The Zyprexa Chronicles: The Media's Job Is To Be "Reprehensible"

My my. There continues to be much commentary about the federal court ruling in the Zyprexa documents case and New York Times reporter Alex Berenson's role in the mash-up. Who woulda thought that this end of the story would have these kinds of legs?

Peter Rost offers some thoughts so well-wrought that I wish I'd penned them:

"According to the ruling, Mr. Berenson obtained the documents after he discussed ways to circumvent a protective order related to the documents. Mr. Berenson put one guy who had the documents in touch with a lawyer who simply issued a subpoena for the documents. Then the lawyer turned them over to Berenson. And this way they circumvented the protective order which applied only to the parties in the case.

Shocking? Of course Lilly is crying all the way to court.

Reality, in my humble opinion, is that this kind of trickery is exactly what any major legal defense firm practices on a daily basis. But the fact that a journalist makes an end-run around a court order, without apparently violating said order, shouldn't be very shocking.

Truth is that our legal system has long ago been subverted by very rich and very corrupt lawyers and our legal system simply can't keep up with their chickanery. That is the big problem, not the fact that a media company employs the same methods."

Then comes Center for Medicine in the Public Interest's co-founder Robert Goldberg, writing on the group's Drug Wonks blog in a post entitled "Media Schizophrenia Over Zyprexagate":

"Also note that 'co-conspirators' like MindFreedom and other web-based ax-grinders now claim that being in possession and posting of stolen documents is okay. And of course none of this is related to lawsuits contemplated by state AGs in Illinois, Vermont and elsewhere to sue Lilly regarding Zyprexa. (Nothing like going to the well again.)...

"This whole jihad is being driven by crackpots, money hungry state AGs and aided by a newspaper that is willing to sacrifice both national security and the truth to play to its shrinking readership."

If this were actually wonkish I might be interested in it, even though I disagree with the premise. The public gets informed about a problematic drug and Lilly's alleged behavior. Frankly, I could care less about how Berenson got the documents. He's a smart reporter who found a way--mixed metaphor ahead--to tie a bad court seal in knots. But the way some people are reacting, it's as if he took a Glock and stuck it at someone's head to get the documents. Please. There is no crime here.

As for Goldberg's other rhetorical gibes: Better an axe-grinder than an ass-grindee. Seriously, this putz's group makes much hay about being free-marketers and that there is too much regulation of pharma companies, but then pisses and moans when that other sine qua non of free markets--that would be "perfect" information so that markets can, like, clear at equilibrium, as we learned in Macroeconomics 101--shows up to the Big Pharma party.

And I suppose Goldberg will next attack David Graham, an FDA official, for testifying before Congress the other day about how the agency knew about Zyprexa's issues, but did little until its black box warning of 2004. But since Graham appeared as a private citizen instead of agency official, as the FDA's press office told me, the agency denied my request to interview Graham. (Insert Kafka reference here.)

Thanks to Rost, CL Psych, and PharmaGossip for linking to my thoughts on the court's ruling.