Lilly Thanks Zyprexa Judge
4 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // February 14th, 2007 // 12:53 pm
No surprise here. The drugmaker is “pleased” that U.S. District Court Judge Jack Weinstein issued a permanent injunction yesterday that prevents David Egilman, a former expert witness in Zyprexa lawsuits, and Jim Gottstein, an attorney, from distributing confdential documents.
They must also return all copies of the documents, which were published in The New York Times and alleged that Lilly hid harmful side-effect data and improperly promoted the schizophrenia drug to docs. In his ruling, Weinstein charged that a conspiracy took place to steal the documents, and called the behavior of NY Times reporter Alex Berenson ‘reprehensible.’
“Lilly appreciates that the court understood the grave nature of the breach of trust committed by individuals who would take the law into their own hands rather than following the rules set by the court with the agreement of all of the parties in the litigation,” says Bob Armitage, Lilly’s general counsel, in a statement.
Lilly argues the material published was cherry-picked to deliberately make the company look bad and cause it to lose lawsuits. A handful of people who posted the documents on web sites couldn’t convince Weinstein the documents exposed a public health problem and Lilly shouldn’t been allowed to declare that every piece of paper or e-mail is confidential.
[tags]Eli Lilly, The New York Times, Zyprexa[/tags]
Insider
So, Ed, time to come off the fence…….
Was Alex Berenson’s behaviour reprehensible?
Laurie
Obviously the “judge” isn’t watching the Congressional hearings!!
When did the judicial system start protecting Pharma…at the expense of the general public?
Melody
Whether he is, in the true sense of the word, an investigative journalist, Berenson–as well as those from whom he acquired the incriminating documents–had to KNOW risks were being taken in making the materials public. If other” investigative” journalists would do more than read the press releases provided by Big Pharma, perhaps other dangerous drugs would have been exposed in more timely manners. I hope Berenson will inspire other journalists; what I fear, though, is that he has garnered his “15 minutes of fame” and will merely follow the path blazed by other “intrepid” journalists: write a book, hit the talk-show circuit, make some bucks, and bask in momentary glory.
ed
Was the reporter reprehensible? I believe the word reprehensible can be used to describe actions that knowingly harm others. In short, a company is allowed to make a mistake, but shouldn’t be given a pass if an attempt to deceive and possibly harm became policy. And the reporter? It wasn’t my order that was violated. I think AB was doing his job. However, the folks on 42nd Street will have to decide whether any of their own lines were crossed in the process.
Cheers
ed