Activists Take on Eli Lilly Over Off-Label Sale of Zyprexa

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"If there is a case that dramatically highlights the need to stop blindly taking prescriptions drugs, this is it," says Dr Greg Tefft, co-founder of the Just Say "Know" Campaign. "We're talking 20 million people potentially at risk and more being added daily," he says.

But instead of focusing on Lilly or the judge who suppressed the documents, the Campaign says, it will educate the public about off-label prescribing and what consumers can do to protect themselves against unwittingly taking Zyprexa, or other drugs, without knowledge of the side effects or that the drugs are not approved for their condition.

"We are convinced that the way to solve this problem is to work the demand side of the market," Dr Tefft said. "We are going directly to consumers and encouraging them to know what they are taking."

To that end, a Zyprexa radio series, hosted by Dr Dominick Riccio, Chairman of the Campaign, and Dr Laurence Simon, provides information to consumers about the drug. The official web site for the Campaign is http://justsayknow.kpncradio.com

This group has a lofty goal because the off-label sale of Zyprexa has literally been unstoppable so far. Throughout years of litigation, while settling out of court with an estimated 26,000 Zyprexa victims, Lilly has been successful in keeping the company's off-label marketing schemes sealed under the ruse that they contain trade secrets and confidential information.

Mr Gottstein obtained the documents from Dr David Egilman, who had discovered that Lilly had failed to disclose Zyprexa's link to rapid weight gain, high blood sugar levels, and diabetes, while he was serving as an expert witness in the underlying litigation.

It's likely that Dr Egilman also knew that by settling the second batch of Zyprexa lawsuits out of court, that Lilly planned to go right on concealing the information.

The men had every reason to believe that the off-label prescribing would continue because even after paying over $1 billion in settlements, Zyprexa was still Lilly's top-selling product with sales of more than $4 billion in 2006.

The story behind Rebecca Riley's death, gives a clear picture of how blatant the off-label marketing scams have become. After she died, investigators discovered that her 2 siblings, ages 6 and 11, were also fed the same 3 drug cocktail every day and that the parents were on psychiatric medications as well.

Which means, if not for the disruption by Rebecca's untimely death, this family represented five steady customers for the "mental health industry," with 100% of the costs for doctor's visits and prescriptions paid for by public health care programs.

Psychotropic drug expert, Dr Ann Blake Tracy, Director, International Coalition for Drug Awareness, and author of "Prozac: Panacea or Pandora?," says, "this is what is referred to as the "Family Discount," when everyone in the family is drugged."

And this is the type of tragedy she worries about, Dr Tracy says. "The parents unable to function, the children acting up and unable to function - all due to the effects of the drugs."

She states that she would not be surprised to learn that the mother was on psychiatric drugs while she carried Rebecca which also may have caused problems for the child.

One of the world's leading experts pharmacology experts, former Secretary of the British Association for Psychopharmacology, Dr David Healy, also maintains that there is no justification for giving these drugs a 2-year-old and "certainly not for the combinations mentioned here," he states.

Testing a 2-year-old for these mental disorders, he says, can not be done.

Rebecca's parents have been charged with first-degree murder for the overdose death of a child, but many legal experts and advocacy groups say the main perpetrator is still on the loose. That being the psychiatrist with the prescription pad, Dr Kayoko Kifuji of Tufts-New England Medical Center, who diagnosed these kids with bipolar disorder and ADHD, and prescribed the drugs for all 3 children.

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