Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

621–630 of 691 posts

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#621

Post by jjk166 »

worik wrote: post #494
jjk166 wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taboos are not simply undesirable things, they are rules which carry severe penalties if you break them. The difference is that rather than going through the effort of getting society on the same page and agreeing what is okay and what isn't, you instead leave ambiguity that harms the well meaning and benefits the malicious. If something is bad enough that it should be banned by an unwritten rule, it's bad enough to…

I am not a lawyer. I am from a legal family (three generations) and I understand jurisprudence > you instead leave ambiguity that harms the well meaning and benefits the malicious. Two points 1. Law advantages those with access, and often benefits the malicious and harms the good. Case in point: Drug law. Another is IP law 2. Law is not objective. The words that form it are in black and white, but there are courts an…

> Sotp, just stop! This is the idea that we must punish and scantion people into being good.

You're not understanding what this conversation is about. Taboos punish and sanction people into being good. We are in full agreement that this is undesirable. There are some things that should be banned, and if they should be banned, they should be banned explicitly. There are many other things that should not be banned, and if it should not be banned it should not be a taboo, which is a form of ban.

You give a perfect example for my argument - treating drug addiction as an illness that should be treated instead of a moral failure to be punished. Where drug use is a taboo, you can't treat it; eliminating the taboo and accepting that these are people in need of help is, in my and many other people's opinion, the correct course of action. Most would agree that making drug use legal but ostracizing drug users would be an absurd strategy.

Taboos are fundamentally about what is permissible and impermissible, there is no other framework in which to talk about them.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#622

Post by harimau777 »

rallison wrote: post #578
Retric wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FDA has some culpability, but the fraud was so effective Medical Schools where teaching students to prescribe more opioids. Perdue Pharma effectively hacked the medical system. I think the real takeaway is there’s likely more of this going on than we realize. The common decongestant phenylephrine being no more effective than placebo comes to mind. Without the mass deaths there’s apparently little to stop modern snake…

There is a phenomenal article in Scientific American talking about the phenylephrine/pseudoephedrine debacle: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-two-pharmacis... It's sort of a different class of failure than with opioids, but it is a notable area of weakness. Basically, for OTC drugs that were initially approved before 1962, many are still on the market despite sometimes having weak efficacy data. While…

I'm surprised there aren't lots of PhD students doing modern trials on these. "I was the person disproved a widely available drug" seems like it would be a great thing to have on an academic resume. From the outside, it also seems like this would be relatively easy research since the drugs are widely available, safe, and treat common symptoms.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#623

Post by lupusreal »

DANmode wrote: post #271
lupusreal wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawyers are fixated on the money for obvious reasons, but the money will never really fix what the Sacklers did (particularly for the many victims who are now dead.) Restitution is largely a farce and we should be focusing on retribution.

Removing the profitability angle mildly dissuades this sort of behavior in the future.

I'm all for rendering the Sacklers paupers. Whether that money is given to surviving victims or piled up and burned matters less.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#624

Post by harimau777 »

FpUser wrote: post #541
austin-cheney wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no criminal underclass of convicted billionaire sociopaths. What are you talking about? Of course it won't happen if we continue to permit, excuse, and enable their behavior while crying about how hard life is.

>"There is no criminal underclass of convicted billionaire sociopaths" To that I agree. However you can not make laws specifically criminalizing rich for "violations of accepted ethical norms". It will just open floodgates diverting regular and poor to underclass. This whole criminal background check should be made illegal with some very specific exceptions. It hunts people for the rest of their lives. Europe handles…

My understanding is that for regular theft, there are different classes of charges depending on the amount stolen. Perhaps we could apply a similar approach at the top end? E.g. laws that only kick in when there has been more than a billion in damages or thousands of deaths?

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#625

Post by ProjectArcturis »

brookst wrote: post #356
doublet00th wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a misunderstanding in what the settlement is about. As part of Purdue's bankruptcy, the Sackler family is voluntarily providing 6 billion dollars to help settle claims opioid victims have brought against Purdue Pharma. As a condition to provide the 6 billion dollars, the Sackler family has asked the bankruptcy judge to not even allow any new suits against the Sacklers related to the Opioid epidemic. T…

+1 for Levine's explanation. As usual he is insightful, great at communicating a complex topic, and just fun to read.

Matt Levine is a treasure. He is tied only with Derek Lowe for being a fantastic writer who makes complex topics understandable, interesting, and enjoyable.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#626

Post by mptest »

mktemp-d wrote: post #500
janice1999 wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're really underselling it if anything. Over a million Americans have died so far in the opioid epidemic. That more than any of their wars, including their civil war.

A good book to read regarding this topic is "Death in Mud Lick" by Eric Eyre who was a reporter for a local newspaper in WV during the early discovery phase of the epidemic. The book details the methods used by the drug companies to pedal these drugs into small communities, the tragic victims, and lastly the refusal of drug suppliers to admit any wrong doing. There's also a slight dose (no pun intended) of WV AG's sh…

Painkiller is a great little short series on them too. does a great job at portraying all of what you mention in a six hour tv format. it can get a little on the nose sometimes but the meat is 100% true

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#627

Post by boston_clone »

Aerroon wrote: post #620
camgunz wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God this Gwern junk will never die. There's tons [0] of evidence that nicotine is addictive on its own. > Why are nicotine pouches and vapes addictive It's the nicotine. [0]: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=nicotine+addictive+site%3Anih.gov&...

I'm not here to argue, but all top 5 links for me are about smoking. I've not heard of people being addicted to nicotine patches for example, especially non-smokers.

https://www.fda.gov/tobacco-products/health-effects-tobacco-...

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#628

Post by boston_clone »

brobdingnag_pp wrote: post #612
boxed wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nicotine is what makes it addictive , but everything else makes it deadly . This distinction is well known here in Sweden where we have snus, and also lower rates of lung cancer and cigarette use than the rest of Europe by a LOT.

That is not true. It is the interaction of nicotine with various monoamine oxidase inhibitors that makes tobacco smoking addictive, to an extent that it could be stated that it is the MAOIs entirely causing the addictive behaviour: the exact same MAOIs are also found in coffee, after all. Why are nicotine pouches and vapes addictive, then? The answer lies in the flavourings, which themselves have psychoactive propert…

No, it's because nicotine is an addictive chemical.

https://www.fda.gov/tobacco-products/health-effects-tobacco-...

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#629

Post by HWR_14 »

bumby wrote: post #393
HWR_14 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> whether most would think a mechanic is more or less easily manipulated into unnecessary vehicle repairs. That's different. This is closer to a mechanic using a part from Company X in the repairs of their customer's car, because a rep told them it was more durable.

You're right, that's a better example. But wouldn't you expect the mechanic to have a more discerning eye in that case as well? The more contextual knowledge you have, the better you should be able to tell legitimate claims from BS.

To catch some BS, sure. I wouldn't expect them to fall for obvious lies. I doubt a mechanic would be significantly educated metallurgy or production techniques to spot BS in part lifespans. Or to spot pseudoscience in air filters.

I would expect them to notice their repeat customers not getting the benefits. But keep in mind that doctors saw their patients appearing pain free and high functioning.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#630

Post by bumby »

HWR_14 wrote: post #629
bumby wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, that's a better example. But wouldn't you expect the mechanic to have a more discerning eye in that case as well? The more contextual knowledge you have, the better you should be able to tell legitimate claims from BS.

To catch some BS, sure. I wouldn't expect them to fall for obvious lies. I doubt a mechanic would be significantly educated metallurgy or production techniques to spot BS in part lifespans. Or to spot pseudoscience in air filters. I would expect them to notice their repeat customers not getting the benefits. But keep in mind that doctors saw their patients appearing pain free and high functioning.

You may be right and I may be guilty of hindsight bias, but I would probably put this in the realm of BS. It’s not like opioids were unknown to cause addiction, and when physicians witness the company continuing to up the dosage and wordsmith terms like “breakthrough pain” I would expect a cognizant doctor to be throwing red flags.

To overextend the mechanic metaphor, it would be like making a part out of aluminum and claiming it has infinite fatigue life. We know aluminum doesn’t so the threshold of evidence needs to be very, very high or the mechanic should remain skeptical. If the part continues to fail, but the manufacturer keeps making new, novel excuses the mechanic should be throwing the BS flag about their infinite fatigue life claims.

Post reply on HN