Liz -

There's a bottle, mostly unused, on the top shelf of the kitchen cabinet. It felt toxic the first few days I took it (after a hospitalization, of course). I only gained about 15 atop the other 20 or 25 before cessation.

It is remarkable to me how information on hyperglycemia can be withheld from treating physicians (psychiatrists) who should be running the same kinds of blood work as they do for valproic acid (Depakote) on a regular basis.

I could rant, but the parallel with valproic acid level checks is sufficient for today.

My better half saw the NYT headline, became as incensed as you did and demanded I read it. My first thought was "What WAS my favorite movie of 1999?", because that is about how long any thinking physician has been aware of Zyprexa's weight increasing and diabetogenic properties. All industry downplays its bad points- witness the guy who told me if I bought a Volkswagen it would handle like a BMW. The current health care industry -including drug companies- is motivated by profit. If I responded to every health care pitch I would be sitting in my office with an antidepressant smile on my botoxed face trying to hide my 24 hour erection by shifting to my non-hip replaced side while listening to my anti-anxiety CD's ( who is that woman anyway?).
The question here is whether the drug industry should present dry facts in its presentations to prescribers, but the current "sales" model has overall been a boon to psychotropic development. Prozac was, I think, the first billion dollar drug and that kind of financial success gets the industry's attention.

Eli Lilly ZYPREXA LIES!

Zyprexa off label promotion scandal is all over the news now.
Lilly drug reps are alleged to have called their marketing ploy,"Viva zyprexa".

Eli Lilly zyprexa cost me over $250.00 a month supply out of my own pocket X 4 years and has up to ten times the risk (over non users) of causing diabetes and severe weight gain.

Zyprexa which is only FDA approved for schizophrenia (.5-1% of pop) and some bipolar (2% pop) and then an even smaller percentage of theses two groups.
So how does Zyprexa get to be the 7th largest drug sale in the world?
Eli Lilly is in deep trouble for using their drug reps to 'encourage' doctors to write zyprexa for non-FDA approved 'off label' uses.

The drug causes increased diabetes risk,and medicare picks up all the expensive fallout.There are now 7 states (and counting) going after Lilly for fraud and restitution.
I was ordered to take it beginning in 1996 for my PTSD for 4 years more,it was useless for my symptoms.Lesson learned...you shouldn't give a major tranquilizer like zyprexa which makes you 'sleepy' to a hyper-vigilant patient.

There is a clinical difference between hyper-vigilant and harmful aggression.
Only 9 percent of adult Americans think the pharmaceutical industry can be trusted right around the same rating as big tobacco.


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Daniel Haszard zyprexa-victims.com