Purdue Pharma, at center of opioid epidemic, files for bankruptcy (OT)

An article about the serious legal problems now being faced by a company apparently at the center of the opioid epidemic.

Purdue Pharma, owned the article says by the Sackler family, and "... accused of triggering the nation's epidemic of opioid addiction through its sale of the profitable but highly addictive painkiller OxyContin" filed for bankruptcy yesterday.

The article describes what appear to be maneuverings by the family and company to protect its assets, and counteractions by prosecutors.
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From the article:

"The company used aggressive, allegedly misleading, sales tactics to push physicians to prescribe millions of doses of its dangerously addictive pills."

"More than 200,000 people have died of prescription opioid overdoses since 1999."

and

"The bankruptcy will also raise the stakes on legal sparring over how much of the personal fortunes of the billionaire Sackler family, which owns Purdue, will be available to compensate plaintiffs."

I hope I'm right in saying this, but I don't recall there ever being a scandal of this proportion regarding any PCa drugs. We can debate the costs of some of them, to be sure, but I don't recall this particular kind of trouble ever occurring with any of the PCa drugs we are all familiar with. Am I wrong?

One hopes that people, especially on the marketing side, will learn from this opioid tragedy, and its severe consequences, but one has to wonder about that.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/purdue-pharma-drugmaker-accused-of-fueling-the-opioid-epidemic-files-for-bankruptcy/ar-aahlumd?ocid=spartandhp

One of the horrible things about the "opiate crisis" is that the people who have chronic pain, resulting from a variety of ailments, including cancer, and do not abuse their medication, are getting the shaft, and being stigmatized and denied the medicine they need to live their lives.

I also note that despite cigarette smoking being responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year in the U.S. alone, including 41,000+ deaths resulting from secondhand smoke, there is no crisis, no alarming media reports, no campaign to end it, nothing.

As mattam alludes, the business of business is to sell. When it comes to buying into a sales pitch, personal responsibility plays a very large role.

I am so thankful that my mother was able to get them the last 4 yrs of her life living with ALS. The nerve pain she lived with was bad enough with opiods. What's crazy is how many people are killed in car accidents and we keep raising the speed limits, people misuse marijuana and we legalize it. Now people are dying from electronic cigarettes and nothing is said. What a crazy world!! Everybody needs to take responsilbilty for the opiod crisis. Rich CEO's of drug companies, the doctors, and the people using them!! JMHO

Larry

One day you're helping mankind and the next? Public enemy number one.


I'll leave it at that.

So far Pharma has agreed to pay 26 states 10-12 billion to settle. Other states are still in the hunt. What will the states do with the money?
What did the states do with the "zillion" they got from the tobacco settlement. Certainly there were many quit smoking adverts. Though in fact, many who quit did so because taxes priced them out of the habit. No idea where those taxes went. Maybe educating kids about the dangers? D.A.R.E. seems to have had minimal impact

Whose fault is it, did Pharma backpedal the risks, lie about addiction? Maybe. I don't know but I do know that every doctor getting out of med school knows that opioids are addictive. Is it the busy Dr's fault? The Doc gets a patient who fell on the ice, the pain's (real or not) so bad they can't sleep, NASIDS don't touch the pain. The Doc prescribes an opioid, doesn't matter which, they're all addictive and dangerous. Maybe it's the Pharmacist's fault, too busy to check each patients past prescriptions. It might vary by state but in some places there's an online record of past prescriptions but it takes time to check.
Once people have been cut off they have to go to the street. Some of that comes from pills in the bathroom cabinet that have never been disposed of. A lot comes from China or the cartels. The cartels even build semi-semi-submersables that can carry tons of dope, the bad stuff.

I used oxycontin left over from a back surgery that I saved, for pain after a penile implant. My implant surgeon would not give me a prescription for pain medication even though he had me pumped to 90% and the pain was 20 on a scale of 1-10. Off topic 200,000 deaths since 1999. 125,000 abortions in one day. Are opioids a real problem or just the topic of the day.

So, these drugs that killed hundreds of thousands were FDA approved, right? And the MDs prescribing them did not know how addictive they were?

ddyss said...
Marijuana is a pain killer and addictive as well and I am sure it kills even more - it’s legal in many states - wonder if that will ever have a similar story.

I would not be surprised to hear *some* people insist weed is GOOD for your lungs, despite it having many of the same harmful substances as cigarettes (and the potheads never even think of the fact that dope smokers hold those chemicals in their lungs longer than cigarette smokers, so they can get high).

Buddy Blank said...

ddyss said...
Marijuana is a pain killer and addictive as well and I am sure it kills even more - it’s legal in many states - wonder if that will ever have a similar story.

BillyBob@388 said...
Has any one ever died of MJ over dose? EDIT: I'm asking that because I have resuscitated many a drug over dose before my retirement, but I don't recall ever having to resuscitate an MJ over dose. But maybe it has happened?

A MJ overdose per se? Probably not. Death from MJ being mixed with other drugs. For sure. Deaths from lung cancer from MJ use? Most certainly.

Billy add this to your Book of Wisdom: Grass despite it being "natural" is bad for your health.[/quote.......................................................................................................................................................................

LOL! Really? All ready? Ha! Gotta love it! "Your book of wisdom......Despite being natural"? Here we go, it doesn't take long. Maybe I am misreading you, but that doesn't sound all that friendly. Hopefully I am wrong. Sure would like to be able to post here without having to feel like I am in combat. Buddy, I suppose you have not participated in a lot of drug over dose resuscitations, so maybe you don't realize: if there is a death with MJ mixed with other drugs- it's the other drugs. Smoking- MJ or anything else- bad for your lungs and general health? Probably. But of course MJ, like Oxycontin, can be consumed without smoking it. And with the THC removed or grown as a low THC type, it is even safer with apparently significant health benefits, or so some claim. In fact, the FDA claims such, as they have recently approved a horrendously expensive drug that is nothing more than a low THC version of concentrated products found in MJ. Turns out to be far better for certain seizure disorders than all of their other drugs which have far worse SEs.

But, back to the OP and my comment on it: the FDA approved these drugs as safe and effective. Did they- and the prescribing docs- really not know how powerfully addictive they were? Apparently not, it seems they were just ignorant of these facts, despite all of the ( most likely ) double blind, placebo controlled studies. Or at least studies of some kind.

PS, BB did you come out of hibernation? 😉 Good to hear from you again.

Billy so you think MJ is good for your lungs? Harmless?

There used to be a saying back a few years... potheads can't remember the brains they lost. Has a ring of truth to it.

mattam said...
Seems like I recall that back in the day, doctors were offered perks from drug makers such as cruise ship vacations, presumably based on writing scripts for their products. Maybe that no longer applied in the “opioid era” - if in fact such a practice ever did occur.

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Well, if that's the case, then there Ya go. And though I have been out of the business for about 5 years now, when I was in it, I sure knew of things such as that happening.

mattam said...
PS, BB did you come out of hibernation? 😉 Good to hear from you again.

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Thanks Mattam. Yes, I decided to check back in after my little vacation. I appear to remain a lightning rod for some though, vacation didn't help on that! ;)

halbert said...
I also recall reading some discussion of why the state's attorney generals were going after Purdue as a group. It had a lot to do with the massive give-aways to doctors along with the incentive packages given by Purdue to 'high prescribers'.

To BB: again, I have no problem with 'big pharma'--as long as they behave responsibly. They are, literally, messing with the lives of real people, so they need to be held to a high standard. It's along the same lines, when a while back the maker of Epi-Pen basically doubled the price overnight--not because it suddenly got more expensive to manufacture, but because the market would handle the price increase. I also have no problem with companies making profits. But..there is such a thing as price gouging, and it has to be dealt with harshly.

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Massive give aways and incentives? Well, again, that would explain a lot. And it also puts a bit of jaundice on the studies/science we get from these folks, telling us what is safe and effective, or for that matter, telling us what is not safe and effective. Seems to me. Such massive profit potential can corrupt everything. I suppose the nightly prime time commercials should indicate that potential. "ask your doctor about XYZ medicine".

Buddy Blank said...
Billy so you think MJ is good for your lungs? Harmless?

There used to be a saying back a few years... potheads can't remember the brains they lost. Has a ring of truth to it.

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Buddy, I have no idea. I would assume that smoking anything is bad for your lungs, which is why I stopped doing so for good 36 years ago. But, I have seen no RCTs showing how harmful- or not - smoking MJ is. They might be there, I have not looked since I don't smoke it. All I said was that I have never resuscitated(or attempted to) a drug over dose/death where the cause was considered to be MJ. Compared to the hundreds of thousands of deaths that are related somehow to these FDA approved drugs, the subject of this thread. there might be folks out there that have seriously harmed themselves, or even might be some OD deaths, from MJ for all I know. I just never saw one during my 36 years as a resuscitator.

In addition, I mentioned the use of prescription CBD oil to treat certain types of seizures, with far more success than all the previous drugs and with-far as I know- no negative SEs, unlike the previous drugs. (but of course with the usual horrendous price tag).

I have used OTC CBD oil, in fact I am going to go get some more today just to see if it will be of any benefit for this nagging hip pain. I am not certain how much help it has been in the past- I am always trying so many things if I get a good result I am never quite sure which thing was a benefit, if any. But I can say that I have not noticed any SEs whatsoever, nor have several other folks I know who have tried it. It is a little pricey, but nothing like the 30K or so per year of the prescription version.

Pratoman said...
Please remember that discussions of marijuana are allowed only as they relate to medical uses.

Also, lets play nice, even if we have different points of view
🤗🤗🤗

That is the best advice/request that could be given. I honestly always try to play nice. (last thing I want to do is argue and/or be hostile, rather than just have a friendly discussion or even debate) I don't know if I succeed or not(probably don't), but I always strive to do so. But I appear to be a lightning rod for a few folks, and I don't know why. Honestly, I don't mean to offend, and I don't mean to be nasty. But it is truly amazing that, after a several month vacation taken in response to the locking of my last thread after I offended a few folks(very easy to do in today's world, seems to me), that my very first posts could so quickly lead to some sarcastic responses.

However, Buddy, if I misread your posts, and they were not sarcastic, then I apologize to you, sir! It might be I am being over sensitive and too easily offended! And if I already failed to play nice, I apologize to all.

Post Edited (BillyBob@388) : 9/19/2019 12:26:08 PM (GMT-6)