Drug Companies Fess Up

In 2007, The New York Times published an article noting that some states would begin to require drug companies report the amount of money they pay to doctors to attend conferences, in gift form and as payment for doing seminars on the drug companies behalf. The legislation has largely been ignored by the behemoth companies, proving that age-old saying "Money talks, BS walks".

Now it looks as if Eli Lilly will be complying to these laws, as they are starting be be discussed on a national level.

Personally, I feel that Eli Lilly is simply pulling a PR stunt - saying "hey, don't look at us, we already comply to your rules", while still funneling tons of money into doctors to keep them talking about and prescribing their drugs. Really, the main benefit of the drug mammoth reporting what they are shelling out to whom is for the consumer, so they know in who's pocket their doctor resides.

Great Links About Psychiatry

Here's some great links I found this week:

Scientology Lives reports connections between school shooters and psychiatric drugs

DBunker reports that the FDA is cracking down on neighborhood pharmacies

Alliance for Human Research Project reports about Eli Lilly concealing information

Pharmalot reports that Eli Lilly should have warned the American people about Zyprexa back in 1998

Grahame reports about a new anti-depressant (called Placebozac) that has just come on the market *This one deserves a warning for excessive sarcasm*

Attention Deficit Disorder reports some interesting statistics about ADHD kids

PsychWatch reports 8 reasons to run from Anti-Depressants

Woops - Lawyer Spills the Beans on Secret Eli Lilly Court Case

I read this news article and had to laugh. It seems that Eli Lilly was marketing a drug called Zyprexa improperly. Zyprexa has serious side effects, such as diabetes, hypoglycemia and more and is only approved to treat people with schizophrenia and severe bipolar disorder (like they need diabetes on top of all that?). Some documents from Eli Lilly revealed that they were pushing doctors to prescribe the drug for other disorders like age related dementia and mild bi-polar. Because of this, Eli Lilly will have to pay federal and state governments more than 1 billion dollars. This fine is in addition to the 1.2 billion dollars Eli Lilly has already paid in lawsuits from people who say they developed diabetes because of Zyprexa (which apparently is not a rare side effect of Zyprexa).
All this information and more was leaked to the New York Times in an email screw up by one of Eli Lilly's lawyers. He was trying to send an internal document to another lawyer, but ended up sending it to a press agent with the same last name. Woops!