My original inspiration to cover this topic comes from this incredible New Yorker piece. It’a a 1-1.5 hour read, so I don’t exactly expect you to go through all of it right away, but if you at all have the time, or can split it up over multiple days (like I did) it’s completely worthwhile. For those of you who are less ambitious / more realistic, here’s a similar article that’s much shorter.
The gist of them is that the current opioid crisis is thanks in large part to the unethical practices of Purdue Pharma. Purdue released OxyContin, a synthetic painkiller, in 1995. What made it stand out was that Purdue Pharma begin an aggressive campaign encouraging doctors to prescribe it in large doses.
Although most opioids are prescribed for only short periods of time to prevent addiction, Purdue encourage doctors to use OxyContin to treat chronic pain, claiming that the time release mechanism of it prevented addiction and abuse. There was little research to back this up, and the research that did was often funded by … Purdue.
As people became addicted, Purdue did little to stop it. They kept track of sales volumes, but didn’t bat an eyelash at shady doctors who were prescribing thousands of pills a day.
Tying all this into what we are studying in gov right now, I think that a good amount of criticism should also go to the FDA. Not only did the FDA do little to regulate Purdue’s misleading advertising, but also, without any addiction studies, “approved a package insert for OxyContin which announced that the drug was safer than rival painkillers.”
With that in mind, do you think the FDA should have more stringent regulations on painkillers? Do you think that the government should take action against Purdue? Should a rule be issued that makes Pharma companies more responsible for the negative consequences of their drugs?
3 comments:
I think that the FDA should have more stringent regulations on painkillers because painkillers can easily cause one to become addicted. Purdue Pharma was only thinking of money when they were advertising for their new pill, and not of individual people’s reaction to the drug. Therefore, I think that the government should take action against Purdue because they were not thinking about addiction how their painkiller would cause addiction. By setting this precedent, the government would be able to make stricter rule, and subsequently make Pharma companies more responsible for the negative consequences of their drugs.
We actually just went over this topic in Anatomy. And based on the readings that we had in class and the one you linked, I agree with your point that the American opiate epidemic was and is a huge fault of the medical and health industry. Because doctors, especially in Northeast states such as Ohio, are abusing their powers and over-prescribing painkillers or prescribing painkillers without much thought to it, people start to become dependent on painkillers and this soon becomes an addiction. Also I read that a huge percentage of kids become addicted or start their drug use from the painkillers in their parent's medicine drawer. And when people become addicted to painkillers, they start to look for a more powerful and cheaper option- which are illegal drugs such as fentanyl. With all this being said, I agree with Michael and Bella in that the FDA should definitely be stricter on the prescribing of painkillers and should investigate further into companies such as Purdue Pharma.
I actually just watched a lengthy documentary on the US opioid crisis. It focused on a small town in West Virginia with one of the highest rates of opioid addiction-related death rates in the country, as well as an average of hundreds of opium pills per person in a very small area. This town had hundreds of people dying each year, and many times the police force was so overwhelmed with opioid deaths, they couldn't handle taking care of all of the bodies lying out in the open for everyone to see. It is truly a depressing site to see a city overcome with such a horrible drug crisis and then continue to watch them fall further and further down. Julia mentioned how the worst of the crisis is in the Northeast states like Ohio. I visited Columbus for a weekend during the summer, and many of the streets right in the center of the downtown area had multiple people, obviously addicts, and most likely homeless, just crouching outside of stores. Even though pharmaceutical companies and the FDA are definitely at fault in this situation, I think that a large part of the blame is on the addicts themselves. I understand that depression is a real and serious problem for many people, but I believe that there is a fine line between trying to heal yourself and just getting addicted because you've lost your hope for a better life. What I'm saying is I don't pity these people that much. There should definitely more work done in regards to rehabilitation, but it comes to a point where this is a mental problem and the addicts need to try and motivate themselves because they're not making anyone's lives better by being addicted. Also don't do drugs, but if you do, stick to weed.
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