Smearing Mitch

[Geee]

American Spectator:

The Center for Public Integrity (CPI) recently issued a report accusing Governor Mitch Daniels, who once was President of North American operations for Eli Lilly, of illegally marketing medicines that caused thousands of people to get sick and die.

It's a riveting story but it's not true. Instead, the report, written by Joanne Kenen and Rochelle Sharpe, is full of misstatements, inaccuracies, and outright falsehoods. If the Center for Public Integrity had any integrity it would yank the piece, apologize to Governor Daniels, and start asking who pushed to release such a sleazy ad hominem assault.

Here's the gist of the allegations:

In the decade that Daniels climbed the corporate ladder at Eli Lilly, the company was illegally marketing its leading osteoporosis drug, Evista, as well as its blockbuster antipsychotic, Zyprexa, putting tens of thousands of patients in harm's way. Lilly pleaded guilty to two criminal misdemeanors, paid more than $2.7 billion in fines and damages, settled more than 32,000 personal injury claims -- and copped to one of the largest state consumer protection cases involving a drug company in U.S. history, a review by iWatch News shows.

Eli Lilly engaged in illegal activity. But here's the gist of its unlawful actions: Eli Lilly was accused of providing doctors with medical information that Zyprexa could be used to treat agitation in people diagnosed with dementia and sleep disorders in people with schizophrenia. The government calls the distribution of such material without FDA approval a "false claim." A "false claim" is not a false statement. Rather, it's clinical data or published studies that confirm the effectiveness of new uses for existing medicines.