This book chronicles the battles on behalf of Bill Bigley, the psychiatric patient whose ordeal by Eli Lilly’s product made possible the exposure of the Zyprexa Papers. Written by James B. Gottstein, Esq. and published in 2020, The Zyprexa Papers are crucial documents in the fight to hold Eli Lilly accountable for hiding harm caused by Zyprexa and their illegal marketing of it.
It was just a normal day before Dr. David Egilman called me out of the blue on November 28, 2006. The days are short that time of year in Anchorage, Alaska, and it was getting dark by mid-afternoon. Dr. Egilman told me he had been hired as an expert witness by one of the law firms representing patients who had taken Zyprexa and contracted diabetes or other metabolic problems. He wanted to know about documents relating to Zyprexa I might have. In truth, he was feeling me out to see whether I might be willing to subpoena him, so he could legally send me secret documents. These documents revealed the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly (Lilly) had from the beginning suppressed information showing Zyprexa caused these life-threatening conditions. In addition, they showed Lilly had illegally marketed this powerful and dangerous drug for use in children and the elderly. He wanted me to then send them to Alex Berenson, a reporter for The New York Times with whom he was already working on a Zyprexa exposé.
On December 17, 2006, The New York Times began a series of front-page stories about documents obtained from Alaska lawyer Jim Gottstein, showing Eli Lilly had concealed that its top-selling drug caused diabetes and other life-shortening metabolic problems. The “Zyprexa Papers,” as they came to be known, also showed Eli Lilly was illegally promoting the use of Zyprexa on children and the elderly, with particularly lethal effects. Although Mr. Gottstein believes he obtained the Zyprexa Papers legally, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn decided he had conspired to steal the documents, and Eli Lilly threatened Mr. Gottstein with criminal contempt charges. In The Zyprexa Papers, Mr. Gottstein gives a riveting first-hand account of what really happened, including new details about how a small group of psychiatric survivors spread the Zyprexa Papers on the Internet untraceably. All of this within a gripping, plain-language explanation of complex legal maneuvering and his battles on behalf of Bill Bigley, the psychiatric patient whose ordeal made possible the exposure of the Zyprexa Papers.
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Psych Rights – Getting To The Next LevelFounded in 2002, the mission of the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights) is to mount a strategic litigation campaign against forced psychiatric drugging and electroshock throughout the United States akin to the successful effort of the N.A.A.C.P. in the 1950’s and 1960’s to end legal segregation. This includes addressing the horrendous psychiatric drugging of children in the United States, especially poor children on Medicaid and in foster care. PsychRights does not view strategic litigation as the sole means to reform the U.S. mental health system into one that is helpful rather than harmful, but that it is likely a necessary component, just as desegregation litigation was in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
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Jim Gottstein grew up in Anchorage, Alaska where his father was a prominent businessman and his mother one of the most beloved women in town. Jim was on track to go into the family grocery and real estate empire, studying for a business degree at the University of Oregon when the law found him during his required Business Law class. He didn’t miss a question the entire class and realized law was a good fit. He managed to get into Harvard Law School as the only sky-diving applicant from Alaska that year.
After graduating from law school in 1978, Jim went into private practice in Anchorage with Robert M. Goldberg, primarily representing Alaska Native organizations. In 1982, he experienced a psychotic break due to sleep deprivation and was introduced first hand to the mental illness system. He was told he would be permanently mentally ill and to forget about his law career. Luckily, he escaped psychiatry and the experience led him to legal representation and other advocacy for people diagnosed with mental illness not as lucky as he. Jim opened his own law office in 1985, generally focused on business matters, and is now mostly retired from the private practice of law. In 2002, Jim founded the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights.org) to mount a strategic litigation campaign against forced psychiatric drugging and electroshock, and to inform the public about the counterproductive and harmful nature of the drugs and shock.
REVIEWS
“The Zyprexa Papers” is a deep dive into the Bizarro World of psychiatry, Big Pharma, and the judicial system. As Jim writes, “To me, it is crystal clear locking people up and drugging them against their will is not ‘for their own good’ but instead very harmful to them. One of my goals in writing this book is to show this truth.” Mission accomplished.
This much is well-known. The papers have been widely distributed and have opened some peoples’ eyes. Gottstein doesn’t detail the content of these papers — what every non-person knew about the capacity of these drugs to cause diabetes, metabolic syndrome, suicidality and other problems. The fascination lies in how little of this appears to be known by the psychiatrists who might lock you and me up and inflict treatment on us and how pharma takes psychiatrists for idiots.
It’s rather like how little Germans during World War II knew about what was happening in their country. And just like German functionaries drew up specifications for drainage in vehicles to transport people to concentration camps, much as they would have done for transporting animals, so also Judge Weinstein dealing with Gottstein’s actions stuck rigidly to the legal specifications without questioning what in fact was going on. And if that sounds grimly American, everything we know about what pharma gets up to comes from legal actions in the US and a handful of lawyers like Gottstein. The rest of the world has made no contribution to what we now know.
Many people coming to this book might figure that the Bigley saga plays second fiddle to what is after all called The Zyprexa Papers. A switch from the dizzying heights of New York courtroom drama to an Alaskan backwater. But Bill Bigley’s case is the beating heart of this book. The Zyprexa papers are the bait for Gottstein’s masterly portrayal of how the system treated Bill and will treat you and anyone you know who comes into contact with it.
“The Zyprexa Papers. Sounds like a thriller starring Denzel Washington and Julia Roberts. It’s not. It’s the riveting account of Alaska attorney Jim Gottstein’s encounter with the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, a battle centered around Eli Lilly’s wanton misuse of the drug Zyprexa.”
“Jim Gottstein’s blockbuster new book, The Zyprexa Papers, is essential reading. It should be required reading for every well-meaning friend or family member of someone who suffers emotionally, as well as for legislators who genuinely want to weed out corruption and harm.”