Unsealed documents trace opioid crisis back to drug companies
The numbers are jaw-dropping: Every day around 78 Americans die from opioid drugs.
These aren’t just junkies buying them from a guy on the street corner. They could be your friends, neighbors or the people you see around town every day. And these meds came right from their doctor’s Rx pad.
The opioid crisis has touched all of us in one way or another. Almost no one is immune from the risk.
But how did this happen? How did honest, hardworking people become the victims in this frightening drug epidemic?
The crisis began soon after the FDA approved the blockbuster OxyContin two decades ago.
And as a treasure trove of secret memos has just revealed, Big Pharma carefully planted the seeds that have since grown into the biggest drug disaster ever.
The goal was to get doctors sold on prescribing OxyContin in any way possible.
Purdue Pharma made the drug, and we know a lot about how its sales force pushed the med on doctors. But top secret memos and documents just unsealed by a judge at the request of STAT news now show it had a partner in crime by the name of Abbott Laboratories.
The documents STAT got released came from a lawsuit against Purdue and Abbott by the state of West Virginia. They revealed that marketing tactics used by the pair caused untold numbers of state residents to become addicted.
The companies settled the case 12 years ago for $10 million. Both said they didn’t do anything wrong.
Yeah, right. With this kind of evidence against them, it’s no wonder they settled.
For example:
- Secret marketing materials disclosed that Abbott’s sales team called the promotion of OxyContin to doctors a “crusade,” with the head of the group being called “the king of pain.”
- An Abbott newsletter is decorated with cartoons of executives adorned in crowns calling themselves the “Royal Court of OxyContin,” with the sales team called the “Royal Crusaders.”
- The Abbott sales staff was instructed to keep highlighting the benefits to doctors as they carried the “OxyContin banner” onto the battlefield.
But what went on consisted of more than just cutesy drawings and bizarre memos.
Documents show that during the heyday of establishing OxyContin as a front-line pain med to physicians, Abbott continuously misled them about the addictive potential of the drug.
A “coaching sheet” given to Abbott sales reps told them not to bring up the topic of addiction, and if asked to say that only “street users” had that problem, not patients.
And it worked.
By 2012 OxyContin was bringing in $1.6 billion a year.
But now that we seem to know better, it doesn’t look like much has changed. Doctors are still handing out opioids like candy.
As I told you a few months ago, large numbers of “opioid naïve” patients, many of them seniors, are being discharged from the hospital with an Rx for an opioid drug. And — as a recent study discovered — 40 percent of them are still taking these drugs three months later!
Other research has found that those taking an opioid drug have a 64 percent higher risk of dying during the first six months than those taking other types of pain meds. Also, many in this study were found to have been given these deadly, addictive drugs for conditions such as backaches and arthritis.
OxyContin may have brought in the billions, but it’s not the only opioid out there. Others include codeine, hydrocodone, fentanyl, and meperidine.
If you’re currently taking an opioid drug, ask your doctor if there’s a less risky method to get relief.
Because far too many people have had to learn the hard way just how deadly these drugs can be.
Sources:
“Secret trove reveals bold ‘crusade’ to make OxyContin a blockbuster” David Armstrong, September 22, 2016, STAT, statnews.com
