FIRM STAND
Re: Robert Goldberg’s Smearing
Mitch:
The Center for Public Integrity firmly stands behind its
May 9 story on Gov. Mitch Daniels and his prior employment with Eli
Lilly. The recent letter [sic] from Robert Goldberg appears to be
little more than an apology for the illegal behavior of the
pharmaceutical giant during Daniels’ tenure and an ad hominem
attack on the Center.
The facts are irrefutable: During Daniels’ time there,
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 agreed to settle one of the largest
state consumer protection cases involving a drug company in U.S.
history.
Mr. Daniels was a senior executive with the company during
this dark period, and as he weighs a presidential bid, it is the
responsibility and duty of the media to investigate his work
history and professional associations. Starting in 1990, Daniels
served as vice president of corporate affairs, then as president of
Lilly’s North American pharmaceutical operations, and finally in
1997, as senior vice president of corporate strategy and policy. He
cannot claim to be “out of the loop.”
Lastly, Mr. Goldberg’s insinuation that the Center was
somehow used by our esteemed board member Arianna Huffington or a
mental health activist to attack Eli Lilly and Mitch Daniels is
simultaneously insulting and absurd. The Center is not — and never
has been — a pen for hire. We are nonpartisan investigative news
organization and we follow the facts wherever they lead.
— William E. Buzenberg
Executive Director, Center for Public Integrity
Robert Goldberg
replies:
Mr. Buzenberg’s letter
confirms the point of my article. The Center for Public Integrity
claims that “by providing thorough, thoughtful, and objective
analyses, the Center serves as a provider of factual
information.”
Mr. Buzenberg’s response possesses none of those
qualities.
Characterizing Governor Daniels’ tenure as “this dark
period” is all we need to know about how objective Buzenberg and
CPI really are. I do not apologize for Lilly’s illegal behavior.
Rather, I provide the background about the use of the False Claims
Act as a platform for government and third party plaintiff lawsuits
against pharmaceutical firms. As I noted in my article: “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.” I also noted that Medicaid programs reimbursed the
off-label promotion of Zyprexa and Evista.
I did not note — because of space considerations — what
CPI knows and did not report about the 32,000 claims: These were
not 32,000 individuals all suing Lilly individually. These were, as
James Beck has
written about such cases, “thousands, of
plaintiffs — and no information about any of them. It amounts to
an instant mass tort. Often it’s worse, in that otherwise diverse
plaintiffs are fraudulently misjoined with non-diverse plaintiffs
(or non-diverse defendants against which only very few plaintiffs
have a claim).” In other words, most of the claims were
either bogus, or filed by people who did not even take Zyprexa or
benefitted from the drug.
Lilly settled these 32,000 claims only because it costs
over $30,000 to review and validate each one. The fact that Lilly
settled for $500 million (compared to the total cost of $960
million of reviewing each one) suggests that most claims were
flimsy or false. Kenen and Sharpe, the CPI report’s authors, ignore
these details as well as the fact that 90 percent of the claims
Lilly did challenge were dismissed. So much for Lilly’s “dark
period.”
Further, Kenen and Sharpe omit important facts surrounding
the Second Circuit Court’s reversal of a lower court decision that
Lilly’s off-label activity caused third party payers to cough up
more for Zyprexa than they otherwise would have. The reporters say
the 2nd Circuit merely ruled that the third parties could not sue
as a class. In fact, as
described by litigation attorneys John P.
Stigi III and Eric S. O’Connor, “At the core of this decision is
the Second Circuit’s rejection of the use of ‘aggregate proof’ of
causation in the consumer class certification process.” There was
no individualized proof rather than generalized proof of causation
(i.e. the assertion that Lilly’s marketing of Zyprexa caused the
plaintiffs to pay a higher price for the drug than they otherwise
would have).
In Buzenberg’s mind, if Kenen and Sharpe had included such
information it would been like apologizing for illegal
activity.
Finally, there is the claim that I am “insinuating that
the Center was somehow used by our esteemed board member Arianna
Huffington or a mental health activist to attack Eli Lilly and
Mitch Daniels.” Buzenberg goes on to assert: “The Center is not —
and never has been — a pen for hire. We are nonpartisan
investigative news organization and we follow the facts wherever
they lead.”
First, I was not insinuating but asking a question: How
did the reporters get to Ellen Liversidge, a “mental health
activist” with ties to Scientology-based groups and Peter Breggin.
I speculate, given Huffington’s long and persistent attention to
Eli Lilly, her crusade against psychiatric medications, and the
fact that the Huffington Post was a platform for people
that shared her views, that perhaps Huffington or Breggin suggested
Liversidge to Kenen and Sharpe. Indeed, the reporters do not
mention Liversidge’s groups, an odd omission since telling her
story is at the core of her “activism.” As for CPI’s “esteemed”
board member, her role in undermining confidence in vaccines and
prescription drugs is worth a full article and then
some.
I don’t believe the Center is a pen for hire. I do believe
it has an ideological agenda and a sense of righteous entitlement
that colors its reporting.
CHURCH ORGANS
Re: Christopher Orlet’s Something
Is Sacred:
This is an excellent article. I have watched the integrity
of Church music go to hell-in-a-hand-basket for years. I spent 32
years of my life as a classical musician. I studied the history and
performance of great music from the greatest masters with the most
noted masters still living at the time. I won world competitions
for performing classical music (three in all) and performed with
most of the major symphonies of the world as a soloist. Too few
people have experienced the spiritual lifting of music written for
God by these great masters of the past and those living today. No
rock ‘n roll, country, blues, bluegrass, or anything that stinks of
pop culture can glorify God and the Trinity. God gave us the great
masters and the arrogant ignorant ignore them. I listen to the
oldest known music written for Christian worship often. It lifts my
spirit and faith every time without fail. Pieces thought to be
written in the 10th century such as “The Play of Daniel,” or
Gregorian Chant will always deliver us at the foot of the Father
and shower us with His Spirit.
What a shame most reading this letter will have no idea of
what I wrote.
“Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the
old words best of all.” —Winston Churchill
— Jim Cunningham
Fort Eustis,
Virginia
While I am greatly saddened by the fate of my colleagues
at the Wicks Organ Company, the organ has hardly been “finished
off.” As you may be aware, navigating the economic storm of the
last several years has been a challenge for many firms in many
industries. Trends in church music be what they may, and the
economy notwithstanding, there are firms that have substantial
backlogs of work. Our firm currently has more than two years of
work on the books and we will continue to do the same work we have
done since 1893. Building fine pipe organs.
— Curtis E. Hawkes
Sent from my
iPhone
