The Many Tendrils of Eli Lilly

No company is more foundational to Indianapolis, none more synonymous. Eli Lilly is not just a giant in Indianapolis’ economy, but also philanthropically and culturally. The Lilly Endowment fund’s numerous charities and non-profits, as well as museums such as the Children’s Museum and the Eiteljorg. Lilly and Company has a progressive image as it “aces” LGBTQ equality tests and recruits gay icons like Tan France to do publicity for new GLP-1s.

Simultaneously however, Lilly has recently found itself as a target in the ongoing protests against the Indiana Economic Development Corporation’s LEAP project in Lebanon, Indiana. How is it that such an ostensibly progressive and reputable company has found itself embroiled in controversy surrounding land use and water pollution? What can Lilly’s innumerable previous scandals reveal about their current endeavors?

In 2022, the IEDC began work on the Limitless Exploration/Advance Pace Research and Innovation (LEAP) project, which seeks to redevelop an area northwest of Lebanon into a large technology park. The IEDC has committed nearly $1 billion to the project, and Lilly is the first tenant to break ground on their new $4.5 billion factory in the district.

The project faces major concerns over water usage, with estimates running as high as 100 million gallons per day. The Indiana Finance Authority has had to conduct several rounds of water studies due to concern over the IEDC’s initial water plan, and has most recently contracted out Jacobs, which, other than being a major contractor with the US Missile Defense Agency to the tune of $151 billion, also has a partnership with Palantir specifically using Palantir’s Foundry database for waste water studies. Furthermore, Jacobs environmental record is deeply flawed at best, notably facing a major lawsuit for refusing to provide protective equipment for workers at a coal cleanup site in Tennessee. Of the 150 workers on the job, 36 died from diseases linked to the site. More recently, partially treated wastewater from a Jacobs treatment plant was dumped into a Rhode Island river.

Not only is the Indiana Finance Authority, IEDC, and Lilly contracting the water study out to a major defense contractor, it is also ignoring the multiple lawsuits that Jacobs has faced regarding its environmental practices. Indiana institutions, whether they be the IEDC or Lilly, repeatedly give contracts to unscrupulous firms. Jacobs is not only doing a major water study in Indiana, but is also a tenant at WestGate@Crane military tech park which I’ve written about here.

How is it that the firm that aces equality tests and makes major charitable donations is cozying up not only to defense contractors, but companies directly responsible for debilitating disease and cancer from environmental hazards?

Mitch Daniels is a well remembered Governor, an oft forgotten Lilly Senior Vice President, and entirely forgotten Director of the Office of Management and Budget. Before he was any of these things though, he was President of the Hudson Institute, a far right think tank formerly based in Indianapolis. This think tank has offered awards to Benjamin Netanyahu, Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, Ronald Reagan, Henry Kissinger, Rupert Murdoch, Dick Cheney, Shinzo Abe, and Mitch McConnell among others. It has also employed people like Elliott Abrams, former special envoy to Venezuela in 2019 who also plead guilty of perjury for giving false statements to Congress about the Reagan Administration’s role in Iran Contra.

The Hudson Institute was recruited to move to Indianapolis from Westchester County by the Lilly Endowment, which gave the institute $1.5 million in relocation assistance in 1984. Daniels was president of the think tank from 1987-1990, leaving to work at Lilly where within 11 years he achieved the title of Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Policy. During this period Lilly faced multiple scandals surrounding illegal marketing practices used for drugs like Zyprexa and Evista.

These scandals did not keep Daniels down however, and in 2001 he became Director of the Office of Management and Budget for President George W. Bush. Daniels was not the only Lilly alum to make it to the Bush administration though, as Lilly CEO Sidney Taurel served on the Homeland Security Advisory Council from 2002 to 2004, performing both roles simultaneously.

During Daniels’ tenure, the legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security was signed by Bush, and in it, as a last minute addition, contained a phrase which exempted Eli Lilly and other vaccine manufacturers from litigation concerning the controversial compound thimerosal. This addition was made in November of 2002, months after Taurel’s June 2002 appointment. The administration effectively shifted how the court system functions to the advantage of Lilly.

Taurel and Daniels were undoubtedly tight with Lilly during their time in George W Bush’s administration, but both eventually moved on, Taurel back to the private sector, and Daniels to Governor of Indiana, notably creating the Indiana Economic Development Corporation during his tenure.

These two were not the only connection between the Bush family and Eli Lilly however, as, is often forgotten, George HW Bush sat on the board of Lilly from 1977-1979, immediately after being the head of the Central Intelligence Agency. Only 3 years later as Vice President in 1982, HW attempted to prevent the Treasury from modifying a rule that allowed pharmaceutical companies to operate in Puerto Rico without paying federal taxes.

This rule was known as Section 936, and its estimated that pharmaceutical companies enjoyed an average tax break of $70,788 per employee based on the island. While the rule was phased out in 1996, many of its beneficiaries never left the island, one of the biggest being Eli Lilly. They continue to enjoy the cheap labor due to Puerto Rico’s constant high unemployment rate compared to the rest of the United States. Most recently, Lilly is constructing a $1.2 billion dollar plant on the colonial holding to manufacture more GLP-1s. The billion dollar plant is expected to create only 100 permanent jobs.

This is what Eli Lilly and the Bush family do. There’s a reason why 30% of Puerto Rico’s economy is pharmaceuticals. Pharmaceutical companies and their insider politicians lean on Puerto Rico’s economy to ensure 0% federal tax rate, 4% local tax rate, and a constant supply of unemployed to perform cheap construction labor. They ensure that the underdevelopment and colonial status of the island are a guarantee.

Furthermore, Bush’s past as CIA director was no issue to Lilly either, in fact, it only brought them closer. In possibly the CIA’s most outrageous scandal, MKULTRA, Eli Lilly provided LSD which the agency tested on American citizens in search of mind control and torture techniques. Eli Lilly provided the agency a near limitless supply of the drug, without regard for its uniquely evil uses. While much of this project was done in the 1950s, some have alleged that George HW Bush was involved with the CIA long before becoming head of the agency, at least as early as 1963. Bush, Lilly, and the CIA are not an accidental group, each has worked with the other, even if not all simultaneously.

We should note here too that at the same time that Vice President Bush represented the interests of Lilly and other pharma companies in the administration, Mitch Daniels was Chief Political Advisor to President Reagan. Moving on to a right wing think tank, and then a pharma company with a vested interest in holding America’s colonies was only natural for Daniels.

Daniels’ IEDC granting Eli Lilly tax breaks and environmental regulation dodges is just part of a long train, then. Eli Lilly has never been the progressive bastion of Indianapolis. It has always partnered with right wing politicians, colonial interests, and intelligence agencies. More than just partnering though, Eli Lilly has functioned as all of these things as well. It maintains a revolving door between its top executives, government offices, and defense contractors.

This is visible within just Indiana itself. The Applied Research Institute, which I wrote about giving contracts to Anduril here, was a Lilly Endowment creation. The Lilly Endowment incubated the project with $15 million in 2015. Lilly is not concerned with the implications of funding military research, and why should it be? They can survive any scandal with just another donation to Indy Pride or a racial justice initiative. Meanwhile, the same politicians who demonize Black or gay Americans fight for Lilly to continue exploiting and underdeveloping Puerto Rico.

Eli Lilly has its fingers in every pie. Its success is built on collusion with those running the state, economy, and military industrial complex. The corporation is not concerned with the lives and well being of Hoosiers, Puerto Ricans, or Americans at large. Its charitable arm functions to create a welcoming face on top of an industry that, even without its innumerable scandals, at its base, views sickness, body dysmorphia, and depression as a payday.

Americans’ sickness and depression, Puerto Rico’s poverty, and the political apparatus’ collusion are not issues to Eli Lilly, they instead represent its core business model. Therefore, when Lilly partners with a new defense contractor with a patchy environmental record, this is not an aberration, but a feature.