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Purdue seeking bankruptcy protection

#1
Leigha Offline
More than 200,000 people have died of prescription opioid overdoses since 1999. Another 200,000 have died from overdoses attributed to heroin and illegally obtained fentanyl.

By 2007, the company and three top executives — none of them Sackler family members — pleaded guilty to federal charges of misleading regulators, doctors and patients about the highly addictive nature of the drug. The company paid more than $600 million in fines and other payments.

Yet, Purdue Pharma, under the family’s tight control, continued to aggressively market OxyContin and kept fueling the growing epidemic of narcotic addiction, according to a raft of litigation filed against the company. Lawsuits also are pending against generic oxycodone manufacturers, distributors and retail pharmacy chains.

As sales continued into the billions of dollars, the family board members who controlled the company began transferring big chunks of money out of the firm beginning in 2008, according to multiple state lawsuits.


For more of the story:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/finance-c...?ocid=News


As we know, many patients are prescribed opioid drugs after surgeries, and for chronic pain. Many take the prescribed dosages, and don't have any long term effects, or addictions. But, it would seem that Purdue took advantage of people's misery and pain, and greatly contributed to the addiction crisis. This not only seems greedy in a most egregious way, but after reading this story, criminal activity had been going on behind the scenes. 

What should happen here, do you think? 

As a side question, I've often wondered how all of these pharma lawsuits are being handled, considering that one needs to obtain a prescription from his/her doctor, in order to receive opioid drugs. Shouldn't doctors be held partially responsible (maybe they are?) when they clearly see that their patients are spiraling out of control, addicted to the drugs they've been prescribing? 
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#2
Yazata Offline
(Sep 17, 2019 04:33 AM)Leigha Wrote: As we know, many patients are prescribed opioid drugs after surgeries, and for chronic pain.

Can you imagine the SCREAMING if analgesic drugs were taken off the market? There would be cries of "Inhuman!", "Sadistic!" and on and on. Imagine all the "news" (aka bullshit) stories built around "human interest" narratives about how here's poor little Nancy with terrible back pain and the only thing that keeps her sane and from committing suicide is her prescription of pain-drugs? (And it might even be true.)

There are lots of unpleasant things happening out there, chronic disease, injuries and birth defects, and not all of them are another human being's fault. Millions of people die every year, and millions more suffer terribly. It's the human condition. Life wouldn't be a perfect blissful paradise if it wasn't for all the bad people. (Capitalists, big-pharma...) The challenge is how to manage the less pleasant side of life and reduce suffering as much as possible. 

Quote:Many take the prescribed dosages, and don't have any long term effects, or addictions.

If the pain is intractable or chronic, the patient might have to take the drugs in fairly high doses for many years. Dependency is almost certain and addiction a real possibility. So what's a physician to do? Take the patient off the drug regardless of suffering? Or damn the torpedoes and keep prescribing it, in higher and higher doses as habituation tolerance builds?

Quote:As a side question, I've often wondered how all of these pharma lawsuits are being handled, considering that one needs to obtain a prescription from his/her doctor, in order to receive opioid drugs.

It's not like physicians were unaware of the dangers of these drugs. It was obvious. It was right there in all the paperwork that pharmacies give us with our prescriptions that we rarely bother to read. It was right there on all the pharmaceutical websites, and I'm sure it was emphasized in medical school too. Doctors are supposed to know that stuff. It's why they were placed as gate-keepers between patients and access to drugs in the first place.

Quote:Shouldn't doctors be held partially responsible (maybe they are?) when they clearly see that their patients are spiraling out of control, addicted to the drugs they've been prescribing?

The pharmaceutical companies just make needed drugs available. It's the physicians who are supposed to determine who gets them, how much they get and for how long.

The real problem, as I see it, is that the only half-way effective treatment we have today is a set of drugs with devastating side effects. What we really need is better treatments. That calls for more research, particularly by the pharmaceutical companies. It just seems ass-backwards to me to try to put the pharmaceutical companies out of business.
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#3
Leigha Offline
(Sep 17, 2019 04:46 PM)Yazata Wrote:
(Sep 17, 2019 04:33 AM)Leigha Wrote: As we know, many patients are prescribed opioid drugs after surgeries, and for chronic pain.

Can you imagine the SCREAMING if analgesic drugs were taken off the market? There would be cries of "Inhuman!", "Sadistic!" and on and on. Imagine all the "news" (aka bullshit) stories built around "human interest" narratives about how here's poor little Nancy with terrible back pain and the only thing that keeps her sane and from committing suicide is her prescription of pain-drugs? (And it might even be true.)

There are lots of unpleasant things happening out there, chronic disease, injuries and birth defects, and not all of them are another human being's fault. Millions of people die every year, and millions more suffer terribly. It's the human condition. Life wouldn't be a perfect blissful paradise if it wasn't for all the bad people. (Capitalists, big-pharma...) The challenge is how to manage the less pleasant side of life and reduce suffering as much as possible. 

Quote:Many take the prescribed dosages, and don't have any long term effects, or addictions.

If the pain is intractable or chronic, the patient might have to take the drugs in fairly high doses for many years. Dependency is almost certain and addiction a real possibility. So what's a physician to do? Take the patient off the drug regardless of suffering? Or damn the torpedoes and keep prescribing it, in higher and higher doses as habituation tolerance builds?

Quote:As a side question, I've often wondered how all of these pharma lawsuits are being handled, considering that one needs to obtain a prescription from his/her doctor, in order to receive opioid drugs.

It's not like physicians were unaware of the dangers of these drugs. It was obvious. It was right there in all the paperwork that pharmacies give us with our prescriptions that we rarely bother to read. It was right there on all the pharmaceutical websites, and I'm sure it was emphasized in medical school too. Doctors are supposed to know that stuff. It's why they were placed as gate-keepers between patients and access to drugs in the first place.

Quote:Shouldn't doctors be held partially responsible (maybe they are?) when they clearly see that their patients are spiraling out of control, addicted to the drugs they've been prescribing?

The pharmaceutical companies just make needed drugs available. It's the physicians who are supposed to determine who gets them, how much they get and for how long.

The real problem, as I see it, is that the only half-way effective treatment we have today is a set of drugs with devastating side effects. What we really need is better treatments. That calls for more research, particularly by the pharmaceutical companies. It just seems ass-backwards to me to try to put the pharmaceutical companies out of business.

Wtf happened to my response. *sob* I'm going to cry, why didn't it post???  Angry

I'll have to return later and post again.
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#4
C C Offline
(Sep 17, 2019 07:59 PM)Leigha Wrote: Wtf happened to my response. *sob* I'm going to cry, why didn't it post???  Angry

I'll have to return later and post again.


I once accidently pressed "Save as draft" (in either this forum or another one) and didn't realize it until weeks later, upon the discovering my reply stashed there. The whole time I had assumed I did hit Reply/Submit and some glitch had lost it. (Of course, this all hinges around the fact that I almost never use "Save as draft" and thereby don't check what's in "Saved Drafts", whereas the average poster probably does.)
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#5
Leigha Offline
(Sep 17, 2019 08:27 PM)C C Wrote:
(Sep 17, 2019 07:59 PM)Leigha Wrote: Wtf happened to my response. *sob* I'm going to cry, why didn't it post???  Angry

I'll have to return later and post again.


I once accidently pressed "Save as draft" (in either this forum or another one) and didn't realize it until weeks later, upon the discovering my reply stashed there. The whole time I had assumed I did hit Reply/Submit and some glitch had lost it. (Of course, this all hinges around the fact that I almost never use "Save as draft" and thereby don't check what's in "Saved Drafts", whereas the average poster probably does.)
Ah, that's good to know, thanks CC - I just checked saved drafts under my CP, and nope...I didn't do that. What on earth did I do? lol Wow...that was a good response, too.  Dodgy
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