by David Oaks, Director, MindFreedom

Let me tell you, it can be hard to hear some of the folks in a teleconferenced court hearing when I'm here in our Oregon office, listening in to a Brooklyn court room.

But today -- the second day of hearings, 17 January -- the sound quality was better. The court continued to hear testimony by Jim Gottstein with cross examination. This was largely technical, about whether or not Jim had obtained and released these files about Zyprexa in a legal way.

Then the court room woke up when Vera Sherav (photo on right) of the group Alliance for Human Research Protection got on the stand. Now, I was just taking notes over the phone so I may not have gotten her words exactly right, but Vera actually got to the point about the contents of the files, and she was passionate.

Vera said emphatically, "People are dying from these drugs... Getting these documents is very important to me." Vera talked about sharing the information, such as with a Wall St. Journal reporter.

Vera said, "These documents show that Eli Lilly knew Zyprexa causes diabetes. They knew from a doctor they hired. Instead of warning doctors who are widely prescribing the drug, Eli Lilly set about an aggressive marketing campaign. Little children are being given these drugs. Little children are being exposed to horrific diseases that are ending their lives. And to continue to conceal these facts from the public... it's just a safety issue!"

Vera agreed this kind of human rights advocacy work is her "life calling."

More than once Eli Lilly moved to strike one of Vera's passionate statements from the record, but the judge overruled the attorney saying that Vera's testimony showed her "state of mind."

And her state of mind was fixed on justice.

Vera said, "Eli Lilly marketed it for off-label uses which is against the law. They told doctors and essentially concealed vital information, and sugar-coated it, which you can see in the sales of the drug. The drug was approved for very limited conditions -- schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The reason the drug became a $4.5 billion best seller is because Lilly encouraged prescriptions to children and the elderly, for all sorts of reasons. The drug is being prescribed irresponsibly because doctors have not been told the truth."

Vera went on to point out that, "Major studies by the National Institute of Mental Health validate this. The CATIE study by NIMH has been published and they collaborate the harm being done by these atypical antipsychotics. Leading psychiatrists who had been fans of these drugs are now saying, 'We were fooled.' It isn't just weight gain. Zyprexa is causing 'metabolic syndrome' which is a cluster of life-threatening problems."

Again Eli Lilly tried to strike, but again the judge overruled, saying it shows her state of mind.

Vera was asked if the documents were trade secrets.  "Absolutely not. What it showed is why they were willing to spend so much money to keep this concealed."

I was not going to be called as a witness, with the agreement of the lawyers for those named in the Temporary Restraining Order. But unexpectedly at the end, Eli Lilly called me as the final witness.

I'm glad, because it was a chance to clear the record about reckless and false and unprofessional charges Eli Lilly had made in some of the filings: I was able to testify that MindFreedom had never received the files from Jim Gottstein, that we had never disseminated them, and that we had not set up any links or web sites or wikis to disseminate them. I testified that I didn't seek anonymity when posting to e-mail lists or web sites. I was able to testify that we had never conspired with Jim about releasing the files or what ought to be done with them. I testified that we had not disseminated the documents and I was able to point out that MindFreedom was reporting as an advocacy group.

I took special satisfaction in disposing of a lie Eli Lilly had stated in a court document. Eli Lilly had said,  "People collaborating with Mr. Gottstein, Mr. Oaks,  and MFI have another web site on reserve (Zyprexakills.us)...."  I was able to say we were not collaborating and had never set up that or any other web site to download the documents. The attorney said he hadn't said that, but I quoted the exact quote back to him.

I established that we complied with the court order immediately upon receiving it in every way possible.

At that point the judge said it was time to set a schedule to get briefs, which is now set over the next three weeks. Judge Weinstein said he didn't want to be overwhelmed with huge briefs, he wanted concise arguments. And from Eli Lilly he wanted to know exactly what documents they considered to be harmful to have in the public domain.

In early February it sound like the judge may make his final decision.

All in all I'm tremendously proud of MindFreedom -- especially our attorney and hero in our movement, Ted Chabasinski -- and the social justice movement for human rights in the mental health system. We stood up to one of the richest corporations in the history of the world.

If you know Ted's personal story, then you know why it was an especially significant day today. Thanks everyone.

Hopefully everyone has already seen that we have a news item on the MindFreedom web site about how the NY Times covered Eli Lilly's attempted cover-up of hazards and fraud regarding their psychiatric drug Zyprexa... because courageous attorney Jim Gottstein from PsychRights released Eli Lilly secret documents.

The original NY Times stories are here.

Well, hopefully everyone has also seen that the Internet is resisting the cover-up. Anonymous individuals are using a variety of creative techniques on the Internet to make the suppressed documents available.

MindFreedom is posting updateson the story here.

We need to make it clear the Eli Lilly is still going after Jim Gottstein over this matter. For instance, Eli Lilly has a court order that Jim has to save all of his e-mails on this matter, and to desist from disseminating those documents -- even though this dissemination has been in the public interest because of the NY Times story.

The bottom line is that Eli Lilly has done some very unethical things in terms of marketing and promoting and pushing this super-powerful psychiatric drug, one of the varieties of "neuroleptic" or "antipsychotic" drugs. MindFreedom is pro-choice on health care decisions, and many of our members choose to take prescribed psychiatric drugs, including Zyprexa. But Eli Lilly's cover-up and fraud are just plain wrong.

It is especially outrageous that Eli Lilly is continuing to seek to cover-up these documents even after the NY Times has run these two stories and an editorial in a row!

Certainly, it is time for legislators, prosecutors and courts to increasingly turn to CRIMINALIZATION of the kind of behavior that Eli Lilly executives have been up to. After all, the mis-behavior of Eli Lilly is even worse the Enron. Enron ripped off rate payers, employees, etc. But the intentional, repeated and sustained fraud and cover-up by Eli Lilly means actual people have died... and this amounts to negligent homicide at best, murder at worst, and in any case is a criminal matter.

Civil penalties are important to catch the attention of these enormous corporations. But criminal penalties by the government are absolutely needed to nonviolently bring the behavior to end, and quickly. Yes, let the prisons and jails be as humane as possible... but let's see some lengthy prison sentences soon for executives such as those responsible for this deadly fraud and cover-up at Eli Lilly.

Thank you to that combination of Internet users and grassroots -- also known as the "Netroots" -- who have successfully created an end-run around Eli Lilly's attempted suppression of information about Zyprexa.

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