Eli Lilly's Picking On Schizophrenics (LLY)

Picking on people with schizophrenia would seem to be very unfair. If it is a large corporation, the odds against prople with serious mental illness would really seem to be stacked against them.

Lawyers for patients who suffer from the awful disease have uncovered documents that show the Lilly played down the health risks of Zyprexa, the companies best selling drug for treating schizophrenia.The drug can cause weight gain and increase in blood sugar, both of which can cause diabetes.

The drug brings in $4.2 billion a year, so it is not hard to see why Lilly would try to dupe the mentally ill and their doctors.

According to the NY Times internal Lilly documents are "replete with references to Zyprexa’s importance to Lilly’s future and the need to keep concerns about diabetes and obesity from hurting sales"

At least the attorneys for these seriously ill people have a smoking gun.

And, at least Lilly is probably facing a major legal and PR disaster. Not good for the stock.

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.