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from the if-it's-non-addicting,-give-it-to-every-exec-for-a-month dept.
Report: Sacklers using fake doctors, false marketing to sell OxyContin in China
The mega-rich family behind the OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma is back to selling its highly addictive pain-killer with underhanded tactics and deceptive advertising—this time in China, via its international company, Mundipharma. That’s all according to a searing new investigation by the Associated Press.
The Sackler family, which owns both Purdue and Mundipharma, is embroiled in litigation in the United States over its alleged role in sparking the country’s epidemic of opioid abuse and overdoses. Thousands of plaintiffs—many state and local governments—claim that Purdue and the Sacklers misled patients, doctors, and regulators on the addictiveness of their drugs, aggressively marketed them, and wooed doctors into over-prescribing them.
While Purdue has since declared bankruptcy and stopped promoting OxyContin in the US, the Sacklers seem to be employing the same practices in China.
Based on documents and interviews with multiple Mundipharma representatives in China, the AP investigation found that reps were at times posing as doctors, providing debunked information that its long-acting opioids are safe and less addictive, and even illegally copying private medical records of patients to inform sales tactics.
[...]Mundipharma, meanwhile, is still hiring in China.
The AP story linked above is in-depth and well worth reading. See also: HuffPost.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 22 2019, @10:50AM
UK got China with opium. Over a century later, China is still bent out of shape over this.
China, with misplaced blame, took revenge against the USA with fentanyl.
Well, it's time the USA went after China. It would be a proper revenge, since they attacked US first. We are not the UK, even if the Chinese think all westerners are the same.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Mojibake Tengu on Friday November 22 2019, @11:56AM (5 children)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sackler_family [wikipedia.org]
Rust programming language offends both my Intelligence and my Spirit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 22 2019, @02:54PM
Greedy bloodsuckers--anything for a buck.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 22 2019, @03:59PM (1 child)
they became evil, corrupted by the power of money. Sackler made great contribution to medecine, from a reference [forbes.com] in the linked wiki page:
advocating for gentler alternative to old school electro-shock therapy is not the apex of Evil in my book.
(Score: 4, Informative) by sjames on Friday November 22 2019, @04:20PM
Arthur is deceased.. It appears that with his death, the family purged itself of its moral compass.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 22 2019, @04:30PM (1 child)
They are simply following the tenants of Judaism.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 22 2019, @05:31PM
All the way back to their apartments, where they try to tutor people like you?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Friday November 22 2019, @12:09PM (5 children)
Put them in jail and take their money: remove the incentive to do evil and the evil will stop.
Others will take note and correct themselves.
Let them profit off of doing evil and it will continue!
Poor people go to jail for stealing food but rich people get to profit off stealing peoples lives.
WRONG.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 5, Insightful) by deimtee on Friday November 22 2019, @12:36PM (3 children)
Extradite them to China.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 22 2019, @04:43PM
No problem. They can afford to purchase their bullet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 22 2019, @08:07PM (1 child)
We have extrajurisdictional prosecution and conviction in absentia here in the U.S. If the Chinese held a trial and issued a warrant, there would be very little the U.S. could say about it in terms of international law, since we do the same thing.
Note that they don't have to snatch them here to get them. You just have to walk down to the flightline to read the N numbers on their jets. I'm sure a healthy bounty would result in some enterprising individuals making the right phone calls the next time they are vacationing in their favorite tax haven countries.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 23 2019, @05:13AM
What's extrajurisdictional about someone being prosecuted for crimes they committed in the jurisdiction where the crimes were committed?
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday November 22 2019, @06:17PM
Poor people go to jail for stealing food but rich people get to profit off stealing peoples lives.
That's because we let rich people run the government. Gotta stop voting for them if you wanna change anything.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Friday November 22 2019, @04:02PM
Treat the Sacklers just like the leaders of any other international drug cartel.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Friday November 22 2019, @04:12PM
Lots of wealth really warps people. It's the rich, anti-social sorts like these Sacklers who are really ruining America, while too many of us stand idly by and let them. Worse, some among us venerate them, solely because they're rich. Doesn't matter that they're awful, the thinking is that if they have money, they must have done something right. That thinking is straight out of the Prosperity Gospel. That they have acquired their wealth by doing wrong to a lot of someones somehow doesn't get mentioned, especially when they bribe the media and the law to look the other way. They have to sink to Epstein levels of depravity to break that illusionary connection between wealth and virtue.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 22 2019, @04:26PM (7 children)
What is it with the regular 15 minutes of hate against the Sacklers? Did they express support for Trump?
They are producing and selling a legal and necessary product; it is the government's responsibility to control its availability and distribution for the safety of the people.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday November 22 2019, @06:24PM (6 children)
Wrong. It's the lack of self control that should be punished, not the lack of a whip.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday November 23 2019, @01:29AM (5 children)
Oh, absolutely. Time to take all the warning labels off the tobacco products and lower the drinking age to "fetus" while we're at it, eh?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday November 23 2019, @01:47AM (4 children)
No, you should be able to walk up to the bar on your own power, exceptions for the disabled of course.
If you want the government to oversee the industry, you have to oversee the government. I would think past history would make that self evident.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday November 23 2019, @11:20PM (3 children)
Okay so drinking age of what, 12-18 months then? Maybe 3 years if enough speech to know what a gin and tonic is and ask for one is needed?
I'm not joking here: what should the minimum age for drinking be and why? Ditto tobacco.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday November 24 2019, @12:21AM (2 children)
what should the minimum age for drinking be and why?
Around 25 years old. That's when the brain is sufficiently petrified ["matured"] according to the old car rental and insurance standards. I heard there's some physical evidence to back that up, but it was such a long time ago, I don't remember where. I would generally apply the same rules to all intoxicants, just to be safe.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday November 24 2019, @02:48AM (1 child)
And you would enforce this how...? :)
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday November 24 2019, @05:31PM
The usual way, I guess. A bill with several sponsors is proposed in the house of representatives, goes through committee for a full house vote, passed to the senate, goes back and forth for a while, amendments put in, amendments removed, later approved by congress, and is sent to the president, which we presume will be on board :-)
Then the liquor industry will challenge it in the courts, and the law will be quickly overturned. And... that's that...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Barenflimski on Friday November 22 2019, @04:31PM (2 children)
This whole "It's the Sackler families fault!" thing is a ridiculous scapegoat. It also took the FDA, the Internet, the medical establishment, government policies and the pharmacies.
Did we need as many folks on pain medicines that ended up on them? No.
Do they help some folks? Yes.
Was abruptly stopping treatment and pushing hundreds of thousands to the black market the way to deal with this? No.
Did the entire system help cause this? Yes.
What happened to the patients?
Patients ended up as pawns.
Patients ended up being cut off abruptly with zero help.
State and City governments stopped or severely curtailed prescribing but offered little to no help or tapering.
Patients were given the choice to be sick for an extended time or find this stuff on the black market so they could continue to function.
Now State and City governments are cashing in pretending they were practicing some form of "harm reduction" when this was going down. Its amazing to see the altruism coming out of the woodwork now around the money after the original reaction was to push hundreds of thousands out of clinics and into the streets.
If any of what we are seeing is really meant to help the people then I would expect to unwind this we would:
1. See the tens of thousands jailed for Opiates released and helped out financially with treatment options.
2. See the rehab houses available to anyone that needs it with free entry and no wait times.
It took years to ramp up the Opiate use. These guys tried to turn it around overnight. Now we have 70,000 overdose deaths annually mostly due to Fentanyl laced Heroin.
The Sackler family may have pushed getting folks on this stuff, but it was government policies that forced people to the streets.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 22 2019, @09:21PM
Meanwhile the government comes up with a draconian response to the problem. That is, they make opioides unavailable to people who need them as medicine, as if there is no way that distribution can be properly controlled. The system actually worked well enough until pharmaceutical salespeople started brainwashing doctors, who will never again be trusted by the government.
Why is it that those who make our laws aren't required to be sensible about it?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 22 2019, @10:08PM
TFA refutes your statement. You may have had a point when the first lawsuits were ongoing. Now, however, they have been actually convicted of wrongdoing and they still peddle their same wares, but in a different jurisdiction. That's very much plainly in the realm of "it's the Sackler families fault"!