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Dope Sick
Another woeful tale of Big Pharma
The other day I watched the miniseries, Dopesick, on BBC iPlayer. It chronicles the real life story of American drug company, Purdue Pharma, owned principally by the Sackler family, and its rise to capture the market in pain relief medication. This was through the research, development and marketing of the opiate based, OxyContin. Not only did it capture the market, it also became responsible for the exponential rise in opiate addiction, plus related criminality and drug deaths. 76% of heroin users began with the use/abuse of OxyContin.
The mendacity of the company knew no bounds, peddling lie after lie to insure their product became the number one painkiller in the US. No type of pain was excluded, from the common headache to post operative and palliative care, and everything in between. The lies included that the drug was mainly non addictive. Less than 1% of patients became addicted according to their glossy promotional material, that also managed to appear on their labeling.
With their aggressive marketing strategies, promoting lie after lie about the drug’s safety, OxyContin successfully became the analgesic of choice in medical centres and hospitals across the States, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The Sackler family were described as the ‘worst drug dealers in history’ and ‘the most evil family in the world.’ The more the…
