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posted by martyb on Tuesday March 26 2019, @10:48PM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-a-start dept.

Purdue Pharma settles opioid lawsuit for $270m

Purdue Pharma, the drug-maker owned by the billionaire Sackler family, has reached a $270m settlement in a lawsuit which claimed its opioids contributed to the deaths of thousands of people.

The deal with Oklahoma is the first settlement the US firm has struck amid some 2,000 other lawsuits it is facing linked to its painkiller OxyContin.

Purdue is one of several firms named in the claim which alleged they used deceptive practices to sell opioids.

[...]Under the settlement, Purdue will pay $102.5m towards the creation of a National Centre for Addiction Studies and Treatment at Oklahoma State University.

The Sacklers themselves said that they will contribute $75m over five years to the centre.

Also at CNN and NBC.

Previously: OxyContin Maker Purdue Pharma May File for Bankruptcy to Disrupt Lawsuits


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  • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday March 28 2019, @12:21PM

    by urza9814 (3954) on Thursday March 28 2019, @12:21PM (#821269) Journal

    I'm not convinced that just because there is a drug available that availability is the primary reason people do drugs.

    Anyone who does believe that is an idiot, and that's not what this case was about.

    Until we learn as a society how to help each other through tough times in life, we will never change anything.

    THAT is what this case was about. Purdue lied about the potential risks and dangers of this drug, because they knew that telling the truth would hurt their profits. They withheld information that could have saved lives because they felt it was profitable to do so.

    I'm glad a good portion of this will actually go to treatment. It speaks volumes about the conversation when the only way we deal with any of this, on any level is with lawsuits, criminal cases, and locking people up. Maybe it's time to get ahead of this and start a real conversation.

    The way I see it, there's two options. One way or another, we've gotta ensure that people aren't being rewarded for this kind of bad behavior. Lawsuits and prison sentences *are* one way of doing that, although they don't seem to do it very well. Take away a significant portion of their profits (which does not seem to be what happened here...) so that it's more profitable to tell the truth and actually sell medicine instead of pushing pills. Or lock up the people responsible so they can't use those profits. The alternative is to try to rebuild the entire system so that there's no profit motive involved to begin with. The latter would be my preference...but if we must keep it capitalist then we need some way to punish bad behavior.

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