Man who made billions from OxyContin is pushing drug to wean addicts off opioids
Following hundreds of lawsuits over the years against pharmaceutical giant Purdue Pharma, Colorado's attorney general is suing the OxyContin creator for its "significant role in causing the opioid epidemic." The lawsuit claims Purdue Pharma L.P. and Purdue Pharma Inc. deluded doctors and patients in Colorado about the potential for addiction with prescription opioids and continued to push the drugs. And it comes amid news that the company's former chairman and president, Richard Sackler, has patented a new drug to help wean addicts from opioids.
[...] In federal court in 2007, three top current and former employees for Purdue pleaded guilty to criminal charges, admitting that they had falsely led doctors and their patients to believe that OxyContin was less likely to be abused than other drugs in its class, according to The New York Times. Then earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal reported that Purdue planned to stop promoting the drug.
Now, it seems, a new business venture is only adding to the outcry. The Financial Times reported that Sackler, whose family owns Purdue Pharma, a multibillion-dollar company, patented a new drug earlier this year that is a form of buprenorphine, a mild opioid that is used to ease withdrawal symptoms. However, some are expressing outrage that the Sacklers, who have in essence profited from opioid addictions, may soon be profiting from the antidote. "It's reprehensible what Purdue Pharma has done to our public health," Luke Nasta, director of Camelot, a New York-based treatment center for drug and alcohol addiction, told the Financial Times. He told the newspaper that the Sackler family "shouldn't be allowed to peddle any more synthetic opiates - and that includes opioid substitutes."
Financial Times also reported that the Sackler family owns Rhodes Pharma, "a little-known Rhode Island-based drugmaker that is among the largest producers of off-patent generic opioids in the U.S."
Also at The Independent.
Previously: City of Everett, Washington Sues OxyContin Maker Purdue Pharma
OxyContin's 12-Hour Problem
South Carolina Sues OxyContin Maker Purdue
Purdue Pharma to Cut Sales Force, Stop Marketing Opioids to Doctors
Tens or Hundreds of Billions of Dollars Needed to Combat Opioid Crisis? (Massachusetts Attorney General sues Sackler family)
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday September 11 2018, @03:31PM (3 children)
-dicted or have ever practiced self-injury:
http://www.warplife.com/mdc/essays/warning-trigger/new-friend.html [warplife.com]
A few years ago I ran into one of my very best friends in downtown Portland. He asked me to wait for him while he went to do something, that he'd be back in an hour.
I never saw my friend again
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by mrpg on Tuesday September 11 2018, @05:52PM (2 children)
Where's the second part?
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday September 11 2018, @07:15PM (1 child)
I often say "To be continued" only to forget what the next part is even going to be about long before I attempt to write it
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 11 2018, @10:06PM
If you never saw him again, then there probably wasn't a "second part". Now, if you discovered his grave marker, or his obituary, or you went to visit his mama, to learn that he's dead, THEN you would have a brief "second part".
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz