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Judge rejects Purdue Pharma's $4.5B opioid settlement

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Re: Judge rejects Purdue Pharma's $4.5B opioid settlement

#31

Post by Tuna-Fish »

hermes8329 wrote: post #12
alienchow wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fentanyl is used in epidurals, for one.

It's used in all sorts of surgical procedures. I've had it a few times, used as a relatively minor painkiller under those circumstances. Which sounds crazy considering how much news is about how strong it is. But it works well in those controlled circumstances

Fentanyl that you get in an OR and the "fentanyl" on the streets are actually two different chemicals.

The street drug "fentanyl" is actually carfentanil, which is about 100 times more potent that fentanyl (or about 5000 times more potent than heroin). It is favored by criminals because when it's highly concentrated, you can fit ~the same amount of doses in a suitcase that with heroin would take a 20ft container. That suitcase, when bought from a legitimate Chinese pharmaceutical manufacturer, will also cost very little. Then if you can smuggle it into the states, you can run a billion-dollar drug empire from it, and never have to smuggle in anything again.

This is why all supply-side measures against opiates are never going to work again. There are already enough of them in the hands of criminals in the US to cover the demand for decades, if not centuries. It's also why "fentanyl" on the street is so deadly. When the active ingredient is so potent and arrives concentrated, if the dilution process is even a little uneven, a single dose can easily be accidentally a 100 times more potent than you expect it to be.

Even if you use other drugs, never use street fentanyl for any reason.

Re: Judge rejects Purdue Pharma's $4.5B opioid settlement

#32

Post by diimdeep »

dstick wrote: post #16

Good. For those that haven't watched them yet, there are 3 John Oliver segments on the subject that will back up the "Good." statement: Opioids https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pdPrQFjo2o Opioids II https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qCKR6wy94U Opioids III (this one focuses 100% on the Sacklers) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaCaIhfETsM

Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dopesick_(miniseries)

Re: Judge rejects Purdue Pharma's $4.5B opioid settlement

#33

Post by CaptArmchair »

fallingknife wrote: post #17

Doctors prescribe drug -> pharmacy dispenses drug -> pharmacy orders from manufacturer. All I hear about is pharmacies and manufacturers getting sued, but why not doctors? Why do they seem to get off the hook when they are the main cause. Sure, Perdue marketed it to doctors (and I don't even see a way that pharmacies were responsible at all), but "I was manipulated by marketing" isn't a convincing defense from an exp…

Oh, but they are:

https://www.wrshlaw.com/blog/medical-malpractice/medical-mal...

The heart of the issue is that it's a legally approved drug. That's where the debate moves into questions like: To what extent can a doctor prescribe a drug before it can be perceived as medical malpractice?

Since the 2010s, states and federal government in the U.S. have started to enact countermeasures against the Opioid Crisis. This includes cracking down on pharmacists and doctors who over-prescribe:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opioid_epidemic_in_the_United_...

Reading into the above, you'll notice that the story is far more complex. It's a "wicked" problem with many in's and out's. On the surface level, fixing this seems easy, until you start digging into this and you see complex interests, countless stakeholders, political tensions, power structures, dependencies on other policy issues, etc. add to the complexity.

Re: Judge rejects Purdue Pharma's $4.5B opioid settlement

#34

Post by GeekyBear »

I've got to say that I am pleasantly surprised, since it was pretty obvious that the fix was in.

The Feds and forty-three states had already approved a settlement that that only required the family return a fraction of their ill-gotten gains, and stripped the victims of their right to seek redress in the courts.

If ever there was a case that called for piercing the corporate veil and clawing back all of the ill-gotten earnings, this would be it.

Re: Judge rejects Purdue Pharma's $4.5B opioid settlement

#35

Post by sidewndr46 »

GeekyBear wrote: post #18
tialaramex wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem was never that they don't work the problem was that they're addictive . So since they do work this means it remains appropriate to prescribe them, it just isn't appropriate to give them to everybody to pop one every day before work and say it's "non-addictive". Drugs that work but have a terrible reputation are almost always still available. For example Thalidomide works, but it causes birth defects. Well…

We learned the lesson that opioids are too addictive to be used to treat everyday pain back in the 1970's. However, Purdue Pharma's claim to fame with opioids was that their time release formulation was not addictive, so unlike traditional opioids these could be safely used on a daily basis. Obviously, this claim was fraudulent. Opioids still have their place, for treating terminal cancer patients, for instance. Shor…

The way I understand it is that time release opioids are in fact not addictive when used as directed by the manufacturer. However, they are also ineffective for most patients. As a result, doctors just up the dosage. This winds up being effective and addictive for many patients.

This is just what I have read, I have never been addicted to anything.

Re: Judge rejects Purdue Pharma's $4.5B opioid settlement

#36

Post by op00to »

oneoff786 wrote: post #15
skywal_l wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what are the the criteria to decide legitimacy of those needs? Pain is a symptom. It is your body signaling a problem. Indeed, sometimes, there are no solution to those problems but I doubt that all those who got prescribed opioids and got addicted didn't have an underlying solvable problem. If you are obese because you eat too much and your knees hurt, the solution is not an opioid. The whole discourse about pai…

You seem to have made up the example of obese knees with no prior knowledge of what actually causes opioid prescription as evidence that it “might” not have good foundations. You realize that’s backwards right? Throwing out a made up example with no idea if it’s representative is just distracting. This entire post would be better reduced to “what are the most common reasons for legitimate opioid prescription”

That wouldn’t let the poster signal that he’s better than others.

Re: Judge rejects Purdue Pharma's $4.5B opioid settlement

#37

Post by tialaramex »

GeekyBear wrote: post #18
tialaramex wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem was never that they don't work the problem was that they're addictive . So since they do work this means it remains appropriate to prescribe them, it just isn't appropriate to give them to everybody to pop one every day before work and say it's "non-addictive". Drugs that work but have a terrible reputation are almost always still available. For example Thalidomide works, but it causes birth defects. Well…

We learned the lesson that opioids are too addictive to be used to treat everyday pain back in the 1970's. However, Purdue Pharma's claim to fame with opioids was that their time release formulation was not addictive, so unlike traditional opioids these could be safely used on a daily basis. Obviously, this claim was fraudulent. Opioids still have their place, for treating terminal cancer patients, for instance. Shor…

Also humans vary in their ability/ desire to ween themselves off.

One of my acquaintances needed fentanyl lollipops to manage the incredible amount of pain he was in. Once the surgeries and other treatment were finished he got off opioids, in maybe a year or two.

Re: Judge rejects Purdue Pharma's $4.5B opioid settlement

#38

Post by frankfrankfrank »

GeekyBear wrote: post #18
tialaramex wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem was never that they don't work the problem was that they're addictive . So since they do work this means it remains appropriate to prescribe them, it just isn't appropriate to give them to everybody to pop one every day before work and say it's "non-addictive". Drugs that work but have a terrible reputation are almost always still available. For example Thalidomide works, but it causes birth defects. Well…

We learned the lesson that opioids are too addictive to be used to treat everyday pain back in the 1970's. However, Purdue Pharma's claim to fame with opioids was that their time release formulation was not addictive, so unlike traditional opioids these could be safely used on a daily basis. Obviously, this claim was fraudulent. Opioids still have their place, for treating terminal cancer patients, for instance. Shor…

You touch on the core issue, but I would like to highlight it. At the core, the opioid issue is not really about opioids at all, it too is just a symptom of a far greater issue, corruption, rot, degeneration of the system. And of course that manifests itself in ways like this "opioid epidemic" that is really no different than what Pablo Escobar or El Chapo were doing; they just didn't have the connections and were not part of the identity group that makes up the ruling class, something they may have learned even no amount of money can buy you into … ignoring all their less than sophisticated antics for a moment.

The Sacklers are just purely evil people that were part of the system of evil people who are the ruling class. That's fundamentally why they got away with what objectively is mass murder and even essentially treason, because the ruling class they are a part of is no longer a group that has the USA or its people in its interests. The American people and America are clearly well beyond their circle of interests and priorities. We now have not just the "opioid epidemic" to prove that, but the total and complete hollowing out of the American economy and also the complete burying of America under masses of debt. Not just the American, but the whole Trans-Atlantic ruling class are objectively made up of abusive, predatory, parasitic, evil people. Their actions and words speak for themselves, no amount of postulation required.

The only other alternative is that they are utterly incompetent to such a degree that they are mentally ill with something like schizophrenia or some other psychosis.

But one must assume that since they were actively and zealously behind all that they now lay at the feet of regular people of their own counties and societies (colonialism, slavery, etc.) that they too now are actively behind this new plunder and enslavement to debt and erosion of currency and value. Why would they not be, they have only ever gotten away with it, barring a few revolutions here and there before they learned to control them.

Re: Judge rejects Purdue Pharma's $4.5B opioid settlement

#40

Post by jeltz »

starklevnertz wrote: post #3

Can anyone explain why opioids are still being sold and prescribed?

Because they work. When I had a relatively mild hip fracture (greater throcanter broken clean off) they enabled me to walk and sleep. I went off them as quickly as I could and switched to paracetamol only, but the first week would have been hell without them. Sure I could have survived on week of pain but one week of opiates has no risk of addiction.
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