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posted by janrinok on Monday February 12 2018, @05:56PM   Printer-friendly
from the prevent-pill-popping dept.

Pain Pill Giant Purdue to Stop Promotion of Opioids to Doctors

Pain-pill giant Purdue Pharma LP will stop promoting its opioid drugs to doctors, a retreat after years of criticism that the company's aggressive sales efforts helped lay the foundation of the U.S. addiction crisis.

The company told employees this week that it would cut its sales force by more than half, to 200 workers. It plans to send a letter Monday to doctors saying that its salespeople will no longer come to their clinics to talk about the company's pain products.

"We have restructured and significantly reduced our commercial operation and will no longer be promoting opioids to prescribers," the company said in a statement. Instead, any questions doctors have will be directed to the Stamford, Connecticut-based company's medical affairs department.

OxyContin, approved in 1995, is the closely held company's biggest-selling drug, though sales of the pain pill have declined in recent years amid competition from generics. It generated $1.8 billion in 2017, down from $2.8 billion five years earlier, according to data compiled by Symphony Health Solutions. It also sells the painkiller Hysingla.

Oxycodone.

Also at Reuters, USA Today, The Verge, and CNN.

Previously: City of Everett, Washington Sues OxyContin Maker Purdue Pharma
OxyContin's 12-Hour Problem
South Carolina Sues OxyContin Maker Purdue

Related: Opioid Crisis Partly Blamed on a 1980 Letter to the New England Journal of Medicine
President Trump Declares the Opioid Crisis a National Emergency
Study Finds Stark Increase in Opioid-Related Admissions, Deaths in Nation's ICUs
CVS Limits Opioid Prescriptions
Congress Reacts to Reports that a 2016 Law Hindered DEA's Ability to go after Opioid Distributors
Opioid Crisis Official; Insys Therapeutics Billionaire Founder Charged; Walgreens Stocks Narcan


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday February 12 2018, @10:36PM

    by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Monday February 12 2018, @10:36PM (#636856) Journal

    Generally speaking, EMT-B's mostly can't give the drugs - not the ones you're speaking of. An EMT-B's scope is oxygen, oral glucose, oral charcoal, aspirin, and maybe possibly nitro, albuterol, and epipen (though usually the last three are help patients to self-administer if they already have them... Benadryl is now out of style as survival rates are just as good if it is pushed in the ER). And almost always none of the above without a clear order from medical control except oxygen and aspirin. EMT-P (Paramedic) is a different question, but most Medics I've known are pretty stingy with narcotics. Dilaudid is a lot more common than morphine, and I don't know that hydrocodone is a medic drug - could be wrong, though.

    And yep, EMT's ask about pain rating. It's in the manual - S is part of OPQRST. Because once in awhile people answer honestly. And once in awhile people try to be

    You can shut all of it down.... but social services have only been gutted worse than the 80s as well. Maybe if we paid attention to the social dynamics of addiction and actually funded addiction treatment and other social programs to prevent such behaviors again, instead of just tossing people in jail, the problem would be better controlled.

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