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The Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis

esquire.com

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Re: The Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis

#51

Post by ryuuchin »

herodotus wrote: post #15

In my experience with local philanthropy, there are donors who have no interest in "naming opportunities" and those for whom it is all about the name. To me it says a lot about the character of the donor if they specifically want as little fuss as possible about the donation, and especially if they do not want something named after them. It is the cause they support, not their own egos. Personally, the more often I s…

Reminds me of the quote by George Steinbrenner[1].

"If you do something nice for somebody, and more than just the two of you know about it, maybe you're doing it for the wrong reason"

[1] https://tree.mindbloom.com/apps/inspiration/detail/quote/563...

Re: The Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis

#52

Post by yourapostasy »

wozniacki wrote: post #22
iaw wrote: post #12

Very good write-up from Esquire, I'm thoroughly impressed with the article. That said, my visceral emotional response is strongly negative especially when reading the following paragraph: >In May, a dozen lawmakers in Congress, inspired by the L.A. Times investigation, sent a bipartisan letter to the World Health Organization warning that Sackler-owned companies were preparing to flood foreign countries with legal na…

In the Massachusetts episode of Parts Unknown, Bourdain talks to a general physician who explains how patients who were administered OxyContin for routine procedures & injuries quickly developed a habit for the drug and when they couldn't find it post-treatment moved to illegal variants like Heroin and now Fentanyl.[1][2] Bourdain travels to Franklin County to explore the heroin epidemic that’s spreading throughout t…

> ER / Hospital performance was tied to their pain scores and the generous administration of pain medication to patients...

Trace back how these performance metrics were chosen, look in history if there was any advocacy or studies funded by Sackler-controlled/-influenced parties to tilt the selection of performance measurements towards subjective pain "scoring". It would be interesting to find out if Arthur's insight of nebulous broad applications was generalized to pushing for these kinds of metrics.

After reading how Epipen configured a de facto monopoly, I've wondered where else this kind of corporate behavior shows up within our economic landscape. None of it breaks any laws, but I have to wonder if anyone involved regrets the consequences engendered.

Re: The Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis

#53

Post by walshemj »

joemag wrote: post #27

Aren’t the doctors to blame for this as well? It always surprised me how quickly and easily they prescribe serious painkillers. A few years ago I had a tooth pulled, and the doctor gave me prescription painkiller. In the end, I ended up using regular ibuprofen, and that was more than enough. I wonder how much of this comes pharmaceutical sales reps pressuring the doctors to use their medicine. That whole system seems…

It depends different people have different responses to pain I had a kidney transplant and needed very little pain killers they took out the pain buster after a 48 hours and I managed on the occasional paracetamol and I don't really need te full does just one before bed

Later on a guy in the next bed had an infected kidney out and he was in immense pain and needed much stronger pain relief

Re: The Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis

#54

Post by walshemj »

mavhc wrote: post #40
joemag wrote: post #27

Aren’t the doctors to blame for this as well? It always surprised me how quickly and easily they prescribe serious painkillers. A few years ago I had a tooth pulled, and the doctor gave me prescription painkiller. In the end, I ended up using regular ibuprofen, and that was more than enough. I wonder how much of this comes pharmaceutical sales reps pressuring the doctors to use their medicine. That whole system seems…

Capitalist medicine is to blame, when you can vote with your money you can pick the doctor who does what you want, not what's best for you.

Ah not so its the same in France everyone demands a second opinion I recall a BBC program where a French doctor admired the NHS's strictness in that regard.

Re: The Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis

#55

Post by astura »

wyager wrote: post #35
cwyers wrote: post #24

I'm reminded of that line from Chinatown. "Why are you doing it? How much better can you eat? What can you buy that you can't already afford?" Is there really no point of diminishing returns, where you can tell yourself you've made enough money?

If you can’t usefully spend arbitrarily large amounts of money, it’s a creativity problem. Sure, if your only interests are eating and watching TV then a billion dollars isn’t going to do much for you. The easy way to productively spend $X billion is to invest it in space/physics/medical research or development. If you need to blow a few hundred billion, you could launch an asteroid mining venture with a reasonable c…

You're confusing "spending money" with "starting a business."

Re: The Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis

#56

Post by mgkimsal »

joemag wrote: post #27

Aren’t the doctors to blame for this as well? It always surprised me how quickly and easily they prescribe serious painkillers. A few years ago I had a tooth pulled, and the doctor gave me prescription painkiller. In the end, I ended up using regular ibuprofen, and that was more than enough. I wonder how much of this comes pharmaceutical sales reps pressuring the doctors to use their medicine. That whole system seems…

about 5-6 years ago, my wife had a small eye problem and we went to a local urgent care clinic. resolved the problem, but it was still inflamed and had some discomfort. the physician offered to write a prescription for either oxy or hydrocodone. (I can't remember which). "No, I'll be OK" my wife said. "Well, here, take this anyway", and she gave us a prescription for... 7 days of the stuff (IIRC).

2 years ago, both urgent care clinics in our town had signs out front saying "no prescriptions for oxycontin or similar painkillers will be given here". So... more legitimate use cases are now shut out from measured uses because there was such a rash of unneeded prescriptions years before.

Re: The Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis

#58

Post by klenwell »

herodotus wrote: post #15

In my experience with local philanthropy, there are donors who have no interest in "naming opportunities" and those for whom it is all about the name. To me it says a lot about the character of the donor if they specifically want as little fuss as possible about the donation, and especially if they do not want something named after them. It is the cause they support, not their own egos. Personally, the more often I s…

Of course, when Larry David is involved, things can get a little more complicated:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De90ozOOquY

Re: The Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis

#59

Post by ithinkinstereo »

joemag wrote: post #27

Aren’t the doctors to blame for this as well? It always surprised me how quickly and easily they prescribe serious painkillers. A few years ago I had a tooth pulled, and the doctor gave me prescription painkiller. In the end, I ended up using regular ibuprofen, and that was more than enough. I wonder how much of this comes pharmaceutical sales reps pressuring the doctors to use their medicine. That whole system seems…

There's rampant corruption in healthcare, even after the Sunshine act passed into law in 2010.

Common methods include: - Paid "speeches" - Paid surveys - "Training/Education" retreats at swanky resorts

Also look into Outcome Health, a newly minted "unicorn" based out of Chicago. Their marketing spin is about how their mission is to help patients receive the most optimal treatments and "outcomes", but in reality the whole business model is based on installing "free" tv screens and tablets in physicians' offices and then pushing ads. Im sure there are kickbacks involved with the individual physicians. There was a WSJ expose about it a couple of weeks ago (http://archive.is/QZnTN).

Re: The Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis

#60

Post by ithinkinstereo »

iaw wrote: post #12

Very good write-up from Esquire, I'm thoroughly impressed with the article. That said, my visceral emotional response is strongly negative especially when reading the following paragraph: >In May, a dozen lawmakers in Congress, inspired by the L.A. Times investigation, sent a bipartisan letter to the World Health Organization warning that Sackler-owned companies were preparing to flood foreign countries with legal na…

And to top it off, they've even purchased/negotiated prosecutorial immunity:

The Sacklers, though, will likely emerge untouched: Because of a sweeping non-prosecution agreement negotiated during the 2007 settlement, most new criminal litigation against Purdue can only address activity that occurred after that date. Neither Richard nor any other family members have occupied an executive position at the company since 2003.

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