INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana, Jan 13 (AFP) - US pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly said Thursday it plans to correct inaccurate statements about its popular antidepressant Prozac that have been circulating in the news media based on papers anonymously sent to the British Medical Journal.
In an open letter published in the major US dailies and on the firm's Internet site, Eli Lilly provided a detailed response to the medical journal, which in late 2004 published confidential documents from the drugmaker appearing to establish a link between Prozac and violent or suicidal behavior.
The documents cited suggest that Eli Lilly had known about some serious side effects of Prozac's main active ingredient, fluoxetine, since the 1980s and had sought to minimize them.
The papers, which are now in the hands of the US Food and Drug Administration, were not presented in a 1994 trial between Eli Lilly and victims of a 1989 massacre in Kentucky that left eight people dead and 12 injured. The man who carried out the crime was on Prozac and later committed suicide.
The firm had already denied the accusations in late December.
"While it is important that we correct false assertions about how Lilly manages its data, it is even more important to set the record straight for patients who rely on our medicines for their daily well-being," chief executive Sidney Taurel said in the new statement.
"It is simply wrong to suggest that information on Prozac was ever missing or that important research data on the benefits and possible side effects of the drug were not available to doctors and regulators," Taurel declared.
"We are confident that there is more known about Prozac after two decades of rigorous study than any other comparable medication," he added.
01/13/2005 15:10 GMT - AFP