According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), over 11.5 million Americans reported misusing prescription opioids in 2016 (“Prescription Opioids” 2020). Despite this, and the fact that 80% of individuals addicted to heroin became addicted through prescription medications, 191 million opioid prescriptions were still dispensed to American patients in 2017 (Hudson 2020). One of the most popular prescription opioids was the drug OxyContin, which was developed by Purdue Pharmaceuticals. When Purdue Pharma was founded in the 1990s, it was the first company to market an opioid as a pain relief medication for all patients with chronic pain, not just cancer patients. Purdue Pharma’s aggressive marketing campaign, to influence physicians into prescribing Oxycontin and mislead the public about the effects of Oxycontin, arguably started and perpetuated the Opioid Epidemic.
Prior to the 1990’s, physicians only prescribed opioids for pain relief in extreme situations due to the risk of patients developing addiction. However, Purdue Pharma revolutionized the world of pharmaceutical companies when they started advertising their drugs directly to physicians. Purdue Pharma hosted dinner programs and weekend events to convince doctors that Oxycontin was safe and a better alternative to the pain medications that were on the market. According to an email written by the CEO of Purdue Pharma, physicians who attended these events went on to prescribe over double the amount of Oxycontin than they previously did (Hudson 2020). Moreover, Purdue Pharma illegally paid electronic health records companies, such as Practice Fusion, in order to give physicians alerts that would encourage them to unconsciously prescribe more opioids (Benner 2020). Purdue’s tactics of promoting OxyContin clearly worked as sales grew from $48 million in 1996 to almost $1.1 billion in 2000 (Hudson 2020).
Not only did they use unethical marketing techniques, Purdue Pharma paid doctors off and spread misinformation that stated that opioids were completely safe with few side effects , in order to keep prescription rates high among doctors. Purdue Pharma bribed prominent and respected physicians in order to sway their public statements. One physician, Dr. Russell Portenoy, received funding for his medical center from Purdue Pharma (Hudson 2020). Although he had previously strongly opposed opioids, due to their addictive nature, he contradicted his previous statements soon after receiving the funding and he even went as far as becoming a major proponent of Oxycontin prescriptions. Even as the medical community started speaking out against opioids, Purdue Pharmaalso had a response to their concerns about opioid addiction. According to another email from the CEO of Purdue Pharma, Purdue sales reps gave the doctors who spoke against Oxycontin presentations that presented untrue statements about Oxycontin and made claims that exaggerated research findings from the FDA. The only goal of these presentations was to continue increasing sales of Oxycontin. Physicians were being misled and OxyContin only became more and more popular.
Although the opioid epidemic was ravaging America, Purdue Pharma’s greed caused them to turn to lies and exploit the American people. Despite the fact that they claimed to not know what was going on, evidence points to the fact that they not only knew how addictive Oxycontin was, but that they went to extreme lengths to cover up the reality of Oxycontin’s addictive nature. Even five months after Oxycontin’s approval, a Purdue Pharma scientist found that drug abusers were being able to extract morphine from MS Contin (a similar opioid to Oxycontin) in order to inject the drug, however, Purdue Pharma never acknowledged this research (Meier, 2018). Furthermore, when the sale of Oxycontin began to boom, the company not only received many internal reports about the Oxycontin abuse, but they also received scrutiny from the public through the news media. Recently, Purdue’s chairman admitted in court that Purdue Pharma lied to the Drug Enforcement Administration about their regulation of Oxycontin that entered the black market (Benner 2020). Due to high levels of black market activity regarding Oxycontin, the Drug Enforcement Administration was concerned about Purdue Pharma’s involvement, but yet again, Purdue Pharma lied and said it had created a program to prevent OxyContin from being sold on the black market, which simply did not exist. It is clear from all of this evidence that, although Purdue Pharma knew about the addictive nature of Oxycontin, they continued to distribute Oxycontin which resulted in many deaths that could have otherwise been prevented.
Purdue Pharma went a step further by criminalizing addiction for prescription medication in hopes of shifting the responsibility. Blaming abusers for the addictive nature of Oxycontin, the CEO of Purdue claimed that “[addicts] are the culprits and the problem. They are reckless criminals” (Armstrong 2019). One mother whose daughter passed away from overdosing on medication that was prescribed for her back pain was urging federal regulators to investigate Oxycontin. In response to her, Purdue Pharmareleased a public statement that they believed her daughter was a drug addict and that she just used the Oxycontin to fuel her addiction (Armstrong 2019). Although Purdue Pharma made people who became addicted to Oxycontin seem like they had previously been addicted to drugs, patients with Oxycontin prescriptions most often became addicted by the Oxycontin itself . To reinforce their agenda of criminalization, Purdue Pharma launched a media campaign branding addicts as criminals, publishing articles with headlines such as “Heroic Dopheads'' and “Doctors Behind Bars: Treating Pain is now Risky Business” (Armstrong 2019). These articles made unsubstantiated claims such as “the typical OxyContin addict does not start out as a pain patient who fell unwittingly into a drug habit” and “substance abusers have a problem that the rest of us are being punished for'' (Armstrong 2019). Rather than admitting the addictive nature of their drug, Purdue Pharma blamed and criminalized the victim, and created a long-lasting stigma surrounding addicts who had done nothing wrong.
In mid-2006, government prosecutors notified Purdue Pharma about the charges they planned to pursue regarding the crimes they had committed (Meier 2018). After settling on a plea deal, Purdue Pharma agreed to plead guilty to a felony charge of misbranding and misrepresenting Oxycontin’s risk of being abused. Three of the top executives at Purdue Pharma, Dr. Goldenheim, Mr. Udell, and Mr. Friedman pleaded guilty for Purdue Pharma’s wrongdoings. However, despite the fact that they were responsible for a lot of the misbranding of the drug, they were the only executives held liable for Purdue Pharma’s mistakes. Although the company and the executives paid a combined $634.5 million in fines, those three men were only required to complete community service as punishment (Meier 2018). At a court hearing in 2007 to approve the settlement, the prosecutor on the case said he believed that by charging the Purdue Pharma officials with misdemeanors would dissuade the drug industry from distributing excess amounts of drugs (Meier 2018). Clearly his prediction was incorrect as Purdue Pharma continued to sell Oxycontin and the drug industry as a whole sent enough pain pills to West Virginia over a five-year period to supply every man, woman and child there with 433 of them (Meier 2018).
After many more years of investigations and over two dozen lawsuits, brought by multiple states, in November 2020, Purdue Pharma pled guilty to federal criminal charges and agreed to a settlement (Mann 2020). The settlement stipulates that Purdue Pharma will not only be shutting down most of their company, but will pay over $8 billion in reparations (Mann 2020). The settlement calls for Purdue Pharma to become a “public benefit company” which serves the purpose of helping those with addiction rather than maximizing profits. Although the mission of the company will now be to create overdose rescue drugs and other medical treatments for marginalized communities dealing with the opioid epidemic, Purdue Pharma will continue to produce painkillers such as OxyContin since there are “legitimate uses for painkillers.” This part of the settlement has garnered criticism, as many states argue that this is a fundamental fault with the plan (Benner 2020). The states primarily object to the fact that Purdue Pharma will continue manufacturing OxyContin because they see no evidence that becoming a public company will turn Purdue Pharma into a better corporate citizen. The states are aware that, for example, in 2007, Purdue Pharma executives plead guilty for illegal practices but then resumed their campaign to maximize profits. States are also rightfully worried that turning Purdue Pharma into a government-controlled company would create a conflict of interest in future judicial actions if Purdue Pharma is still in the business of selling OxyContin. In essence, the states argue that Purdue Pharma's ability to continue selling opioids under the guise of being a public benefit company is unacceptable.
Purdue Pharma needs to be held accountable for the damage it has done to America and the lives that have been lost through overdoses. The opioid epidemic could have been stopped back in the 1990’s, but Purdue Pharma chose greed and corruption over the lives of millions. Addicts deserve to know that the company that lied, manipulated data, and misinformed the public, causing unprecedented opioid usage and addiction, is being shut down, and the families of those who have lost relatives to overdoses deserve to have justice.
Works Cited
Armstrong, David, et al. “How Purdue Planted Its 'Anti-Story' to Downplay Risks of OxyContin.” STAT, 30 Dec. 2019, www.statnews.com/2019/11/19/how-purdue-pharma-planted-its-anti-story/. Accessed 9 Dec. 2020
Benner, Katie. “Purdue Pharma Pleads Guilty to Role in Opioid Crisis as Part of Deal With Justice Dept.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 24 Nov. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/11/24/us/politics/purdue-pharma-opioids-guilty-settlement.html. Accessed 10 Dec. 2020
Eyra, Eric. Drug Firms Poured 780M Painkillers into WV amid Rise of Overdoses. 27 Dec. 2017, www.wvgazettemail.com/news/legal_affairs/drug-firms-poured-m-painkillers-into-wv-amid-rise-of/article_99026dad-8ed5-5075-90fa-adb906a36214.html. Accessed 10 Dec. 2020
Hirsch, Ronald. “The Opioid Epidemic: It's Time to Place Blame Where It Belongs.” Missouri Medicine, Journal of the Missouri State Medical Association, 2017, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6140023/. Accessed 9 Dec. 2020
Hudson, Haley. “How Purdue Pharma and the Sackler Family Perpetrated the Opioid Crisis.” Addiction Center, 20 Nov. 2020, www.addictioncenter.com/community/how-purdue-pharma-sackler-family-perpetrated-opioid-crisis/. Accessed 9 Dec. 2020
Mann, Brian. “Federal Judge Approves Landmark $8.3 Billion Purdue Pharma Opioid Settlement.” NPR, NPR, 18 Nov. 2020, www.npr.org/2020/11/17/936022386/federal-judge-approves-landmark-8-3-billion-purdue-pharma-opioid-settlement. Accessed 6 Dec. 2020
Meier, Barry. “Origins of an Epidemic: Purdue Pharma Knew Its Opioids Were Widely Abused.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 29 May 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/health/purdue-opioids-oxycontin.html. Accessed 9 Dec. 2020
“Prescription Opioids.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 29 Aug. 2017, www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/opioids/prescribed.html. Accessed 6 Dec, 2020
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