The Zyprexa storyThe Zyprexa story
All In The Mind
Pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly (makers of Prozac) have agreed to pay upwards of 1.2 billion US dollars to nearly 30,000 patients who claim their bestseller antipsychotic medication, Zyprexa (Olanzapine) has resulted in diabetes, weight gain and other complications and that these risks were downplayed. Secret documents are leaked, the newspaper headlines start screaming, and citizen journalists spread the word - but where is the real advocacy for better drugs with fewer side effects?
30:06•3 Mar 2007
The Zyprexa Story: Side Effects, Secrets and Who Really Speaks for Patients
Episode Overview
- Raises concerns that Zyprexa’s risks of diabetes and major weight gain were downplayed while the drug generated billions in revenue.
- Shows how leaked internal documents and large legal settlements fuel questions about transparency and corporate responsibility.
- Highlights Sandy Jeffs’ personal account of severe weight gain, a disastrous switch to another drug, and the emotional toll of constant medication changes.
- Examines the tension between drug effectiveness in severe mental illness and side effects that can damage physical health and self-image.
- Questions the silence of major mental health advocacy groups that receive substantial pharmaceutical funding.
“It's just that I've got to navigate those waters between being big and being sane. It's just a horrible trade-off.”
What drives someone to seek a life without debilitating side effects from the very drugs meant to help them? This episode of All In The Mind zooms in on Zyprexa (olanzapine), one of the biggest-selling antipsychotics, and asks hard questions about risk, profit and patient advocacy. Host Natasha Mitchell sets the scene with lawsuits, leaked Eli Lilly documents and billions of dollars in payouts linked to claims of diabetes, explosive weight gain and other complications.
Award-winning investigative journalist Philip Daugherty talks through how “Eli Lilly had been instructing its sales force to downplay the known risks of this drug,” and questions why major advocacy groups have stayed silent while taking significant pharmaceutical funding. On the other side, David Granger from Eli Lilly Australia outlines the company’s stance: Zyprexa is presented as effective, its side effects monitored, and its risk–benefit balance defended.
He stresses that diabetes links remain unproven and that settlements were, in part, about calming fears that were pushing people off their medication altogether. Threaded through the debate is poet and advocate Sandy Jeffs, whose story brings the issue right back to the body and mind of one person living with schizophrenia. She speaks candidly about ravenous hunger, dramatic weight gain, a disastrous medication change that “triggered… a mind hell”, and the exhausting trade-off between being “big and being sane”.
Her description of feeling like a guinea pig and blaming herself for wanting to change medication will resonate with anyone who’s ever doubted their treatment choices. If you or someone you care about takes psychiatric medication, this conversation may raise uncomfortable but necessary questions about consent, information and who truly speaks for patients.
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