ANOTHER COLLISION BETWEEN PROFIT AND HEALTH

There are many examples of health care companies putting profit ahead of patients and Lilly is just the most recent example.

Lilly Sold Drug for Dementia Knowing It Didn’t Help, Files Show
By Margaret Cronin Fisk, Elizabeth Lopatto and Jef Feeley

June 12 (Bloomberg) -- Eli Lilly & Co. urged doctors to prescribe Zyprexa for elderly patients with dementia, an unapproved use for the antipsychotic, even though the drugmaker had evidence the medicine didn’t work for such patients, according to unsealed internal company documents.

In 1999, four years after Lilly sent study results to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration showing Zyprexa didn’t alleviate dementia symptoms in older patients, it began marketing the drug to those very people, according to documents unsealed in insurer suits against the company for overpayment.