Eli Lilly Under Fire For E-Mail Glitch

Drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co. is under fire from the American Civil Liberties Union after a programming error at the company led to the disclosure of the E-mail addresses of 600 patients taking the drugmaker's Prozac antidepressant medication.

The disclosure occurred June 27 when Lilly sent an E-mail message to participants in its Medi-Messenger service, notifying them that the program would be discontinued. The service had been available as a feature on Lilly's Prozac.com Web site. While it was operational, the service let users sign up to receive daily E-mails as a reminder to take the medication.

Lilly had sent the reminders with blank E-mail address fields, but the discontinuation notices contained the E-mail addresses of the program's 600 participants, a mistake Lilly blames on a programming error.

The disclosure sets "a dangerous precedent" and constitutes an unfair and deceptive trade practice by violating the terms of the privacy policy posted on Lilly's Web site, the ACLU said in a letter to the Federal Trade Commission. The ACLU said it was notified of the disclosure by one of the affected patients and asked the FTC to investigate the incident and take appropriate action.

A company spokeswoman says Lilly regrets the disclosure and has taken steps to prevent future incidents, such as blocking outgoing E-mail from the Prozac.com site that's addressed to more than one recipient.