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How the Sacklers shifted $10.8B of an opioid fortune built on OxyContin

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121–130 of 230 posts

Re: How the Sacklers shifted $10.8B of an opioid fortune built on OxyContin

#121
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are supposed to have learned about it in medical school. If not, that's fine, maybe doctors shouldn't be allowed to prescribe and maybe only pharmacists should be allowed. My point is that it's a very valuable professional quality and we should put the responsibility where the quality is.

This is (well, was) a new drug. Doctors cannot have learned about a drug in medical school when that drug did not exist when they were studying. My parents are retired Dutch GPs who also ran a small pharmacy[0], so I know a little about how this works, at least in the Netherlands (I admit that this is a pretty big caveat, because (aside from the obvious biases that this introduces) the opioid crisis doesn't exist her…

Oxycodone was first formulated in 1917, so it's not really "new".

There are lots of FDA-approved drugs that are highly inappropriate for most patients. One of the reasons we tolerate the professional status of physicians is because of their purported expertise in prescribing these drugs safely. If they don't know the function and habit-forming potential of opioids, one might well question that expertise. They aren't regulated in any sense by FDA, and they can't blame FDA for their ignorance.

Re: How the Sacklers shifted $10.8B of an opioid fortune built on OxyContin

#122
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it. Frédéric Bastiat

Bastiat is specifically referring to rent seeking, occupational licensing, protectionism, etc. The Bastiat quote is on point if your criticism of Purdue Pharma is that it profited from the medical licensing laws and drug prohibition laws that unfairly proscribes teenagers from buying madak cigarettes on the free market. If the criticism is merely that they made money selling addictive drugs, this really isn't what th…

a legal system that authorizes it

They did not make billions from selling yet another opioid of which there are dozens available cheaply. They made billions by subverting the medical system largely though completely legal means. Essentially they sold yet another synthetic street drug through Doctors rather than on street corners. And this worked because they jumped through the correct hoops and advertised in the correct manner.

Re: How the Sacklers shifted $10.8B of an opioid fortune built on OxyContin

#123
post #48
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are supposed to have learned about it in medical school. If not, that's fine, maybe doctors shouldn't be allowed to prescribe and maybe only pharmacists should be allowed. My point is that it's a very valuable professional quality and we should put the responsibility where the quality is.

Before a doctor gets a new drug it should’ve been approved by a government agency and gone through trails. The company selling it trains doctors on its use and side affects. The problem is the company was lying and telling half truths. Not only that they pushed use cases where something as strong as Oxy was not needed. Pill mill doctors are a different story and they are prosecuted for it.

Pharma distributors used various shady techniques - originally pioneered by Purdue - to persuade doctors to push the drug.

https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2020/01/12/opioid-kickback...

And while some jail time happened - for some of the distributors - the sentences were relatively light.

https://www.npr.org/2020/01/23/798973304/pharmaceutical-exec...

Purdue kept a database of doctors willing to prescribe their products "for pain relief" and have now switched sides to push a drug that treats opioid addiction under a new marketing campaign and a new industry front.

https://www.genesisrecovery.com/who-caused-the-opioid-crisis...

Re: How the Sacklers shifted $10.8B of an opioid fortune built on OxyContin

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is (well, was) a new drug. Doctors cannot have learned about a drug in medical school when that drug did not exist when they were studying. My parents are retired Dutch GPs who also ran a small pharmacy[0], so I know a little about how this works, at least in the Netherlands (I admit that this is a pretty big caveat, because (aside from the obvious biases that this introduces) the opioid crisis doesn't exist her…

Oxycodone was first formulated in 1917, so it's not really "new". There are lots of FDA-approved drugs that are highly inappropriate for most patients. One of the reasons we tolerate the professional status of physicians is because of their purported expertise in prescribing these drugs safely. If they don't know the function and habit-forming potential of opioids, one might well question that expertise. They aren't…

> Oxycodone was first formulated in 1917, so it's not really "new"

The drug being talked about was given a new time-release formulation which was described as less addictive.

The drug company spent a lot of time and money distorting the image around addictiveness.

Here's a list of things Purdue did: https://www.feinberg.northwestern.edu/sites/ipham/conference...

Re: How the Sacklers shifted $10.8B of an opioid fortune built on OxyContin

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sorry but this is so naive. They were billionaires yesterday and they’re going to be billionaires tomorrow. Their reputation is going to be fine because we live in a society that absolutely worships money and those who have it. People with that kind of money can pay to scrub the internet.

> People with that kind of money can pay to scrub the internet. I'm sorry but this is so naive. Maybe true if you've got a bit of money and a little bit of notoriety, but I don't think that it would be possible to dissociate the Sacklers' name from the opioid crisis anytime soon.

[deleted]

Re: How the Sacklers shifted $10.8B of an opioid fortune built on OxyContin

#126

If we had a justice system, that $10.8 billion would be recoverable, and used to try to rehabilitate the victims. But we don't have a justice system. We have a legal system, and a financial system.

Don't forget, there is also a reputation system. It should be made clear that whatever the justice system decides, much of their wealth has derived from an activity that was net negative for humanity. And yes, I have heard that PR companies exist to clean up reputations, but it should be possible to at least make it clear what happened. I think I read somewhere that a hedge fund had decided not to take an allocation…

In 5-10 years we get a longform glossy magazine profile of one of the younger Sacklers. The headline will end with a question mark.

It will talk about how the heir has become an active philanthropist, dedicating his/her life to “making things right”. It will list their accomplishments since the family was exposed. It will end with an open ended question about “the sins of our fathers.” It will really make you think.

They will spend their life slowly giving away half their fortune, one gala at a time. They will start a foundation. It will have a name not too dissimilar from a pharmaceutical brand name—meaningless but vaguely positive (too bad Altria is taken). They will max out that foundation’s board with Big Names in that world—just so long as their name isn’t Sackler.

Their investment of half of the payout they kept will grow larger than the original started at, and they’ll never pay more than a nominal dime in taxes thanks to those sweet 501(c)3 write-offs.

Their reputation will be laundered, at least enough for their checkbooks invited back to the parties. And their kids? Home free.

In a few generation the hundreds of thousands of deaths on their hands will be forgotten, except by the families of the victims that were just the cost of doing business for them.

Re: How the Sacklers shifted $10.8B of an opioid fortune built on OxyContin

#128
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fighting battles through protests seems like it is mainly a case of who can afford better PR companies, win the war of attrition and has a whole lot of luck along the way. In addition, at least with a court case you can be sure public opinion doesn't just forget about it in a few months and moves on to the next hot item to protest.

Yeah, cuz that how every social change occurred in the world. Via two people talking in the room... Give me a break, legal system never changes itself. From Ghandi, Bolshevik revolution, Solidarity, French revolution to MLK. Change only occurs due to mass civil dissonance or armed revolutions. Never because you talk in a court and all people in power agreed you make sense.

[deleted]

Re: How the Sacklers shifted $10.8B of an opioid fortune built on OxyContin

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why blame doctors when the makers of OxyContin told Congress for years that it was safe and non-addictive. It's a systemic issue with various actors/stakeholders whom all are partially to blame in various capacities.

Both should be blamed. There were plenty of doctors who noticed that the OxyContin promises didn’t work out but they kept prescribing anyway.

While doctors do share some blame, they were actively targetted by Purdue with brochures, slick salesmen etc.How is was allowed is the real issue for me.
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