The Zyprexa Chronicles: Egilman Disputes Lilly's Answers That Matter

On Sept. 7, David Egilman, a Brown University professor and expert witness in one of the Zyprexa class action lawsuits, and Eli Lilly settled outstanding claims related to Egilman's leaking of court-sealed documents in the case last year. The settlement includes a $100,000 payment from Egilman to Lilly which Lilly is donating to charity.

Following the settlement, Lilly issued a press release. In it, the company characterized what Egilman agreed to in the settlement as:

"[V]iolating a protective order in the Zyprexa litigation and illegally passing confidential Lilly documents to an Alaska attorney in a failed attempt to evade the protective order."

And:

"'Dr. Egilman has now confirmed in writing what Lilly has been saying since the Times published these documents: he was selective in which documents he released and they unfairly portrayed Lilly's activities in its interactions with doctors, patients and the Food and Drug Administration,' said Michael J. Harrington, deputy general counsel, Eli Lilly and Company. 'We hope that putting this issue behind us will help to ensure vulnerable patients will not be deterred from treatment based on misleading and inaccurate information. Our intent all along has been simply to have a fair legal process,' he added."

Over the weekend, Egilman left a comment on Pharmalot, which has covered the affair extensively, taking exception to Lilly's claims:

"I admitted responsibility for violating the protective order that kept Lilly’s documents secret. I did not admit to any illegal conduct. I agreed to pay the company $100,000. I admitted that Lilly has told a different story about the side effects of Zyprexa, but I do not believe, and did not admit, that Lilly’s “story” is based in fact. And notably, although Lilly claims that the stories that ran in the Times did not accurately reflect their marketing practices or their knowledge of Zyprexa’s side effects, Lilly has refused to release documents that they claim paint a different picture. Even today, Lilly fights in court to keep those documents secret from the public."

I suppose the truth lies in how you parse the term illegal as it relates to court seals. Torts Prof has some thoughts on all of this. The WSJ Healht Blog also has some interesting insights into the parsing party. Other news organizations covered the settlement as did some blogs.

Egilman's point that if Lilly has exculpatory evidence, then it sure has a funny way of sharing it is, in essence, what I have been saying since February. If the rest of the documents obliterate the evidence Egilman leaked and which the New York Times, myself and others reported on, then the company should make those documents public. I'd be happy to review them.

In an un-bylined article on Sept. 8, the Times quotes one of its attorneys:

"'We continue to believe the articles we published about Zyprexa were newsworthy and accurate and provided important information to the public,' said George Freeman, a lawyer for The New York Times Company."

And adds that the documents "are still widely available on the Internet." Actually, as far as I know, this blog, and a German website are the only sources for the documents. But thanks for thinking my reach is wide. I'm pretty sure it exceeds my grasp. BTW, the Zyprexa documents have now been archived at two major medical schools and have been accessed by numerous academics (perhaps some of them will write an academic paper or two someday). Several hundred others have downloaded the documents as well.

I hope we will one day hear from Egilman on what prompted him to leak the documents in the first place. Still no word on a settlement between Lilly and Jim Gottstein. Stay tuned.