Olanzapine: Abelson Ch. 4

If a drug company is honest about the side-effects of the drug it manufactures, it establishes itself and the drug as more credible. In the example with "The Official SYPREXA Olanzapine Site," Eli Lilly and Company damage their credibility when other websites attack Olanzapine, and expose its harmful possibilities, when the official olanzapine site doesn't even mention these side-effects. If we were talking about a website that sold vacuum cleaners, it should not be required for the website to describe thier product's potential defects or shortcomings. (Consumers who are really interested in the quality of the vaccuum cleaner can find this information anyways simply by looking at online blogs and sources such as the Consumer Report.) However, drugs are more serious of a product than vaccuum cleaners. They have the potential to do a great amount of good, but they have the potential to do a great deal of harm as well.

Drug companies should be required to reveal harmful side-effects; if they fail to do so, they will only end up damaging their reputation as a reliable company. I don't agree with doing illegal things to obtain confidential documents (such as the way that the Olanzapine-Blood glucose changes was assummed to be obtained unethically), but companies such as Lilly should be aware that exposure in this day and age is almost inevitable! It seems that this is a reoccuring theme in Abelson and Shirky's books; with a growing number of people who are skilled in technology, especially on the internet, people should make sure that if they have something to hide, they better set it straight before someone else does.