The drug, Zyprexa, has been the subject of payouts by Eli Lilly
in cases over its alleged side effects. The pharmaceutical company
still faces a large number of product liability lawsuits which
claim that the schizophrenia and bipolar disorder treatment has
caused patients to gain weight or to contract diabetes. Eli Lilly
has already paid out $1.2 billion to settle suits before they
reached court, including $500 million just last week.
A wiki about the controversy, zyprexa.pbwiki.com, published a
link to internal Eli Lilly documents which the New York Times said
showed that the company deliberately downplayed the side effects of
the drug, which are alleged to include weight gain, high blood
sugar levels and diabetes.
The judge in one of the product liability cases, federal
district Judge Jack Weinstein, ordered the site and a number of
named individuals to refrain from distributing the documents or
causing them to be distributed.
Digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
defended the free speech rights of one anonymous poster in front of
Weinstein but the judge has reiterated his earlier decision. He
will hear further arguments on 16th January.
The EFF argued that the ruling breached the individual's rights
to free speech, enshrined in the first amendment of the US
Constitution. The case is one of the first to involve citizen
journalists and new online developments such as wikis in such a
serious case.
"Preventing a citizen-journalist from posting links to important
health information on a public wiki violates the first amendment,"
said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Fred von Lohmann. "Eli Lilly's
efforts to censor these documents off the internet are particularly
outrageous in light of the information reported by The New York
Times, which suggests that doctors and patients who use Zyprexa
need to know the information contained in those documents."
"The following individuals, entities and organisations who have
received documents produced by Eli Lilly and Company are hereby
enjoined from further disseminating these documents," said
Weinstein's ruling. He goes on to name 13 individuals, at least
four of them doctors, and four websites, including the Zyprexa
wiki.
Wikis have exploded in popularity after the success of
Wikipedia, the online encyclopeadia. A wiki is an online store of
information which readers can amend, edit, expand and update.
Conceived as collaborative tools, wikis gain their authority from
the combined expertise or readers and activists rather than purely
from the qualifications and expertise of a team of professional
authors and editors.
