The Family That Built an Empire of Pain
The Sackler dynasty’s ruthless marketing of painkillers has generated billions of dollars—and millions of addicts.
the family business, Purdue Pharma
—a privately held company, based in Stamford, Connecticut, that developed the prescription painkiller OxyContin.
Upon its release, in 1995, OxyContin was hailed as a medical breakthrough, a long-lasting narcotic that could help patients suffering from moderate to severe pain.
The drug became a blockbuster, and has reportedly
generated some thirty-five billion dollars in revenue for Purdue.
But OxyContin is a controversial drug. Its sole active ingredient is
oxycodone, a chemical cousin of heroin which is up to twice as powerful as morphine.
Purdue launched OxyContin with a marketing campaign that attempted to counter this at ude and change the prescribing habits of doctors.
The company funded research and paid doctors to make the case that concerns about opioid addiction were overblown, and that
OxyContin could safely treat an ever-wider range of maladies.
Sales representatives marketed
OxyContin as a product “to start with and to stay with.”
Millions of patients found the drug to be a vital salve for excruciating pain.
But many others grew so hooked on it that, between doses, they experienced debilitating withdrawal.
Since 1999, two hundred thousand Americans have died from overdoses related to OxyContin and other prescription opioids.
the crisis was initially precipitated by a shift in the culture of prescribing—a shift carefully engineered by Purdue.
“If you look at the prescribing trends for all the different opioids, it’s in 1996 that prescribing really takes off,”
Kolodny said. “It’s not a coincidence.
That was the year Purdue launched a multifaceted campaign that misinformed the medical community about the risks.”
When I asked Kolodny how much of the blame Purdue bears for the current public-health crisis, he responded,
“The lion’s share.”
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/30/the-family-that-built-an-empire-of-pain?mbid=nl_Daily%20102317&CNDID=43758549&spMaili ngID=12202455&spUserID=MTQzNTk4NzA3ODYzS0&spJobID= 1262039210&spReportId=MTI2MjAzOTIxMAS2
As with guns, drug profits beat human lives, human life