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Wiki ordered to remove link to drug documents
[Quote:]
A wiki about a controversial prescription drug has been ordered by a US court to remove a link to documents which originated with Eli Lilly, the drug’s manufacturer.
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 $1.2bn to settle suits before they reached court, including $500m 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.
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