[shihching]

Perverse, plentiful incentives to addict and sell -- or invest in the manufacturer who does so -- act quicker than panels of doctors, and dodge responsibility too easily.

Living long lives as a beacons of philanthropic humanism on top of your legal drug empire (or profits gained through accompanying ownership) counteracts much stigma accrued from the deaths of your customers.

> On Tuesday [July 17, 2017], OxyContin manufacturer Raymond Sackler died at the age of 97. The same day, 91 other Americans died due to lethal overdoses of the pill that made Sackler a billionaire. Sackler died in comfort, in a hospital bed, with the best possible medical care, “following a brief illness."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/raymond-sackler-oxyconti...

[abakker]

A bit ad hominem, right? Do we complain about Alfred Nobel having invented dynamite, which has been used to kill people?Pain medicine especially seems like a place where we can't rush to judgement. Even if he acted badly, the drug has done good for some people. Billionaires acting philanthropically is probably better than them not acting that way.

[shihching]

The Huffington Post article is written by an anti-corporate former heroin addict who, yes, clearly holds animus against those who profited off of opiates.

> By convincing doctors that OxyContin was “safer,” offering financial support and special perks to family physicians who were willing to push the drug, and investing millions in a marketing campaign that claimed OxyContin was not only harmless but beneficial, Purdue Pharma cornered the pain pill market. By 2003, Purdue was selling $1.6 billion of the pill annually.

The crux of his condemnation is the incentivization of doctors to prescribe -- which one could call bribery. Also, the misrepresentation of known addictive and deleterious long term health effects, which I believe could likely be demonstrated through internal company documents.

Wealth allows the purchase of goodwill at a discount price -- the ultimate destination of Mr. Sackler hinges on both the wilfulness and premeditation of his capitalist technique and the breadth and compassion of his philanthropy.

Collecting and displaying Oriental artwork appears to be at the center of his humanism -- the other side of which is biomedical research. I have not scrutinized the publications emerging from the Sackler School of Medicine in Tel Aviv, but for the sake of his soul and millions of prescription opiate addicts, I hope the papers reveal cures proportionate to his profits.

[kolbe]

(a) The marginal benefit to pain assistance over heroin/morphine is almost nothing. Certainly not tens of billions of dollars of marginal improvement.

(b) It's only an ad hom if there's an argument being made, and that argument is something other than "that guy is an asshole."