Eli Lilly

Eli Lilly   (Big Pharma)
Formation	1876
Headquarters	Indianapolis, USA
Staff	33,815
Member of	Transatlantic Policy Network
Membership	•  George H. W. Bush •  David A. Ricks •  Ralph Alvarez •  Katherine Baicker •  Carolyn R. Bertozzi •  Michael L. Eskew •  J. Erik Fyrwald •  Jamere Jackson •  William G. Kaelin Jr •  Juan R. Luciano •  Marschall S. Runge •  Kathi P. Seifert •  Jackson P. Tai •  Karen Walker •  Melissa Stapleton Barnes •  Patrik Jonsson •  Sidney Taurel
Big Pharma

Eli Lilly is an American pharmaceutical company, best known for producing LSD for the CIA’s MKultra mind control program. From 1977 to 1979, former CIA director George H. W. Bush was director of Eli Lilly.

Eli Lilly's notable achievements include being the first company to mass-produce the polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk, and insulin. Lilly is currently the largest manufacturer of psychiatric medications and produces Prozac (fluoxetine), Dolophine (methadone), Cymbalta (duloxetine), and Zyprexa (olanzapine).

History

The company's founder was Colonel Eli Lilly, a pharmaceutical chemist and Union army veteran of the American Civil War. Lilly served as the company president until his death in 1898. Around 1890, Colonel Lilly turned over the day-to-day management of the business to his son, J. K., who ran the company for thirty-four years.

Until the turn of the century Lilly operated in Indianapolis and the surrounding area as many other pharmaceutical businesses did—manufacturing and selling "sugar-coated pills, fluid extracts, elixirs, and syrups". One historian noted, "Although the Indianapolis firm was more careful in making and promoting drugs than the patent medicine men of the era, the company remained ambivalent about scientific research."

During the 1920s the introduction of new products also brought the company financial success. In 1919 Josiah hired biochemist George Henry Alexander Clowes as director of biochemical research. In 1921 three University of Toronto scientists, J. J. R. Macleod, Frederick G. Banting, and Charles H. Best, were working on the development of insulin for treatment of diabetes. Banting and Macleod won a Nobel Prize in 1923 for their research.

Despite the economic challenges of the Great Depression, Lilly's sales rose to $13 million in 1932. That same year Eli Lilly, the eldest grandson of Col. Lilly, was named as the company's president to succeed his father, who remained as chairman of the board until 1948. World War II brought production at Lilly to a new high with the manufacturing of Merthiolate and penicillin. During the war Lilly also cooperated with the American Red Cross to process blood plasma.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Eli Lilly and Company saw a flurry of drug production: an antibiotic, Keflex, in 1971; a heart drug, Dobutrex, in 1977; Ceclor, which would become the world's top selling oral antibiotic, in 1979; a leukemia drug, Eldisine; an antiarthritic, Oraflex; and an analgesic, Darvon. When generic drugs flooded the marketplace after the expiration of patents for drugs discovered in the 1950s and 1960s, Lilly diversified into other areas, most notably agricultural chemicals, animal-health products, cosmetics, and medical instruments.

In 1991, Vaughn Bryson was named CEO of Eli Lilly. During his 20-month tenure, the company reported its first quarterly loss as a publicly traded company. In 1993 Randall L. Tobias, a vice-chairman of AT&T Corporation and Lilly board member, was named Lilly's chairman, president, and CEO after "product and competitive pressures" had "steadily eroded Lilly's stock price since early 1992." Tobias was the first president and CEO recruited from outside of the company. Under Tobias's leadership the company cut costs and narrowed its mission. Lilly sold companies in its Medical Device and Diagnostics Division, expanded international sales, made new acquisitions, and funded additional research and product development. Sidney Taurel, former chief operating officer of Lilly, was named CEO in 1998, replacing Tobias. Taurel was named chairman in January 1999. In 2000 Lilly reported $10.86 billion in net sales.

Unehtical and Illegal Practices

Lobbying

Eli Lilly - officially - spent $7,920,000 on lobbying the U.S. Congress in 2019, with $901,122 in contributions.

Zyprexa

In January 2009, the largest criminal fine in U.S. history, totaling $1.415 billion, including a $515 million criminal fine, was imposed on Lilly for illegal marketing of its best-selling product, the atypical antipsychotic medication, Zyprexa. The criminal fine of $515 million was the largest ever in a healthcare case and the largest criminal fine for an individual corporation ever imposed in a US criminal prosecution of any kind. "That was a blemish for us," John C. Lechleiter, CEO of Lilly, stated publicly. In an internal email, Lechleiter had stated "we must seize the opportunity to expand our work with Zyprexa in this same child-adolescent population" for off-label use.

Diabetes lawsuits

According to the New York Times, the company documents reveal that Eli Lilly was fully aware of Zyprexa's link with diabetes and weight gain. Using fraud, kickback and antitrust statutes, state attorneys general all over the country filed lawsuits against Eli Lilly to recover the money paid for Zyprexa as well as medical costs for patients harmed by Zyprexa, whose health care is covered by public programs. In February of 2006, West Virginia and Alaska filed lawsuits against the company. They alleged that Eli Lilly marketed Zyprexa for unapproved uses in their states. The result cost the states millions of dollars in patient care for diabetes and other diseases related to the drug use. West Virginia seems reimbursement for payment for all medical costs, in addition to the over $70 million paid for the drug.

According to the lawsuit, studies have linked Zyprexa to diabetes since 1998. Sales representatives misled doctors about the safety and the efficacy of Zyprexa. Company advertisements deceptively understated risks and overstated its benefits. It also alleges that Lilly promoted "off label" prescriptions for a host of conditions, these included including anxiety, sleep disruption, mood swings, attention deficit hyperactivity and dementia:

"Lilly benefited from its misrepresentations and fraudulent conduct by gaining sales of Zyprexa at the expense of other, safe, effective drugs."

In July of 2006, the attorney general of Mississippi filed a lawsuit against Eli Lilly to recoup the ill-gotten gains from the promotion of off-label use of Zyprexa. The suit alleges that the company knew Zyprexa increased the risk of diabetes. In April of 2002, almost a year and a half before the company first issued warnings in the U.S., the labels in the United Kingdom and Japan were changed to include warnings of diabetes related injuries. Tim Balducci, Mississippi special assistant attorney general, asserted that the company targeted Mississippi because their Medicaid program does not signal when a doctor prescribes off label drugs.

Drugging children

According to Attorney General Hood, 10% of Zyprexa patients have developed diabetes, some of whom are children, even though Zyprexa "has never been approved for, nor found to be effective, in the treatment of children."

Eli Lilly has doctors prescribing Zyprexa off-label to children and billing state Medicaid programs all over the country. In an August of 2004, the Archives of Pediatric Adolescent Medicine found the number of Tennessee children covered by TennCare being antipsychotics, nearly doubled in six years. In Texas, a review of prescription records for July and August of 2004, found that over 19,400 teenagers were prescribed antipsychotics billed to a publicly funded program. According to ACS-Heritage, a medical consulting firm hired by the state to investigate psychotropic drug use in children, almost 98% of the teens were prescribed off-label antipsychotics. In over half the cases, the dosage appeared to be inappropriately high.

Almost half the children did not appear to half a valid diagnosis warranted the use the drugs at all. One third were on two or more drugs.Almost half of the children did not appear to have a valid diagnosis warranting the use of the drugs, and one-third were on 2 or more drugs.

The March/April 2006 Journal of Ambulatory Pediatrics, led by Dr William Cooper at Vanderbilt University, analyzed data drawn from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey and the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey. The survey found nearly 6 million outpatient visits to providers by children between the ages of 2 and 18, during which an antipsychotics were prescribed, between between 1995 and 2002. Nearly 80% occurred in physician's offices; 14% in outpatient clinics and 9% in emergency rooms. According to the survey, there has been no increase in mental health disorders which could possible account for such increases in administering these medications. Side effects of Zyprexa are more common and severe in children than in adults. The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia recently reported that 19% of children newly diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, were being treated with new antipsychotics. The study pointed out that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) "has not approved any antipsychotic drugs for treating childhood schizophrenia; yet, clinicians routinely use medications for this disorder."

2002 FDA reports prior to warning in 2003

Eli Lilly was well aware of serious health risks long before it issued U.S. warning labels for Zyprexa in 2003. According to a Duke University study published in the July 2002, FDA adverse event reports submitted on Zyprexa reported 289 cases of diabetes, with 225 patients reported as newly diagnosed. It also reported that 100 patients developed ketosis, a serious complication of diabetes. 22 people developed pancreatitis, a life threatening inflamation of the pancreas. The review identified 23 deaths, including a 15-year-old who died of necrotizing pancreatitis.

Promoting Zyprexia for dementia

In December of 2007, the New York Times that company representatives were promoting Zyprexa with primary care physicians specifically for the off-label treatment of dementia.

Prozac

Eli Lilly developed and sold Fluoxetine under the brand name Prozac. In the U.S., the FDA gave its final approval in December 1987,and a month later Eli Lilly began marketing Prozac; annual sales in the U.S. reached $350 million within a year. Worldwide sales eventually reached a peak of $2.6 billion a year. The drug was heavily promoted for more than a decade as a miracle drug.

A 2009 landmark study found that fluoxetine was more likely to increase overall suicidal behavior. 14.7% of the patients on fluoxetine had suicidal events, compared to 6.3% in the psychotherapy group and 8.4% from the combined treatment group.Eli Lilly, the manufacturer, and the lead researcher did not make these findings obvious. Several internal documents, which were released by the British Medical Journal, indicated a link between use of Prozac and suicidal or violent behavior. The FDA has warned that Prozac and similar antidepressants could cause agitation, panic attacks and aggression. These documents revealed that Eli Lilly knew about this as early as 1984, years before the drug was FDA-approved.

John Virapen, former managing director of Eli Lilly and Company in Sweden, reports in his book "Side Effects Death" about marketing strategies and corruption of the company in the course of the market launch of fluoxetine as an antidepressant.

Bovine Growth Hormone

Eli Lilly is now the sole manufacturer of Bovine Growth Hormone, having purchased the rights to manufacture the drug from Monsanto.

Xigris

In 2006, a whistleblower reported in the New England Journal of Medicine that the company of initiated false reports of a shortage of the drug, Xigris. The public relations firm Belsito and Company was used to create the message that doctors were being forced to ration Xigris due to its high cost.

Lilly Endowment

In 1937, Josiah K. Lilly Sr. and his two sons, Eli and Joe, founded the Lilly Endowment, one of the world's largest private philanthropic foundations and among the largest endowments in the United States, with gifts of Lilly stock. The private family foundation is a separate entity from the Eli Lilly and Company pharmaceutical firm, and maintains its headquarters in a different location. The foundation has been a major funder of a range of think tanks, including the Hudson Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, the Atlas Economic Research Foundation,Freedom House and the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.

 

Related Quotation

Page	Quote	Author	Date
Thimerosal	“Dan Burton: Has thimerosal ever really been tested? Has thimerosal ever been tested by our health agencies? William Egan: Only in those early tests that you know of that were done by Lily. Dan Burton: When was that? That was done in 1929. Let's follow-up on that. In 1929, they tested this on 27 people that were dying of meningitis. All of those people died of meningitis, so they said there was no correlation between their death and the mercury in the vaccines. That is the only test that's ever been done on thimerosal that I know of. Can you think of any other? William Egan: No, in people, no. Except for accidental exposures over time. Dan Burton: So we have mercury that's being put into people's bodies in the form of this preservative, and has been since the 1930's, and it's never been tested by our health agencies. And yet you folks come here and you testify that there's no conclusive evidence, and the IOM says, they favor, get this, they don't say they're sure, they say they favor rejection of a causal relationship between mercury and autism and other neurological disorders. Nobody ever gives a categorical statement, that no, mercury does not cause this, no, it doesn't. And that's because you can't do it. So why in the world are we even putting a little bit of it in vaccinations?”	Dan Burton William Egan	8 September 2004

 

Employee on Wikispooks

Employee	Job	Appointed	End	Description
Sidney Taurel	CEO	1998	2008	Attended Bilderberg/2007. Chairman Emeritus since 2008.

 

Known members

3 of the 18 of the members already have pages here:

Member	Description
George H. W. Bush	Skull and bones mastermind of the bush family busine$$.
Kenneth Lay
Sidney Taurel	US Bilderberger businessman with long career in Big Pharma Eli Lilly. Member of Homeland Security Advisory Council.

 

Related Document

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
File:WatersKrausPressRelease031702.pdf	Document	17 March 2002	Waters & Kraus	From documentation obtained from Eli Lilly the law firm Waters & Kraus learned, that the company received repeated warnings over decades that their product Thimerosal has adverse health effects.

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