Comments on: Pills For Your Ills, But Not The Ones You Think

By: Ben Hansen

Ben Hansen — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 13:58:58 +0000

The New York Times has reported that Eli Lilly has duped at least 20 state Medicaid agencies into promoting costly and harmful psychiatric drugs like Zyprexa, Strattera and Cymbalta. (See “In Some States, Maker Oversees Use of Its Drug,” by Stephanie Saul, NY Times, March 23, 2007.)

I’m the Michigan mental health advocate who is quoted in the Times, describing Eli Lilly’s pharmacy program as “incestuous.”

As a member of the Michigan Department of Community Health Recipient Rights Advisory Committee, for over a year I’ve been researching Lilly’s pharmacy program in Michigan and 25 other states. Through a series of FOIA requests, I’ve uncovered a lot of solid evidence that wasn’t even mentioned in the Times.

I hope to hear from officials in states with similar programs funded by Eli Lilly and implemented by Comprehensive NeuroScience, Inc. Feel free to contact me directly or send me an anonymous tip if you wish. This is a big story, and it’s not going away.

In solidarity with the victims of pharmaceutical industry fraud,

Ben Hansen
Traverse City, Michigan

email: drbonkers@gmail.com

By: Mary Smith

Mary Smith — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 11:50:05 +0000

Eli Lilly has used every trick in the book to push their mega-hit drug, Zyprexa. But probably the real criminal acts include knowing (and there is now evidence) that the drug caused diabetes, hyperglycemia, and death BEFORE putting it on the market, denyin flat out that all the people who have died or gotten diabetes got it from Zyprexa, and continuing to rake in large profits.

All that matters to Lilly, which pretends to be philathropic and do well for people’s health, is the bottom line. They clearly do not care that people are dying from Zyprexa and other of their products. This is just the cost of doing business.

When is the justice system in this country going to kick in and send their in-the-know executives to prison? Have you ever heard of a Pharma executive going to prison for murder? Me neither.

By: Daniel Haszard

Daniel Haszard — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 08:46:08 +0000

Eli Lilly makes billions on diabetes treatment and also gets $4.2 billion a year in sales of their biggest cash cow Zyprexa which has been scandalized as *causing* diabetes as a major side effect.
Not fair!

Zyprexa off label promotion scandal is all over the news now.
Lilly drug reps are alleged to have called their marketing ploy,”Viva zyprexa”.

Eli Lilly zyprexa cost me over $250.00 a month supply out of my own pocket X 4 years and has up to ten times the risk (over non users) of causing diabetes and severe weight gain.

Zyprexa which is only FDA approved for schizophrenia (.5-1% of pop) and some bipolar (2% pop) and then an even smaller percentage of theses two groups.

So how does Zyprexa get to be the 7th largest drug sale in the world?
Eli Lilly is in deep trouble for using their drug reps to ‘encourage’ doctors to write zyprexa for non-FDA approved ‘off label’ uses.

The drug causes increased diabetes risk,and medicare picks up all the expensive fallout.There are now 7 states (and counting) going after Lilly for fraud and restitution.

–
Daniel Haszard

(In 2004, the American Diabetes Association found that Zyprexa was more likely to cause diabetes than many other antipsychotic drugs.)