<
https://theconversation.com/the-opioid-crisis-isnt-just-the-sacklers-fault-and-making-purdue-pharma-pay-isnt-enough-on-its-own-to-fix-the-pharmaceutical-industrys-deeper-problems-178710>
"You may have heard of the Sackler family and the role that they and their
privately held company, Purdue Pharma, played in the opioid crisis. One TV
series depicting the family as a villainous clan has earned 14 Emmy
nominations. Another is in the works.
Purdue is infamous for its hard-sell marketing of its powerful, long-acting
opioid OxyContin. Among its troubling tactics: co-opting legitimate medical
organizations to spread messages overstating the drug’s effectiveness and
understating its addiction risks. Sales boomed, making its owners fabulously
wealthy and building what journalist Patrick Radden Keefe memorably calls an
“empire of pain.”
Purdue’s profit-seeking became a model for other drugmakers, distributors and
pharmacy chains. The ensuing sales frenzy led to skyrocketing rates of opioid
addiction and related harms by the early 2000s – perhaps the worst
pharmaceutical crisis in U.S. history.
So when Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy settlement was revised in March 2022 to make
the family pay US$6 billion, mostly to local and state governments, the news
was greeted with at least some satisfaction. Although it looks as though no
members of that family will go to prison, the people often regarded as the
saga’s primary villains were at least paying a price for their misdeeds.
But as a historian of addictive pharmaceuticals, I see a danger in associating
the opioid crisis too closely with the Sackler family. My research has shown
that the crisis isn’t an aberration caused by the individual misdeeds of bad
actors. Punishing people who broke the law, and making business leaders pay to
repair the harms they caused, surely helps. Yet broad reforms are also needed
to prevent similar disasters from happening again."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
