Furious Seasons

December 16, 2007

The Zyprexa Chronicles: One-Year Anniversary

Today is the one-year anniversary of Alex Berenson's New York Times article that made public internal Eli Lilly documents establishing that the company had told its sales force to downplay all manner of problems associated with Zyprexa. I remember seeing the article online the evening of Dec. 16 (it's datelined the 17th but was online earlier), and thinking to myself, "It's by Berenson and he's got documents. Wow." I linked to the article and, since I was headed out the door for the evening, offered this brief assessment:

This is major news. More later.

One year later, there is still more and more each day about this and other atypical anti-psychotics and how they have become big problems in our culture. Kind of stunning when you think about it.

But here's something even more stunning: despite over 1,000 deaths connected to the drug, despite thousands of cases of diabetes, despite all the weight gain this drug causes, despite the fact that it doesn't work so well either, despite about $1.3 billion in payouts to settle lawsuits brought by patients against Eli Lilly, despite all of that this drug is on the verge of being approved for use in children, as Rob Farley smartly points out in an article in today's St. Petersburg Times. The Zyprexa documents even make an appearance in the article.

How the hell does that happen? Read the article for more on the drug and its very weird history.

Posted by Philip Dawdy at December 16, 2007 02:52 PM

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Comments

Absolutely sickening that the FDA's Dr. Laughren will overrule his own panel and approve this lethal drug for adolescents. I feel very sick today.

But connections never hurt, and we know that Lilly President Syd Taurel is a good pal of our president. Our president sees it as his job to help corporations. So there you go.

Posted by: Sorrowful at December 16, 2007 03:11 PM

Anyone who wants to know what happens to children on Zyprexa? try about a 100 pound weight gain, ocular dysfunction, blood sugar spikes, --all of that happened in 1999 to my then 11 yr. old.[size 10, 5th grade, by 7th it was size 22 people] [compared to her weight today,[back to size 10, well zero these days labels] and this on a 5' 3" petite body].

The doctor told her to take walks, and skip sodas. She never drank soda back then. She walked every day.

By age 17 she researched enough to fire her p doc the day he told her again, to take a walk. I think those pharma reps got to that guy with the drone of "here's what to say when a patient questions their weight gain". [read the Zyprexa Documents].

Any parent who hears the word Zyprexa should run, not walk as fast as they can to a new doctor if they think one is needed.

I think there are enough deaths and injuries, lawsuits, and buried research, here that if any doctor willingly rx's anyone this medication-- they are completely forgetting, "first do no harm" and this time it's for real.

Posted by: Stephany at December 16, 2007 06:57 PM

That's OK - the FDA is hard at work protecting our children. They just voted to ban cold medicine for kids, "given that there’s no evidence of efficacy of the drugs and there’s evidence of harm of the drugs."

http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20071019/panel-no-cold-medicine-young-kids

They are even considering banning the marketing.

See, they are very busy. Too busy and impotent to deal with the really dangerous drugs, so they create smokescreens and diversions like this.

Posted by: Sarah at December 17, 2007 07:51 AM