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Sacklers–who made $11B off opioid crisis–to pay $225M in damages

arstechnica.com

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Re: Sacklers–who made $11B off opioid crisis–to pay $225M in damages

#61

Post by DanBC »

bananabreakfast wrote: post #36
BaronVonSteuben wrote: post #9

I know everybody loves to hate on the Sacklers, but my life was dramatically better when I had access to opioids. Because of the "crisis" it has gotten really difficult to get them, even for people who need them. There are days when it's difficult to do much more than lie in bed in agony, but nobody beyond a small community of other pain sufferers seems to care. I'm at least grateful for the few good years I did get…

While you're clearly in pain and vindictive for lack of access to effective treatment, putting "crisis" in quotes like it's a manufactured epidemic with no real impact is extremely disingenuous. In 2018 ~130 people died every day in the US overdosing on opioids[1]. I'm sure they're effective for you but if people are not responsible enough to be trusted taking them without killing themselves then you might as well be…

OxyContin/oxycodone (30mg tablet)

2002 8.8 million pills

2011 781.5 million pills

The US didn't experience a massive increase of numbers of people in pain.

Re: Sacklers–who made $11B off opioid crisis–to pay $225M in damages

#62

Post by mtalantikite »

BaronVonSteuben wrote: post #18
kennywinker wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear what you're saying, but it feels like you should be placing your blame on the sacklers too - if they hadn't pushed opioids on people who didn't need them, fueling the crisis, then there would not have been this backlash you describe. Like, we shouldn't be mad at opioids, we should be mad at drug pushing profiteers.

That's a reasonable point, although if they hadn't helped make doctors more comfortable with using them, then I may not have ever gotten them in the first place as they would be stingy with them like they are now. Hard to know where I would have landed.

Did doctors not prescribe opioids for pain management before the Sacklers? My understanding was that they did but were hesitant, which considering the nature of opioids seems entirely reasonable.

When I had routine surgery a few years back the doctor insisted I take a prescription for Oxy, even though I told him I was fine. I filled it at his insistence and within a couple days could feel my body building dependence and craving more. I switched to ibuprofen as it freaked me out to feel how strong it was. It seemed very irresponsible to prescribe Oxy for something as mild as my case.

For debilitating chronic pain? For sure, these need to available. If anything Purdue pharma made this situation worse for those that actually need these drugs.

Re: Sacklers–who made $11B off opioid crisis–to pay $225M in damages

#63

Post by Chozenlaruso »

bananabreakfast wrote: post #36
BaronVonSteuben wrote: post #9

I know everybody loves to hate on the Sacklers, but my life was dramatically better when I had access to opioids. Because of the "crisis" it has gotten really difficult to get them, even for people who need them. There are days when it's difficult to do much more than lie in bed in agony, but nobody beyond a small community of other pain sufferers seems to care. I'm at least grateful for the few good years I did get…

While you're clearly in pain and vindictive for lack of access to effective treatment, putting "crisis" in quotes like it's a manufactured epidemic with no real impact is extremely disingenuous. In 2018 ~130 people died every day in the US overdosing on opioids[1]. I'm sure they're effective for you but if people are not responsible enough to be trusted taking them without killing themselves then you might as well be…

From your link:

"including prescription pain relievers, heroin, and synthetic opioids such as fentanyl"

So recreational drug abusers are included in the count? I believe the OP was only taking prescription drugs.

Is there a count somewhere of just the overdoses on prescribed opioids?

Re: Sacklers–who made $11B off opioid crisis–to pay $225M in damages

#64

Post by smegger001 »

rpgmaker wrote: post #39

Big Pharma is an easy villain to hate (and there's a lot to hate) but why aren't the doctors who prescribed all these drugs being held accountable as well?

Because the doctors were lied to by Big Pharma. they advertised Oxycontin to doctors as a drug that would not create addiction and claimed that is was safe to prescribe in large doses and for ongoing treatment.

Re: Sacklers–who made $11B off opioid crisis–to pay $225M in damages

#65

Post by titzer »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #41
wombatmobile wrote: post #19

Dupont made more than $30 billion profit selling Teflon for almost 50 years, polluting the environment by dumping untreated toxic waste from the manufacturing process into virgin West Virginia landscapes the whole time. In February 2017, DuPont settled over 3,550 lawsuits for $671 million. Dark Waters Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvAOuhyunhY

We really have to stop letting wealthy people and corporations buy their way out of legal problems. Fines and settlements clearly don't stop bad behavior as banks and polluters have been showing repeatedly. The whole thing feels like a protection racket where it's ok to do illegal stuff as long as the government gets its cut. Either somebody has to go to jail or the fines have to be on a level that they lose all of t…

IMHO, If corporations are people, then corporations can go to jail.

Re: Sacklers–who made $11B off opioid crisis–to pay $225M in damages

#66

Post by dnautics »

heymijo wrote: post #40
BaronVonSteuben wrote: post #9

I know everybody loves to hate on the Sacklers, but my life was dramatically better when I had access to opioids. Because of the "crisis" it has gotten really difficult to get them, even for people who need them. There are days when it's difficult to do much more than lie in bed in agony, but nobody beyond a small community of other pain sufferers seems to care. I'm at least grateful for the few good years I did get…

I think that maybe then you too should be mad at the Sacklers. They intentionally and knowingly deceived the market that opioids were safe. Had they not done that maybe the opioid epidemic would not have happened and you could still have access to the medicine that you are grateful for. Please do read up on how horrible they are.

do you have a reference to just how bad they were? I'd like to learn more. This whole sackler thing has been scaring me shitless because as a biochemist thinking about going back into biochemistry, my brain runs around in circles about how badly a small bit of uncertainty could be turned around in circles to screw me over, even if I believed what I did was in the best interest of most people (like what happened to Merck + Vioxx).

Re: Sacklers–who made $11B off opioid crisis–to pay $225M in damages

#67

Post by DanBC »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #7

The Sacklers engaged in unethical behavior to get people hooked on something that made them money. Easy opioid prescriptions created thousands of (mostly) functional addicts who were getting their fix in a high-quality control form via their doctor on a monthly basis. That's bad but that's not an opioid "crisis". You don't get a crisis because of a few evil billionaires. More things have to go wrong. What really turn…

You're massively under estimating how many tablets the sacklers sold.

Re: Sacklers–who made $11B off opioid crisis–to pay $225M in damages

#68

Post by makomk »

bananabreakfast wrote: post #36
BaronVonSteuben wrote: post #9

I know everybody loves to hate on the Sacklers, but my life was dramatically better when I had access to opioids. Because of the "crisis" it has gotten really difficult to get them, even for people who need them. There are days when it's difficult to do much more than lie in bed in agony, but nobody beyond a small community of other pain sufferers seems to care. I'm at least grateful for the few good years I did get…

While you're clearly in pain and vindictive for lack of access to effective treatment, putting "crisis" in quotes like it's a manufactured epidemic with no real impact is extremely disingenuous. In 2018 ~130 people died every day in the US overdosing on opioids[1]. I'm sure they're effective for you but if people are not responsible enough to be trusted taking them without killing themselves then you might as well be…

From what I can tell, the link between Purdue Pharma and the Sackler's campaign to get opioids prescribed to patients with pain - and indeed, their use to relieve pain in general - and the widespread opioid addiction and overdoae crisis seemed to be extremely tenuous and mostly pushed for political reasons. Basically, we wanted someone big and high-profile to blame that fitted into all our nice neat existing narratives about evil megacorporations and the wealthy, and plenty of journalists and prosecutors were willing to give that to us.

Re: Sacklers–who made $11B off opioid crisis–to pay $225M in damages

#69

Post by nine_k »

rubyfan wrote: post #56
nine_k wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If somebody tried to stop a train that was speeding along a wrong way by putting a wall on its way, it would end in a trainwreck. If you care about the passengers, that won't be a responsible thing to do, though technically the train would be stopped. So, a trainwreck is what we see :(

Genuinely curious the alternative you would suggest. I think people can still access opioids legally, albeit much less easy than before. There are plenty of treatment options and the right answer isn’t to let drug addicts keep on ruining their own lives and the people around them. The train has to slow down and people have to get off the train. Granted, the government can do much more to help people get treatment and…

Determine people who have opioids prescribed without a real need.

Wean them off gradually, using known programs for quitting opioids. Work with them as with patients, for once they are addicts, they are the suffering party.

Make the makers / prescribers which acted in bad faith to foot the bills. They made the damage, let them pay for repairing it.

Re: Sacklers–who made $11B off opioid crisis–to pay $225M in damages

#70

Post by deeeeplearning »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #41
wombatmobile wrote: post #19

Dupont made more than $30 billion profit selling Teflon for almost 50 years, polluting the environment by dumping untreated toxic waste from the manufacturing process into virgin West Virginia landscapes the whole time. In February 2017, DuPont settled over 3,550 lawsuits for $671 million. Dark Waters Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvAOuhyunhY

We really have to stop letting wealthy people and corporations buy their way out of legal problems. Fines and settlements clearly don't stop bad behavior as banks and polluters have been showing repeatedly. The whole thing feels like a protection racket where it's ok to do illegal stuff as long as the government gets its cut. Either somebody has to go to jail or the fines have to be on a level that they lose all of t…

No we just need to completely get rid of all regulations and Corporations will totally stop doing nefarious things becuz of da market...

They only do bad things now because those Commie Democrats put regulations on them.

/s

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