The Zyprexa Chronicles: "Whitewash"

As I mentioned the other day, I plan to roll out a few tidbits from the Zyprexa documents. Here's the first installment.

In an internal "business planning purposes" document from Feb. 20, 2004, an unidentified Lilly official summarizes "competitive information" surrounding the American Diabetes Association's then-fresh guidelines on atypical antipsychotics, especially Zyprexa. The FDA's black box warning on diabetes and atypical antipsychotics is also mentioned. The unknown author cites John Newcomer as his or her source for much of the information in the document. Newcomer is a professor of psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo.

On page two of the document is the following unattributed quote, apparently from a medical doctor:

"Lilly is playing a language game with the FDA pronouncements. Because the FDA class warning is about diabetes, Lilly can claim that there is no direct link with diabetes--which is true in one sense. But there is a direct link with weight gain, visceral fat, insulin sensitivity, and thus diabetes, stroke, and myocardial infarction. So while Lilly is technically correct, this is whitewash. They are, however, doing an outstanding job of politicizing and language games."