Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis

esquire.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 259 posts

Re: The Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis

#61

Post by username223 »

craftyguy wrote: post #30
herodotus wrote: post #15

In my experience with local philanthropy, there are donors who have no interest in "naming opportunities" and those for whom it is all about the name. To me it says a lot about the character of the donor if they specifically want as little fuss as possible about the donation, and especially if they do not want something named after them. It is the cause they support, not their own egos. Personally, the more often I s…

Sometimes buildings are named after folks just because they were awesome. Too bad it's not easy to distinguish between awesome people who had buildings named after them from the much less awesome people who essentially bought the naming rights to a building.

One indicator is whether the person was still alive when the building was named. Naming stuff after yourself when you're still alive (https://chanzuckerberg.com) is a good way to cheapen it.

Re: The Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis

#62

Post by ygaf »

ryuuchin wrote: post #51
herodotus wrote: post #15

In my experience with local philanthropy, there are donors who have no interest in "naming opportunities" and those for whom it is all about the name. To me it says a lot about the character of the donor if they specifically want as little fuss as possible about the donation, and especially if they do not want something named after them. It is the cause they support, not their own egos. Personally, the more often I s…

Reminds me of the quote by George Steinbrenner[1]. "If you do something nice for somebody, and more than just the two of you know about it, maybe you're doing it for the wrong reason" [1] https://tree.mindbloom.com/apps/inspiration/detail/quote/563...

The Bible teaches this too.

Re: The Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis

#63

Post by Animats »

... Medical Advertising Hall of Fame...

This is a real thing.[1] They really give out awards for medical advertising. Typical writeup: "Ambien dominated the insomnia market like few products ever have. Our goal was to introduce a new way of thinking about sleep, and to introduce Rozerem as a new option for the treatment of insomnia. In order to take down Goliath, Rozerem needed to spend BIG. $200 million in broadcast media spend big. With millions of eyeballs being driven to the website we had to ensure that we provided a seamless, immersive brand experience with absolutely no tradeoffs."[2]

It's am award program for scumbags.

[1] https://www.mahf.com

[2] https://www.mahf.com/digital-pioneer-award-winners/

Re: The Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis

#64

Post by Findeton »

nsedlet wrote: post #18

The Sacklers have ingratiated themselves at the highest levels of society using a fortune that's at best built on a product of dubious value, and at worst obtained at the cost of the lives of tens of thousands of people. I think this piece points to a big problem: we worship money and those that accumulate it, and often ignore the question of how much societal value was created in exchange for it. The least we can co…

Thank the government for granting them monopoly rights.

Re: The Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis

#65

Post by refurb »

QAPereo wrote: post #19
refurb wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good question! I don't know and I assume others don't as well. But we need a scapegoat right? Purdue will suffice.

Good question! I don't know and I assume others don't as well. Unsafe assumption. Why not go the self-education route before taking the "angry preacher" role so seriously?

Not angry in the least! Just surprised how quick people are to believe something without data.

I guess it's just human trait to simply problems into "that person is at fault" rather than appreciate the multiple factors that resulted in a complex problem.

Re: The Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis

#66

Post by DanBC »

joemag wrote: post #27

Aren’t the doctors to blame for this as well? It always surprised me how quickly and easily they prescribe serious painkillers. A few years ago I had a tooth pulled, and the doctor gave me prescription painkiller. In the end, I ended up using regular ibuprofen, and that was more than enough. I wonder how much of this comes pharmaceutical sales reps pressuring the doctors to use their medicine. That whole system seems…

There was some research that downplayed the addictiveness of opioids, and a push from the VA to recognise and treat more pain. Then drug companies promoted their product with time release versions, claiming this reduced the risk of addiction.

That was a devastating combination.

Re: The Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis

#67

Post by dsacco »

herodotus wrote: post #15

In my experience with local philanthropy, there are donors who have no interest in "naming opportunities" and those for whom it is all about the name. To me it says a lot about the character of the donor if they specifically want as little fuss as possible about the donation, and especially if they do not want something named after them. It is the cause they support, not their own egos. Personally, the more often I s…

I’m more of a consequentialist; I consider a larger philanthropist who cares about public attribution to be more admirable than someone who is a smaller philanthropist but doesn’t care about public attribution. Personally, I would absolutely like to have my name on something if I were to donate tens or hundreds of millions of dollars towards it.

In my opinion the intention or ego of a philanthropist is approximately negligible when it comes to their charity and donations. If a billionaire wants to solve a problem out of a sense of personal grandiosity, or in a vain attempt at figurative immortality: so be it. At least they have the capability to do something good and are actually following through with it. In a vague sense there might be more nobility in anonymous charity, but nobility doesn’t contribute real resources to a problem.

Phrased another way: if a billionaire donates $100M to a charity and a pauper donates $1 to the same charity, but the billionaire requires his name to be affiliated, which of the two is doing more “good”? If you believe the answer is the poorer person, your axioms are fundamentally incompatible with consequentialism, because you’re incorporating selflessness into your definition of good. But if you believe that the billionaire is doing more good in this example despite his vanity, you’re a consequentialist - as they say, we’ve established terms, and now we’re just haggling.

Re: The Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis

#68

Post by throwaway2048 »

Findeton wrote: post #64
nsedlet wrote: post #18

The Sacklers have ingratiated themselves at the highest levels of society using a fortune that's at best built on a product of dubious value, and at worst obtained at the cost of the lives of tens of thousands of people. I think this piece points to a big problem: we worship money and those that accumulate it, and often ignore the question of how much societal value was created in exchange for it. The least we can co…

Thank the government for granting them monopoly rights.

I can hate both the player and the game, thanks.

Especially a game that the players have a hand in rigging in their favour as hard as they can.

Re: The Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis

#69

Post by EvanAnderson »

Animats wrote: post #63

... Medical Advertising Hall of Fame... This is a real thing.[1] They really give out awards for medical advertising. Typical writeup: "Ambien dominated the insomnia market like few products ever have. Our goal was to introduce a new way of thinking about sleep, and to introduce Rozerem as a new option for the treatment of insomnia. In order to take down Goliath, Rozerem needed to spend BIG. $200 million in broadcast…

Ick! This reinforces my belief that direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs should be illegal.

Re: The Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis

#70

Post by lostlogin »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #69
Animats wrote: post #63

... Medical Advertising Hall of Fame... This is a real thing.[1] They really give out awards for medical advertising. Typical writeup: "Ambien dominated the insomnia market like few products ever have. Our goal was to introduce a new way of thinking about sleep, and to introduce Rozerem as a new option for the treatment of insomnia. In order to take down Goliath, Rozerem needed to spend BIG. $200 million in broadcast…

Ick! This reinforces my belief that direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs should be illegal.

It is nearly everywhere. New Zealand, USA and Brazil allow it.
Post reply on HN