For pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, death and injury are just a cost of doing business. When Zyprexa, Lilly’s drug to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, hit the marketplace in 1996, it was hailed as an “atypical” – a “safe, gentle psychotropic,” more effective than older drugs like Thorazine and Trilafon, without the dangerous side effects. Sales skyrocketed. The hype soon gave way to reality, as Lilly faced waves of lawsuits by patients suffering from diabetes, massive weight gain, pancreatitis and cardiac problems. Lilly responded with the cozy arrangement that worked with Prozac, another blockbuster plagued with problems: quietly settle suits out of court, with proceedings sealed and secret under a gag order. Anything embarrassing – or illegal – that Lilly is doing behind closed doors would remain hidden from public view.

Even though the payout is enormous – more than a billion dollars in settlements to tens of thousands of plaintiffs – Lilly can afford it: atypicals sell for ten times more than older drugs, and Lilly’s marketing machine made Zyprexa its biggest profit maker, with more than 20 million customers worldwide and sales topping $4 billion annually. So Lilly writes a check, buys the silence of the people harmed by its products, and then turns around and passes the cost along to the consumer at inflated drugstore prices. All perfectly legal.

What Lilly didn’t count on was a whistleblower, a lawyer and hackers taking matters into their own hands. Just as Lilly’s legal muscle was lax during Christmas holidays, one of the expert witnesses in the Zyprexa litigation contacted human rights attorney Jim Gottstein, who used a combination of clever subpoena wizardry and fast action to get hundreds of secret documents out from under the court seal. Gottstein turned the memos over to The New York Times before Lilly could plug the leak. The memos, emails and correspondence reveal how Lilly’s marketing strategy bent and broke the law, hid unfavorable risk studies and pushed Zyprexa for unapproved use on the elderly and children. The Times ran repeated front page stories, and Lilly’s stock took a nose dive.

Claiming “trade secrets” and proprietary “merchandising techniques,” Lilly lawyers swooped down on Gottstein, seizing emails and voice mail records. They convinced the court to order an injunction forbidding further distribution of the files, but Gottstein had already sent out disks loaded with scanned copies to a dozen activists and journalists around the country. Lilly tracked the disks down, trying to halt the escalating crisis.

And this is where the hackers come in. Someone – still not identified by Lilly – got a copy, but any distribution traced back to them could lead to contempt of court and serious legal consequences. So they turned to software called Tor, set up by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Tor is an anonymous server privacy tool EFF created to help dissidents in totalitarian regimes like China slip past state censors. It was perfect to help the whistle-blowers evade Lilly’s surveillance. The file – zyprexakills.tar.gz – found its way into cyberspace, and the court finally ruled that Lilly couldn’t block websites from hosting the file once it was freely available online. The leak finally went public.

 

The Zyprexa documents are a disturbing glimpse into the marketing mind of one of the biggest companies in the world, a firm with close ties to the Bush Administration (Lilly CEO Sidney Taurel sits on the Homeland Security Council). When a study showed three times the risk of diabetes over other drugs, Lilly simply hid it from the Food and Drug Administration’s scrutiny. Lilly aimed sales to dementia patients – without approval – in a campaign called “Viva Zyprexa.” They instructed product representatives to downplay drug risks, and targeted children, who Zyprexa has never been tested on. Emails discussed the strategy of indemnifying doctors who prescribe Zyprexa against any legal action: “Our experience with Prozac,” the memo said, “confirms the impact and goodwill of such an initiative.” The memos reveal callous indifference to the diabetes risk Zyprexa causes, perhaps because Lilly’s other top selling drugs include – you guessed it – diabetes medications.

Lilly now faces a snowballing scandal. The Times compared Zyprexa to Vioxx, Merck’s painkiller withdrawn from the market after leaked documents showed the company hid heart attack risks. FDA scientist Dr. David Graham, who blew the whistle on Vioxx, testified to Congress that atypicals like Zyprexa kill some 62,000 people a year in unapproved uses. A study in the Archives of General Psychiatry concluded atypicals were no more effective than older, cheaper drugs, and five state governments, with enormous budgets for atypicals, initiated investigations. And last month, four-year-old Rebecca Riley died from drugs prescribed by a psychiatrist, including an atypical, raising concerns about the approximately 30,000 children under five who take these drugs, despite no study on drug safety for children.

Lilly objected to its secret memos going public because they might “cause unwarranted fear among patients that will cause them to stop taking their medication.” Yet this gets to the heart of Lilly’s corruption. Beyond hiding drug risks and marketing illegally, Big Pharma doesn’t trust its customers to make informed decisions about their health care. Growing numbers of people are turning off the TV pill ads and exploring other ways to deal with their suffering. A New York Times article last year broke the story of the many people with a schizophrenia diagnosis who do well with non-medication treatments. Maybe the solution isn’t to be found in a pill after all?

Now that would bring down Big Pharma faster than any scandal.

_Will Hall is co-founder of the Freedom Center, and is a member of the Icarus Project.

COMMENTS:

The whole runaway proliferation of psychopharmocological drugs reminds one of a chicken/egg condundrum: One often wonders which came first – the illnesses or the shinyhappy pills used to treat them. Big pharma is big business and like many big businesses they don't just manufacture products, they manufacture needs.
Keith West Chester

A doctor once put it very well; we should be beating the disease, not letting the medication beat the patient first. Amongst all the medications I've tried, I truly believe that once you're on nothing, you have a chance to most accurately identify yourself with your soul, and not the emotions of the medication that seem to potray to the world the person, whom you ARE NOT. Amen to natural medications, and surgery. Where is care? Perscription companies are not in business to care about other people, it's a business. Why else be in a business, but to make money? The medication can be helpful, but prescription companies are constantly badgering us with infomercials and ads; indicating that we will never be whole again...not without their new miracle pill. My meds that I can remember: vioxx, remicade, diclofenac, methotrexate, prednisone, embrel, humaria, cortizone injections, folic acid, ibuprofen, after the numberous med changes, my memory just hasn't worked the same since, and has put my physical body through such a roller coaster ride. I have lost good relationships with friends, family, and have had my judgment impaired. As from recent surgery I have been on no medication. First time in five years.
Court

FABULOUS article! Thank you!
Terrie

More proof of how Big Pharma is getting away with more and more, just by saying We make lives better or We save lives, which in turn is true, but not for everyone. Meanwhile the government rewards them for the so-called 'breakthroughs' in medicine with fat subsidies and cover ups.
I.A.P

fantastic insights, incisive articles and comments are all good and well, but does anybody have solutions?
Alex Smith

I've been catching news updates while living in France. Here we have cheap prescriptions and little finger pointing. There's a reason why my WW2 vet grandfather and pharmacist of 40 years doesn't take prescription drugs in America. 1. Overpriced. 2. They don't work. 3. The all-encompassing side effects. Can anyone say, more drugs please?
Jonathan

It's interesting, the amount of blind faith we have in our form of health care. No one questions the doctor or how the health care system is really set up and If you did some personal research on this subject you would soon find out how deep the rabbit hole really goes.
Lela Moore

Loved the article. In fact, I only recently discovered your magazine. I think what it does, such as in this article and others, is an excellent way to really be 'educated.' I love Consumer Reports for much the same reason...thanks Adbusters for taking it beyond the consumer goods!
Ian B (Toronto, Canada)

Big Pharma are definately not for the average person, they prey on you having a major life crisis and medicating you until you are so dependent on their drugs you don't know whether you feel good or not. I have found something that might help the average Joe live a happy and healthy life without the Big Pharma and their high costs for getting healthy.
Sherri Brown

It's all crazy. I for one, don't even take tylenol, let alone a prescription drug. most of the states walk around in a mindless daze, hopped up on pills prescribed by their drug pusher in a lab coat. why can't we trust a doctor? don't they take an oath? all these people on drugs and it's wrong to smoke a joint.
wes

Excellent article! After years of Prozac and finally, without my doctors knowledge, ditching the damn drug, I know that these things are dangerous and keep you in a cycle of dependence. What do the drug companies care? Nothing at all, we are just £s and $s to them. Let's prize open all their closed files and trade secrets and reveal the whole truth to the world. Let the pharma companies come clean at last.
Lydia (England)

I think this article is SO amazing. i think it is the coolest thing i have ever read in my entire life. i love it sooo much.
TG

Like anything else, it seems being an american anymore means bend over and get shafted. The almighty $, where did caring go?
Juanita

I work with mentally ill adults..one of which is on Zyprexa. He is overweight and headed for adulthood diabetes if he keeps taking it. I think I just may slip this article under his bedroom door. Thank you!
Mike

Thanks for this article. We need information like this.
Anon

Zyprexa clearly has some therapeutic efficacy, otherwise nobody would be taking it. Perhaps being an overweight diabetic is only a minor price to pay in light of living with psychosis.
Kevin

that wistleblower gives me hope in humanity and makes me overwhelmingly happy. good day :
jessie

Many people on psych meds such as Zyprexa are not even aware that there are alternatives. Our faith in mainstream medicine is often such that we don't seek out other options, and they certainly aren't presented to us. Bodywork, nutritional therapy, exercise and other holistic treatments should be as readily available to people as a pill. There is no need to be overweight and diabetic as a consequence of not being psychotic. It should not be one or the other. Furthermore, these drug companies absolutely must be held accountable for distributing misinformation, withholding information and generally acting against the public welfare.
EB

These are the same people who had the bright idea to put mercury in the vaccines. Be very afraid.
Skirnir

pharma's paid $900 million last year on lobbying efforts in Washington to acquire a profit of $28 billion...
edsrabbi

I saw many person feeling like this. So I think the madicine is not always good. Some people know like this. The medicine is always good. But I don't think that.
Jaydis

The pharmaceutical industry is profit-driven. Do you really think they want to cure you? Side effects are another way to market more of their products to you. Think twice before you buy in...it just might make you sicker than you think.
Rich

The CEO of Eli Lilly holds an office in the Department of Homeland Security? When the lobbyists start becoming the law and consensus makers, which is also happening in the United States automobile industry and lack of progress concerning gas milage and green cars, i.e. Condoleeza Rice, something is seriously wrong. This article isn't suprising, I'm not cynical but the majority of people see the constant ads by the pharm giants on the nightly news made with the latest marketing effects and they believe it's good, despite the part legally being read about the side effects of nausea, diarreah, and so on which is always preferrable to a heart attack. I will never use pharm pills, I'm a firm believer in whole foods and alternative forms of healing that let the body heal itself from all the junk most of society views as normal. The pills formed by synthesizing plants found in nature in a lab is a joke. Sure using some natural herbs and plants can have side effects but nothing compared to the pills, it's very gentle on the body and it's cheap, hence why the pharm companies want to synthesize marijuana into a pill and federally keep marijuanna illegal. They do this so that those on medical marijuana will be forced into the HMOs and have to pay exorbitant prices for the doctor visits and prescriptions, instead of having access to a plant that is grown extreemly cheaply.
Gideon

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