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The Power to Harm: Mind, Medicine, and Murder on Trial
Examines the lawsuit brought against Prozac's manufacturer by the victims of a shooting spree
- GenresMedicine
Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
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About the author
John Cornwell
85 books48 followersJohn Cornwell is a British journalist, author, and academic. Since 1990 he has directed the Science and Human Dimension Project at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he is also, since 2009, Founder and Director of the Rustat Conferences. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters (University of Leicester) in 2011. He was nominated for the PEN/Ackerley Prize for best UK memoir 2007 (Seminary Boy) and shortlisted Specialist Journalist of the Year (science, medicine in Sunday Times Magazine), British Press Awards 2006. He won the Scientific and Medical Network Book of the Year Award for Hitler's Scientists, 2005; and received the Independent Television Authority - Tablet Award for contributions to religious journalism (1994). In 1982 he won the Gold Dagger Award Non-Fiction (1982) for Earth to Earth. He is best known for his investigative journalism; memoir; and his work in public understanding of science. In addition to his books on the relationship between science, ethics and the humanities, he has written widely on the Catholic Church and the modern papacy.
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January 7, 2009
In 1989, Joseph Wesbecker took an AK-47 assault rifle to his former place of employment, wounded 12 people and killed 8 others. Wesbecker, disabled by depression, had been on disability leave for a year, and on Prozac for a month. He had been divorced twice, suffered significant workplace stress, and had a family history marked by serious psychiatric illness. The Power to Harm tells the story of the lawsuit the injured and the heirs of the killed brought against Eli Lilly, the maker of Prozac.
The Power to Harm is a complex and disturbing book. Although it is centered around an incident of workplace violence, it also touches upon many other issues, including the use of psychoactive drugs, how they are tested, the power of the giant phamaceutical companies, the complexity of causation in cases such as this, and the ethics of secret settlements of tort cases against big corporations.
Joseph Wesbecker was no doubt impelled by a number of factors, including the many stresses and disappointments in his life, his basic temperament, and his reaction to reverses in his life. One factor may have been Prozac, which has been known to trigger suicidal and homocidal ideation. As Cornwall points out, no one really knows how such drugs as Prozac work. The theory is that they prevent the depletion of seratonin, a brain chemical, at the juncture where brain cells connect (the synapse.) But since there is no known way to measure the level of seratonin at the synapse, this is just a theory.
If mental illnesses can be treated with drugs, are all twisted thoughts, as one of Lilly's experts testified, caused by twisted molecules? That is one of the questions The Power to Harm wrestles with. And if these drugs work by altering basic brain chemistry, then don't they have to be used with extreme caution since they may cause harmful rather than beneficial effects in some users? And shouldn't doctors be advised of all significant side effects revealed by clinical trials, even if such information might tend to depress sales of the drug? It's easy to see how Lilly would argue that focussing on side effects would deprive persons who needed the drug from getting it. Part of this equation is undoubtedly the fact that Prozac accounted for fully one third of Lilly's profits, bringing some two billion dollars a year into Lilly's coffers.
After weeks of trial marked by highly technical evidence, an in depth look at Wesbecker's life and troubles, dueling experts, and cross examinations which often centered more on the personal failings of the experts than the soundness of their opinions, the trial judge made a ruling that changed the course of the trial. The plaintiffs had uncovered evidence that Lilly had been less than candid with the FDA in reporting the results of clinical trials of Prozac, messaging or manipulating the data to downplay its serious side effects, including suicidal ideation. More seriously, they had uncovered evidence that Lilly had been convicted of misdemeanors in England for covering up serious and life threatening side effects in another of its drugs. When one of Lilly's experts testified that he was satisfied that Prozac had been adequately tested because it had been approved by the FDA, the judge ruled that this made the question of Lilly's prior lying to regulatory agencies relevant and thus admissible.
At this point, the plaintiffs and Lilly entered into a secret settlement. Lilly agreed to pay the plaintiffs and undisclosed but huge amount of money. In return, the plaintiffs agreed not to introduce the explosive evidence of Lilly's lying to authorities about known and dangerous side effects of its drugs, and agreed not to pursue a case for punitive damages even if they won liability phase of the trial. Neither the judge nor the jury was informed of the settlement, and the jury returned a verdict in favor of Lilly. Lilly promptly trumpeted the verdict as a "vindication" of Prozac and its testing of Prozac. When the judge later found out about the secret settlement, he moved to change the result from a judgment by jury trial to judgment by settlement.
This scenario raises troubling questions about the whole question of secret settlements, which are often used by large companies to buy a plaintiff's silence and suppress damaging information about its behavior. Regardless of the ethics of such agreements, it is hard to see how anyone could condone letting a jury decide a case after the plaintiff had agreed not to use powerful evidence against the defendant, and then allowing the defendant to claim that the jury had vindicated it.
This was in effect the litigation equivalent of a fixed fight. That this could happen, and no one be disbarred or disciplined is deeply troubling. That Lilly was willing to pay enough money to make it happen is equally disturbing. In Lilly's testing of Prozac, and in its settlement of the Wesbecker case, the truth was the victim. Can any jury verdict in favor of a large and wealthy company ever be trusted again? If the answer is no, this book tells why.
The Power to Harm is a complex and disturbing book. Although it is centered around an incident of workplace violence, it also touches upon many other issues, including the use of psychoactive drugs, how they are tested, the power of the giant phamaceutical companies, the complexity of causation in cases such as this, and the ethics of secret settlements of tort cases against big corporations.
Joseph Wesbecker was no doubt impelled by a number of factors, including the many stresses and disappointments in his life, his basic temperament, and his reaction to reverses in his life. One factor may have been Prozac, which has been known to trigger suicidal and homocidal ideation. As Cornwall points out, no one really knows how such drugs as Prozac work. The theory is that they prevent the depletion of seratonin, a brain chemical, at the juncture where brain cells connect (the synapse.) But since there is no known way to measure the level of seratonin at the synapse, this is just a theory.
If mental illnesses can be treated with drugs, are all twisted thoughts, as one of Lilly's experts testified, caused by twisted molecules? That is one of the questions The Power to Harm wrestles with. And if these drugs work by altering basic brain chemistry, then don't they have to be used with extreme caution since they may cause harmful rather than beneficial effects in some users? And shouldn't doctors be advised of all significant side effects revealed by clinical trials, even if such information might tend to depress sales of the drug? It's easy to see how Lilly would argue that focussing on side effects would deprive persons who needed the drug from getting it. Part of this equation is undoubtedly the fact that Prozac accounted for fully one third of Lilly's profits, bringing some two billion dollars a year into Lilly's coffers.
After weeks of trial marked by highly technical evidence, an in depth look at Wesbecker's life and troubles, dueling experts, and cross examinations which often centered more on the personal failings of the experts than the soundness of their opinions, the trial judge made a ruling that changed the course of the trial. The plaintiffs had uncovered evidence that Lilly had been less than candid with the FDA in reporting the results of clinical trials of Prozac, messaging or manipulating the data to downplay its serious side effects, including suicidal ideation. More seriously, they had uncovered evidence that Lilly had been convicted of misdemeanors in England for covering up serious and life threatening side effects in another of its drugs. When one of Lilly's experts testified that he was satisfied that Prozac had been adequately tested because it had been approved by the FDA, the judge ruled that this made the question of Lilly's prior lying to regulatory agencies relevant and thus admissible.
At this point, the plaintiffs and Lilly entered into a secret settlement. Lilly agreed to pay the plaintiffs and undisclosed but huge amount of money. In return, the plaintiffs agreed not to introduce the explosive evidence of Lilly's lying to authorities about known and dangerous side effects of its drugs, and agreed not to pursue a case for punitive damages even if they won liability phase of the trial. Neither the judge nor the jury was informed of the settlement, and the jury returned a verdict in favor of Lilly. Lilly promptly trumpeted the verdict as a "vindication" of Prozac and its testing of Prozac. When the judge later found out about the secret settlement, he moved to change the result from a judgment by jury trial to judgment by settlement.
This scenario raises troubling questions about the whole question of secret settlements, which are often used by large companies to buy a plaintiff's silence and suppress damaging information about its behavior. Regardless of the ethics of such agreements, it is hard to see how anyone could condone letting a jury decide a case after the plaintiff had agreed not to use powerful evidence against the defendant, and then allowing the defendant to claim that the jury had vindicated it.
This was in effect the litigation equivalent of a fixed fight. That this could happen, and no one be disbarred or disciplined is deeply troubling. That Lilly was willing to pay enough money to make it happen is equally disturbing. In Lilly's testing of Prozac, and in its settlement of the Wesbecker case, the truth was the victim. Can any jury verdict in favor of a large and wealthy company ever be trusted again? If the answer is no, this book tells why.
May 12, 2022
(3.5/5)
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews