. For updates on this story monitor:
http://www.mindfreedom.org
http://psychrights.org

~~~~~~~~~~~

Do you want to...

* Win human rights campaigns in mental health?

* End abuse by the psychiatric drug industry?

* Support self-determination of psychiatric survivors?

* Promote safe, humane, effective options in mental health?

You are not alone! MindFreedom is a nonprofit human rights group that  
unites 100 sponsor and affiliate groups with individual members, and  
is accredited by the United Nations as a Non-Governmental  
Organization (NGO) with Consultative Roster Status.

MindFreedom is one of the very few totally independent groups in the  
mental health field with no funding from governments, drug companies,  
religions, corporations, or the mental health system. While most of  
MindFreedom's members are psychiatric survivors, *all* who support  
human rights are invited to join and become active leaders.

http://www.mindfreedom.org

MindFreedom International Office: 454 Willamette, Suite 216 - POB  
11284; Eugene, OR 97440-3484 USA

web site: http://www.mindfreedom.org
e-mail: office(at)mindfreedom(dot)org
office phone: (541) 345-9106
membership line toll free: 1-877-MAD-PRIDe or 1-877-623-7743
fax: (541) 345-3737

Please forward.

"Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted." -  
Martin Luther King, Jr.

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