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Purdue Pharma files for bankruptcy with $10B plan to settle claims

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Re: Purdue Pharma files for bankruptcy with $10B plan to settle claims

#161

Post by moate »

GreaterFool wrote: post #159
DickingAround wrote: post #154

I have a high level question; a lot of want to legalize drugs. Ending the war on drugs and all that. This is a drug that was legal and a lot of people got on it and now we're angry. Why? I don't like that people got hurt. I also recognize that bad drugs are bad. But I can't find a way out of "tell people drugs are bad and they have to make their own choices." Is the problem here the doctors told them the bad drugs we…

> a lot of want to legalize drugs. Ending the war on drugs and all that There are a lot of different drugs. You can't lump them all together!

>>You can't lump them all together!

Actually some of us do. Just open the floodgates when it comes to what you're able to have access to.

Spending money enforcing prohibition feels less helpful than spending that same money on treatment of underlying issues or addressing other social problems that lead to drug use in the first place. Rather than criminalize the use behavior, which doesn't do anything to save lives in any real way, try to fix the actual problem rather than just sweep it under the rug of the criminal justice system.

Re: Purdue Pharma files for bankruptcy with $10B plan to settle claims

#162

Post by projektfu »

brogrammernot wrote: post #157
DickingAround wrote: post #154

I have a high level question; a lot of want to legalize drugs. Ending the war on drugs and all that. This is a drug that was legal and a lot of people got on it and now we're angry. Why? I don't like that people got hurt. I also recognize that bad drugs are bad. But I can't find a way out of "tell people drugs are bad and they have to make their own choices." Is the problem here the doctors told them the bad drugs we…

OxyContin isn’t a bad drug, it’s a highly addictive drug and the company knew it was highly addictive & not only didn’t do enough due diligence to make sure prescribers didn’t over prescribe it but also intentionally encourage that behavior which has led to an epidemic. However, food for thought on that same subject is the over prescribing of amoxicillin and other similar class of drugs for viruses. The doctor is ope…

Yeah. I think the underlying story is that doctors used to be more apprehensive about prescribing opioid painkillers, and when they did they prescribed lortabs or something like that for acute cases and they wouldn't put refills on or rewrite the scripts when asked. Then, along comes Purdue with a claim that OxyContin, because of its unique formulation, is a big addiction concern and is safe to prescribe for chronic pain. Then they (and a couple other manufacturers) basically conducted a successful campaign to convince doctors that undertreatment of chronic pain was widespread and they were basically letting their patients suffer, strongly suggesting that this may be considered malpractice in the future if they do not start prescribing more opioids. This campaign was very smart and even reached the doctors who refuse to take incentives from drug manufacturers. Essentially, in the way that Pfizer created a new category of concern in the mind of patients with Viagra, Purdue did the same in the mind of doctors with OxyContin.

Lo and behold, people are addicted to OxyContin, some start looking for more immediate-relase formulations of opioids because they don't feel right even on 80mg Oxy tablets, and hundreds of thousands who otherwise would have been alive with chronic pain are now dead of overdose. Meanwhile, research is showing that opioids are not very good for chronic pain and other approaches, usually multimodal approaches, are better, including NSAIDs, gaba-ergic drugs like gabapentin and pregabalin, ketamine, physical therapy, psychological retraining, meditation, acupuncture, etc.

Re: Purdue Pharma files for bankruptcy with $10B plan to settle claims

#163

Post by rjf72 »

Retric wrote: post #141
rjf72 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not agree with him, but I think you're making a much more salient point indirectly. Public policy that can be readily manipulated by bad actors (as the drug industry is certainly full of) should not be used as the final say for anything. Systems need to be able to tolerate: corruption, false information, and true but misleading information. Our regulatory systems in general seem to struggle with any of the above…

WHO is not a regulatory agency and does not have finally authority for anything. https://www.who.int/about/role/en/

It's not just the WHO. The same arguments apply equally to e.g. the FDA who played a similar role in this by rubber stamping the drugs. And similarly it also doesn't just end at the FDA as there are numerous smaller level regulatory agencies and operators involved on the medical side. Even non-regulatory agencies, such as the American Medical Association also showed themselves to be somewhat useless by decisions such as choosing to play into lobbying for consideration of pain as a vital sign.

The same is even true of things such as the FAA and the aviation industry where there were analogous issues. All of this is emphasizing that these organizations, which can be quite the burden on 'good players', are ultimately ineffective at restraining bad players which (I suppose depending on your philosophical view) should be their primary purview.

Re: Purdue Pharma files for bankruptcy with $10B plan to settle claims

#164

Post by Scoundreller »

peteretep wrote: post #98
Scoundreller wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's 20% of the whole opioid pill market, not just oxycontin. As far as I know, generic manufacturers of off-patent drugs usually aren't sued. On the one side, they don't actively promote/market their products to prescribers or patients, but I'd still think they share some blame by manufacturing it.

> but I'd still think they share some blame by manufacturing it Nah. Opioids are an essential medication. The problem is not that OxyContin exists, it's the creation of irregular demand for it through the actions that Purdue Pharma are having to settle for.

It’s a question of what extent, if any, vendor liability exists.

Re: Purdue Pharma files for bankruptcy with $10B plan to settle claims

#165

Post by Alex3917 »

projektfu wrote: post #162
brogrammernot wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OxyContin isn’t a bad drug, it’s a highly addictive drug and the company knew it was highly addictive & not only didn’t do enough due diligence to make sure prescribers didn’t over prescribe it but also intentionally encourage that behavior which has led to an epidemic. However, food for thought on that same subject is the over prescribing of amoxicillin and other similar class of drugs for viruses. The doctor is ope…

Yeah. I think the underlying story is that doctors used to be more apprehensive about prescribing opioid painkillers, and when they did they prescribed lortabs or something like that for acute cases and they wouldn't put refills on or rewrite the scripts when asked. Then, along comes Purdue with a claim that OxyContin, because of its unique formulation, is a big addiction concern and is safe to prescribe for chronic…

> Then they (and a couple other manufacturers) basically conducted a successful campaign to convince doctors that undertreatment of chronic pain was widespread and they were basically letting their patients suffer, strongly suggesting that this may be considered malpractice in the future if they do not start prescribing more opioids.

That was/is the position of the IOM though. Was Purdue involved with convincing the IOM to adopt that position?

Re: Purdue Pharma files for bankruptcy with $10B plan to settle claims

#166

Post by nabnob »

gwright wrote: post #148
0x262d wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what capital says is that under capitalism, the ruling class will continually set up dumb rules, such as this one, in their favor, and they have a structural advantage in doing so, so are increasingly successful at it until it provokes revolt.

That isn't a characteristic of "capitalism". Sounds more like a characteristic of any power structure.

Sure, this would also have been true under feudalism.

The important thing to recognize is that the ruling class - whoever owns property and is able to use that to exploit workers - will control the government and make laws that benefit them.

Re: Purdue Pharma files for bankruptcy with $10B plan to settle claims

#167

Post by mywittyname »

bgorman wrote: post #61

One naive question - why are doctors who overperscribed opiates still allowed to practice medicine?

This is a deep question, but the simple answer is they were told repeatedly that it was safe and effective to prescribe for a lot of different ailments.

Re: Purdue Pharma files for bankruptcy with $10B plan to settle claims

#168

Post by 14 »

DickingAround wrote: post #154

I have a high level question; a lot of want to legalize drugs. Ending the war on drugs and all that. This is a drug that was legal and a lot of people got on it and now we're angry. Why? I don't like that people got hurt. I also recognize that bad drugs are bad. But I can't find a way out of "tell people drugs are bad and they have to make their own choices." Is the problem here the doctors told them the bad drugs we…

From my understanding, this company lied about the effects of the drug. That is the problem. If they would have said "hey we have a great drug that completely dopes a patient up and works like magic to block pain, BUT only give it for one or two days OR ELSE they will become addicted" then we would not be here now debating this. Instead what they told doctors was that the drug was safe at the recommended prescription levels which was not true.

Re: Purdue Pharma files for bankruptcy with $10B plan to settle claims

#169

Post by mywittyname »

simonh wrote: post #101
nabla9 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20 states and D.C. reject the settlement. They think there is a good change to prove fraudulent intent behind those transfers and claw back those funds. The lawsuit is alleging systematic fraud and requests an order for the Sacklers to return any transferred assets; and to restrain them from disposing of any property. https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/oag_opioid_lawsuit.pdf Interesting that these decisions are so…

The Purdue PAC is a big donor mainly, though not exclusively to republican campaigns.

It's pretty clear which party listens to their donors better.
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