A $1 Billion Email Gaffe

Jake writes in with the story behind an explosive NYTimes scoop last week. It seems that the Times's pharmaceutical industry reporter, Alex Berenson, scored a page-one blockbuster when he revealed that Eli Lilly was looking to reach a settlement with federal prosecutors over the company's alleged inappropriate marketing of anti-psychotic drug Zyprexa. A settlement figure of $1 billion was mentioned. This scoop dropped into Berenson's inbox when a lawyer for one of Lilly's retained firms mis-addressed an email to a colleague with the same last name as that of the Times reporter. Some online observers are speculating that auto-complete is to blame, but this has not been confirmed.
Update: 02/08 17:19 GMT by KD : Jake writes in with an update: it seems that while Berenson did receive a misdirected e-mail from Pepper Hamilton, that e-mail did not contain a detailed description of the status of the Eli Lilly settlement talks. Berenson got his story from other sources.

Comments

Eli Lilly and Bush

[j_m_downing]

Slightly offtopic: Eli Lilly is another of the creepy companies the Bush family has deep ties with. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eli_Lilly_Controversy#Eli_Lilly_and_the_Bush_Family Are they just attracted to grody companies of dubious morals, or do they help make them that way?

Speaking of Post Cards

[hax0r_this]

Back when I turned 18 I got thing in the mail from the Selective Service suggesting that if I had not already registered with them, I could simply put my name, address, date of birth, social security number, etc on the back of this handy dandy prepaid postcard included and stick it in my mailbox. I've seen this mentioned a few places, including a transcript from Congress at some point a while back when someone brought it up, but as of a year and a half ago or so they are apparently still mailing these things out. At the time I felt like I should have been shocked, but for some reason I wasn't...