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.
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
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(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Monday February 12 2018, @11:18PM
Despite the rhetoric from puritanical drug-warriors, the actual "gateway drug" to heroin isn't mild stuff like pot, or hallucinogens like LSD and mushrooms, it's prescription opioids. Which were sold under mostly fraudulent marketing that basically pretended they were safe and non-addictive.
And heroin screws up otherwise decent peoples' lives, in a big way. It also screws up the lives of people around the addict, because the addict will do absolutely anything to get their fix. I don't think locking up users is the way to go about responding to that problem, but ignoring it doesn't seem wise, and private industry has so far not done what would be needed to fix or even substantially reduce the impacts.
As for libertarian answers to this, I'd be perfectly fine with every family of somebody killed by an overdose joining in a class-action lawsuit, rather than government action. If you have problems with private citizens taking action to deal with malfeasance by somebody they did business with, then your objection isn't related to big government, but that you don't believe that false advertising counts as malfeasance.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin