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Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

washingtonpost.com

51–60 of 691 posts

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, words have specific meanings that should accurately reflect the nuances of the situation at hand.

Force: >violence, compulsion, or constraint exerted upon or against a person or thing[0] Compell: >1. to drive or urge forcefully or irresistibly >2. to cause to do or occur by overwhelming pressure[1] [0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/force [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/compel

So? "Force to trust" like op wrote made absolutely no sense.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#52
post #11
post #4

>The court on a 5-4 vote ruled that the bankruptcy court did not have the authority to release the Sackler family members from legal claims made by opioid victims. As part of the deal, the family, which controlled the company, had agreed to pay $6 billion that could be used to settle opioid-related claims, but only in return for a complete release from any liability in future cases. Is this actually a positive outcom…

US$ 6bi to be disbursed across hundreds of local governments to use for settlements over millions of individuals is nothing compared to the damage the Sacklers inflicted. On top of that having a sweet deal to never see any future liability case is an egregious misjustice. The minimum would be for them to be arrested, if we pushed drugs to someone who eventually dies from it we wouldn't be getting just a fine. At the…

It really depends on what you mean by "pushed drugs". If you or I recommended that someone should get an oxycodone prescription from their doctor, and they eventually died after getting that prescription, I don't think we'd get arrested or fined. (And the Sacklers were never getting criminal immunity in the first place.)

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more complicated than that. They knew it was killing people and turning thousands (millions) into addicts and they kept pushing doctors to use it at all costs. I'd recommend the John Oliver special on it.

Why are doctors so easy to manipulate? They learn about addiction in medical school. Why would they believe a pharmaceutical company saying "...oh but this opioid is not addictive..."

It seems that in the US there has been a trend to "de-regulate" or let businesses regulate themselves. It works for a while, but eventually it seems to go south. I think "regulatory capture" is the term. I think of Boeing being allowed to inspect there own planes.. I think drug manufactures submit there own studies, as the FDA doesn't have a budget to test all the things themselves.

The opiod manufactures are organized too. They have trade groups and conferences.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#54

Thank you. For my purpose as a reader it is editorial incompetence that the article neither provided that link, nor the name of the case to make it easy to lookup.

This is why I so often just go to the AP and look for their article - https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-purdue-pharma-opioi...

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#55

For those claiming the Supreme Court is a political institution, I'd like to note that this was indeed a 5-4 decision. But one with Justices in the majority who were appointed by Biden, Trump, Bush 43, and Bush 41, and in the minority who were appointed by Bush 43, Obama, and Trump. It was Jackson, Gorsuch, Barrett, Alito, and Thomas in the majority and Sotomayor, Kagan, Roberts, and Kavanaugh in the minority.

A single vote means little and being partisan doesn't mean 0% voting with the other side. By this logic Congress is not a partisan institution given that people from both sides frequently vote together, but anyone who remotely follows national politics knows that it's a deeply partisan time.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your boss tells you you'll lose your job if you don't have sex with him, and you quit to avoid that, would you disagree with the statement that you were forced to quit?

No, words have specific meanings that should accurately reflect the nuances of the situation at hand.

the choice to have sex with someone or be fired is not a legitimate choice and framing it as one is also illegitimate. do you have a better suggestion for a term you would prefer?

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#57
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are doctors so easy to manipulate? They learn about addiction in medical school. Why would they believe a pharmaceutical company saying "...oh but this opioid is not addictive..."

Because physicians don't get much if any training in evaluating evidence and research, they generally believe what they're told by scientists. Which is a shame, they should be taught critical evaluation of literature They also don't have time because of the artificial limits of physicians graduating every year, combined with more bureaucracy being pushed on them day by day

"trust the science"

edit: it's meant in sarcasm, mostly.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#58
post #4

>The court on a 5-4 vote ruled that the bankruptcy court did not have the authority to release the Sackler family members from legal claims made by opioid victims. As part of the deal, the family, which controlled the company, had agreed to pay $6 billion that could be used to settle opioid-related claims, but only in return for a complete release from any liability in future cases. Is this actually a positive outcom…

Negative outcome. Some important points that the article here did not emphasize: 1) The Sackler family was not actually a party to this litigation. They came to the table (with most of the settlement money) specifically to get these so called '3rd party releases'. 2) Purdue is basically broke. It's also an LLC. Thus, in order to go after the Sackler family's money, you basically have to claw back money that Purdue paid out to the family over the years. It's not impossible to do, but it requires a whole more litigation, the outcome of which is not at all certain.

Now, 3rd party releases are a genuinely weird thing: a court ruling that a party that's not directly involved in the case is immune from future lawsuits. Partially the reason it went all the way to the supreme court is that there was a circuit split - they were allowed in some circuits, but not others. However, (and this is according to a friend who represented the victims in the settlement), it's really unfortunate that THIS is the case where they get struck down. If the Sacklers walk away from the settlement, it makes the victims getting their payout much less certain, and certainly delays that payout by many years.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, words have specific meanings that should accurately reflect the nuances of the situation at hand.

the choice to have sex with someone or be fired is not a legitimate choice and framing it as one is also illegitimate. do you have a better suggestion for a term you would prefer?

It is choice. That's the whole point of the discussion you might not like the choice you would have to take but it still is. If you want to convey that you get extorted do so but use the right words.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#60
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eg, https://www.abc.net.au/religion/human-rights-and-mandatory-c... Or pick your favourite country; policies requiring arbitrary vaccination were quite common.

Words have specific meanings that should accurately reflect the nuances of the situation at hand. You can write your comment without emotional exasperation or maybe not...

Words do indeed have specific meanings.

If someone didn't get vaccinated then the government would start basically attacking basic human rights. In particular rights of freedom work, assemble, free travel, freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to practice a religion, etc (and to maintain their own health I might add) which turn up in some pretty hefty documents like the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Once those things are bargaining chips that you get to have for following a government policy, the policy is forced. This might make you uncomfortable. Indeed, it probably should.

Freedom means you don't have to trust hastily developed medical products. They can't have done any long term studies on the COVID vaccines yet because not enough time has passed for one to happen yet.

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