Vaccination News Home Page

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/07/health/07DILU.html

Lawyers Say Drug Makers Knew of Diluted Products

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ANSAS CITY, Mo., Aug. 6 — Internal documents show that two drug companies knew that a pharmacist was diluting cancer drugs as long as three years before his arrest, lawyers for patients said in a court motion filed on Monday.

The motion said neither, Eli Lilly & Company nor the Bristol-Myers Squibb Company told the government of their discovery about the pharmacist, Robert Courtney, leading to untimely deaths for "countless cancer patients."

Mr. Courtney was arrested last year and pleaded guilty in February to 20 federal criminal charges of tampering with, adulterating and misbranding chemotherapy medications. He has since admitted diluting 72 drugs, dating back to at least 1992.

He faces hundreds of lawsuits claiming wrongful death and injury.

The motion said the companies detected possible fraud in 1998 by using tracking systems that determined where their drugs were being sold, in part to uncover schemes like Mr. Courtney's.

Judy Kay Moore, a spokeswoman for Eli Lilly, dismissed the new accusations, saying, "These plaintiffs' attorneys have cut and pasted, embellished and mischaracterized the documents and sworn testimony."

Bristol-Myers did not return phone calls from The Associated Press for comment.

The motion followed a decision by a Jackson County, Mo., circuit judge last week to reject a request by Bristol-Myers to keep specifics in the case under seal. The motion said that in 1998, an Eli Lilly sales representative noticed a large discrepancy between how much of the cancer drug Gemzar was bought by Mr. Courtney and how much oncologists said they were buying from him.

Eli Lilly found that Mr. Courtney's pharmacy appeared to be dispensing more than twice as much Gemzar to patients of a single Kansas City practice as Eli Lilly was selling to all retail pharmacists in Kansas in 1998, the motion said.

The motion said that the employee leading the investigation sidelined it and that nothing else was done.

Ms. Moore said the company dropped the inquiry after coming to the "routine conclusion" that Mr. Courtney's pharmacy was being supplied by a wholesaler outside the tracking system.

Vaccination News Home Page

ALL INFORMATION, DATA, AND MATERIAL CONTAINED, PRESENTED, OR PROVIDED HERE IS FOR GENERAL INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS REFLECTING THE KNOWLEDGE OR OPINIONS OF THE PUBLISHER, AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED OR INTENDED AS PROVIDING MEDICAL OR LEGAL ADVICE.  THE DECISION WHETHER OR NOT TO VACCINATE IS AN IMPORTANT AND COMPLEX ISSUE AND SHOULD BE MADE BY YOU, AND YOU ALONE, IN CONSULTATION WITH YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER.