[simplecomplex]

Purdue never prescribed opioids to anyone. They only sold them to hospitals and doctors, after the FDA let them do it. Not sure what message punishing them is supposed to send?

But I get it. Someone dies and it’s the drug dealers fault, and punishing them will make everyone feel better. Except it doesn’t do anything about the actual problem (opioid addiction).

It feels to me like the elation here is because the Sacklers are rich and people really don’t like that, rather than any sort of victory in combating opiate addiction.

[rosser]

Please remember that Purdue were the ones who marketed Oxycontin on the premise of one dose for 12-hour pain relief.

When they learned doctors were prescribing it for eight hours, they tried to "re-train" them to use the "proper" (read: their) dosing recommendation, because there were cheaper drugs with six of eight hour doses.

Sure, the doctors made the prescriptions, but you, and I, and everyone who thinks honestly about it for two and a half seconds realizes that no matter what the recommendation is, enough people who are in bad enough pain to be prescribed oxy will take it when they need it, recommendation be damned, that to have issued that recommendation in the first place was an act of bad faith.

They marketed the drug on a lie in order to get doctors to prescribe it, which fueled — if not created — an epidemic, which has killed tens of thousands of people. Their hands are not clean, here.

[bilbo0s]

Actually, this makes me think we should be going after doctors too.

[DebtDeflation]

We should be. We should also be going after the distributors who were shipping millions of pills a year to small towns with a population of 6000. This is not an either/or situation, there is plenty of blame to go around.

[buildzr]

> that recommendation in the first place was an act of bad faith.

This seems a bit of a stretch to me.

The doctors prescribed it, even given readily available research, the FDA approved it, knowing full well this was a risk. Those are the guilty parties here. Purdue filled their role just fine, they just happened to be making an opiate and so they're getting chased for it now because China is dumping fentanyl. Pretty ridiculous really.

[simonh]

According to the congressional report:

“Purdue Pharma used front organizations and sponsored research to deceive the World Health Organization and corrupt global public health policies”

If that is true and public policy was corruptly manipulated , how can you claim that this is all ok because it was allowed by public policy?

[rjf72]

I do not agree with him, but I think you're making a much more salient point indirectly.

Public policy that can be readily manipulated by bad actors (as the drug industry is certainly full of) should not be used as the final say for anything. Systems need to be able to tolerate: corruption, false information, and true but misleading information. Our regulatory systems in general seem to struggle with any of the above. If "health authorities" (to avoid naming any particular organization) can only effectively screen out good actors inadvertently engaged in bad behavior, then they're effectively useless - because bad actors do exist, and they're vastly more dangerous than the former.

[Retric]

WHO is not a regulatory agency and does not have finally authority for anything. https://www.who.int/about/role/en/

[rjf72]

It's not just the WHO. The same arguments apply equally to e.g. the FDA who played a similar role in this by rubber stamping the drugs. And similarly it also doesn't just end at the FDA as there are numerous smaller level regulatory agencies and operators involved on the medical side. Even non-regulatory agencies, such as the American Medical Association also showed themselves to be somewhat useless by decisions such as choosing to play into lobbying for consideration of pain as a vital sign.

The same is even true of things such as the FAA and the aviation industry where there were analogous issues. All of this is emphasizing that these organizations, which can be quite the burden on 'good players', are ultimately ineffective at restraining bad players which (I suppose depending on your philosophical view) should be their primary purview.

[luckydata]

You're wrong. Purdue actively misled healthcare professionals and the public about the risks of Oxycontin.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/05/world-health-organiz...

[Retric]

They lied about the drugs which they actively marketed to doctors.

That’s far more than just manufacturing and opened them up to significantly increased liability.

[loeg]

After 2001?

The lying in marketing, over the period 1995-2001, was already litigated in 2007.

[Retric]

Yes, though they used intermediaries.

https://katherineclark.house.gov/_cache/files/a/a/aaa7536a-6...

[jrochkind1]

The Sackler's $13 billion could be used to do quite a lot about the actual problem.

[bilbo0s]

I think you underestimate the size of the problem.

But again, the Sackler's are only 8% of the problem. So if you go after them, and the owners and stockholders of the companies that provided the other 92% of opioids, and the doctors who wrote the prescriptions in bad faith, you probably come up with an amount of money that could make a dent.

[MegaButts]

I do not believe that Purdue is innocent of anything, and I would love for more evidence to be brought forward to a court of law.

https://www.statnews.com/2016/09/22/abbott-oxycontin-crusade...