12 ms·

OxyContin billionaire has patented a drug to wean addicts from opioids

217 points by dsr12 8y ago

olliej 8y ago
The correct course of action is to charge the manufacturers of addictive drugs for the recovery costs. It would discourage pushing over prescription, encourage more work into accurately identifying addictiveness (and presumably reducing it), and if all else fails would encourage them to develop cheap drugs to recover from addiction.
- tejtm 8y ago
  A more abrupt correct course of action comes to mind followed by seizing all assets even tangentially related as inadequate compensation for horrific damages. ya know, to make an example, like we do with the little people.
  - meowface 8y ago
    So if a manufacturer produces a drug which saves tens of millions of people from suffering and a few million of those don't follow manufacturer or doctor instructions and abuse it, the drug manufacturer should be shut down?
    - wjn0 8y ago
      If a drug dealer sells a drug that people enjoy and use to improve their quality of life, but a few people don't follow his advice and become addicted and die as a result, the drug dealer should go to prison for manslaughter?
      - drooogs 8y ago
        ideally, no.
      - meowface 8y ago
        No, I don't think they should, if what they're selling is what they claim to be selling. If it's laced with fentanyl or some other adulterant, that's another story (regardless of whether they were aware it was adulterated or not).
      - fjsolwmv 8y ago
        Centuries of case law on negligence, recklessness, and torts sort out the nuance. It's not a 1-bit function.
    - phry 8y ago
      This is a total whitewash of the role pharmaceutical companies played by intensely pushing opiates while downplaying negative ramifications they were well aware of.
    - tejtm 8y ago
      You are home, sleeping after another boring day at work. You wake up being beaten back unconscious, extremities broken, ribs kicked in. They dial 911 and leave. When you get back from the hospital they will come take your drugs. Why? Nothing personal, just that unlike many of your rural brethren, you have insurance. People deliberately created your guests and are profiting even now from your pain, should they be shut down?
      - lostlogin 8y ago
        That’s dark. Is this a thing?
        tejtm 8y ago
        I could not make it up. Came to me as non fiction via an inhabitant of northern Maine.
        tmp-20150107 8y ago
        Urban legend. With broken bones and enough injuries to be prescribed an amount of take home opiates that would be worthwhile for an addict, you'd be in hospital fora day or two at least, maybe more. One thing about addiction is that immediate access to the drug is more important than anything else. No addict is going to bother with this sort of thing just to get a dozen or so Codeine pills...
        fjsolwmv 8y ago
        Once you are hooked they can steal your refills...
    - DanBC 8y ago
      You might want to read Dopesick because it's an eye-opening look at what Purdue actually did.
    - lostlogin 8y ago
      What number of deaths is ok? There were 63,632 fatal overdoses in 2016 and nearly two-thirds of those deaths involved a prescription or illicit opioids.
    - watwut 8y ago
      Is that what happened, historically? You checked it or just assume it happened like that when the drug started?
    - int_19h 8y ago
      If they expected this to happen and went ahead anyway because profits, then yes, absolutely.
    - freyr 8y ago
      Yes, if they’ve contributed to the opioid addiction of a few million people, they should bear some responsibility. Of course the distributors supplying the black market and pill mills should also bear responsibility. But if you penalize the drug companies, you can be sure they’ll tighten up their distribution.
  - olliej 8y ago
    That just won’t happen in America (look at equifax). But making manufacturers responsible for covering costs for recovery/withdrawal from drugs they sell would encourage them to work to make drugs less addictive (currently making an addictive drug is a perpetual money printing machine), and result in them coming up with better/faster/cheaper drugs to withdraw. I mean if an individual stage did this of course they’d just bribe (I mean support) some senators to make such a rule unenforceable at a federal level.
- buttcoinslol 8y ago
  Opiates are fungible. Heroin and oxy are interchangeable, how do you determine what liability Purdue has if someone started using heroin but also buys oxy or starts on oxy and switches to heroin?
  - lostlogin 8y ago
    There would be an expected prescription rate for geographic areas, specialties, doctors etc. I’m sure it’s very easy to tell who is going through a lot of it and potentially causing harm. Knowing this and continuing to provide the drug is where the line is crossed in my opinion.
    - Nasrudith 8y ago
      Wait wouldn't that mean expecting them to profile and essentially engage in redlining /from the upper supply chain/ instead of the patients and subscribers? Assuming that it is 'easy' to tell who is abusing drugs in itself sounds like a way to do a lot of harm.
      - lostlogin 8y ago
        It works pretty well where I live. https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/regulation-health-and-disability-system/medicines-control/controlled-drugs https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/regulation-health-and-di...
  - freyr 8y ago
    Do you give the heroin dealer the same consideration?
peakai 8y ago
Build the poison, with the antidote to (much) later follow ... A perfectly sound business model. Reinforce the pathways that ensure that an industry's products (prescription drugs) will never fall out of vogue as the mechanism to solve all of people's problems, and make (a lot of) money all the while. Subjugation through palliation, a textbook case.
- pizzazzaro 8y ago
  Remember when Oxycontin was supposed to be a pain pill that was "impossible to get addicted to"? Yeah... I'm trusting this "relief measure" about as much as I trusted that line in the 90s. This is just gonna be their new wave of "milder" Oxy, that people get hooked on first. Sure, we're sold that its for helping things now... But give it a few years and this will be just another prescription opiate slung by street dealers. "Oh its safer!" Methadone is addictive too. And so is this filth.
  - darpa_escapee 8y ago
    Buprenorphine has been on the streets for years. This article talks about yet another buprenorphine formulation.
  - blattimwind 8y ago
    > Remember when Oxycontin was supposed to be a pain pill that was "impossible to get addicted to"? Yeah... I'm trusting this "relief measure" about as much as I trusted that line in the 90s. Huh? Oxycodone is extremely addictive, just like every other opioid. This has been well known since always.
    - 0xcde4c3db 8y ago
      I don't know that they ever flat-out phrased it as extremely as "impossible to get addicted to", but Purdue Pharma definitely made puffed-up claims that the extended-release nature of OxyContin drastically lowered addiction potential compared to immediate-release opioids. They were fined $600M for aggressively misleading marketing about its addiction potential and reduced side effects [1]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/10/business/11drug-web.html https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/10/business/11drug-web.html
hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to go through life with no conscience. I don't really want to be a sociopath but I admit that to be free from guilt or anxiety over my actions at even a level one tenth of this guy would be nice.
- rubbingalcohol 8y ago
  Opioid pain drugs are life savers for people who actually need them, so I think this is a bit more complicated than capitalist Satan-incarnate vs. the poor helpless fools duped into taking his wicked drug.
  - hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
    I'm not denying that opioid drugs are useful, but the way Purdue Pharma actually acted is much more in line with a capitalist Satan-incarnate view, regardless of the benefits of opioids.
    - travmatt 8y ago
      Yea, framing the discussion as “people believe pharmaceuticals acted amorally because the produce opioid medicines” is reframing the debate imo.
  - theossuary 8y ago
    It is certainly more complicated, but that doesn't necessarily make the manufactures look better. From all accounts, they marketed their drug as non-addictive, in spite of evidence they had to the contrary. Now after getting people addicted to their safe medication, they've made a "cure" for it. Who's to say the cure isn't worse than the disease? I wouldn't trust them to make that judgement call. It isn't as if Oxycodone is the only way to manage pain either.
    - NegativeLatency 8y ago
      Not only the manufactures, but also the pharma sales reps who make commission. Plenty of blame to go around.
ChuckMcM 8y ago
It would be an interesting use of civil asset forfeiture to seize the patent on this drug and make it free for anyone to produce.
- 21 8y ago
  It wouldn't be the first time. During the bird flu scare, a bunch of countries said that they were ready to ignore the patents on Tamiflu and produce it on their own if they don't get shipments of it - Taiwan, India, Indonesia...
- Dowwie 8y ago
  Economic incentives were likely the only reason for this development, though. Claim civil asset forfeiture on drug patents and watch how quickly the well dries. Oxy won't be the last dangerous, addictive drug that society faces.
  - timr 8y ago
    Buprenorphine has been a drug for decades.
- fjsolwmv 8y ago
  That's eminent domain Cibil forfeiture would be seizing the assets of these drug cartels for their intentionally criminal behavior of bribing doctors and lying to regulators.
codr4 8y ago
Been there, done that; went through hell to get off OxyContin after a climbing accident. Repeat customers are created by doing long term harm while providing short term relief, expecting corporations to actually solve problems or have a conscience is beyond silly.
- hansthehorse 8y ago
  I was switched from Oxy (liquid) to morphine after tongue cancer surgery and months of mouth and neck radiation treatment. Was on a maintenance plus "break through pain" prescription for 6 months. It took a week to get withdrawal symptom free with the first 3 days being the worst. It wasn't terrible but I don't want to have to do it again.
dixie_land 8y ago
I was prescribed Oxycondon (the generic) for kidney stones and it really helped me get through excruciating pain. (My stones are not seriously enough to require surgery but you gotta sit through the pain to wait for them to pass through). But as soon as the pain become remotely manageable I stopped it and just used NSAIDs. Because it doesn't take a genius to look up online what you're taking and know the side effects (I'm counting addition as one) To this day I keep the unused pills close just in case but I honestly never once tempted to use them for recreational purposes. I guess my point is that it takes two to tango and let's not throw personal responsibility out of the window when talking about opioids.
- InclinedPlane 8y ago
  So you're saying you disobeyed your doctor's recommendations in managing a common type of acute pain and you think that justifies demonizing other people who have had different experiences? That seems not only callous but also extraordinarily naive and self-absorbed. You can't know what other people's experiences were like, especially those with chronic or more severe pain.
- dixie_land 8y ago
  for people downvoting this: did you have something to add to the discussion? or do you just have to downvote anyone who shares a first hand experience that happen to not fit into your narrative?
  - stefan_ 8y ago
    I thought the judging was a bit much and highly ironic when coupled with early addict behavior ("let's keep those opioids around just in case").
    - penagwin 8y ago
      I think by "just in case" he meant in the case of needing them therapeutically not recreationally. If you have the self-control the idea is having some in case you fall and break your arm or something(Obviously only for serious injuries).
patientplatypus 8y ago
Not only should they be forced to give this drug patent away, they should be forced at gunpoint to manufacture this until bankruptcy. These people are despicable scum.
- jhwang5 8y ago
  who hurt you my little dude?
- mmirate 8y ago
  Luckily we still have some semblance of "rule of law" rather than "rule of mob", else vindictive people would throw medicine (among other industries) back into the Stone Age.
  - cocacola1 8y ago
    Rule of law* *Terms and conditions may apply, contingent on wealth.
    - mmirate 8y ago
      So you would rather that if a bunch of people happen to come to agreement to do something immoral, that that immoral thing be done?
      - cocacola1 8y ago
        Immoral or illegal?
        mmirate 8y ago
        Theft is both. Except when the mob decides that someone is "too rich" and should "have their wealth be distributed for the common good", then it mysteriously becomes legal.
sgibat 8y ago
If you read the patent, this is simply a faster dissolving suboxone, which is already an extremely common form of substitution therapy. This isn't anything radically new. I would say it doesn't deem itself worthy of patent, but I know nothing of patent laws.
- mtgx 8y ago
  This is the type of "research" Big Pharma often does that needs all of those billions of dollars and 4,000% price increases of life-saving drugs, according to some.
elipsey 8y ago
The patent is for sublingual buprenorphine, which has appears to have been available since the early 80's, while buprenorphine has existed for 50 years.[1] It seems like we're getting the exactly patent ever-greening behavior we have incentivized. *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buprenorphine#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buprenorphine#History
- epmaybe 8y ago
  I disagree that this is not novel. It's an immediately dissolvable buprenorphine. I discussed this in my top level comment, but subutex has been abused because it does take some time to dissolve, so patients will sometimes take it out of their mouth when the healthcare provider is not looking in order to inject later. This version avoids that to some extent, which is novel enough to be patentable.
  - girvo 8y ago
    Eh. Bupe isn’t that abusable, so you very quickly get a couple weeks of take-home doses. So if you’re going to IV it, this new patent makes zero difference.
    - epmaybe 8y ago
      sublingual buprenorphine like Subutex is only indicated for take-home if the patient can not tolerate suboxone (oral buprenorphine/naloxone). If you're prescribing subutex take-home just because, you're not following the preferred prescribing practices. Suboxone and subutex are not used the same way, as I described in my top level comment in this thread. Subutex is for patients that are not clinically stable, so they get daily doses from their treatment center and are watched as they take the medicine. You could argue that the providers should watch them until they have dissolved it, and thus this patent is over-engineering a solution, but that's not what you argued. Suboxone is for patients that are clinically stable, compliant, and/or are unable to make frequent visits to their treatment center, so they are able to take-home their medication and take it as prescribed. These are patients that you as the healthcare provider are relatively certain wouldn't abuse it. And yes, while buprenorphine isn't as abusable as most other medications, and is far more forgiving than methadone, it's not perfect, and there is still some liability for abuse, especially with subutex. So while I agree that this patent makes very little difference (again, check my longer comment), it's not all that bad of an idea, hence why Purdue likely patented it.
epmaybe 8y ago
Just some background information on the drug patent (which washington post's link to the patent is paywalled, so here: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/85/96/76/8ba72daaca8a42/US20160235739A1.pdf https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/85/96/76/8ba72da...). It's basically buprenorphine (an opioid agonist that is technically non-addictive and indicated for pain control in opioid dependent patients) in a different delivery package that is quite frankly superior to our current versions of buprenorphine. Our current methods of providing buprenorphine are via sublingual (under your tongue, Subutex) or orally (Suboxone, which is actually buprenorphine plus naloxone). It's a wafer that immediately dissolves when taken delivering the drug orally. Now, these methods of administration are pretty good. Subutex will dissolve relatively quickly and you've got good pain management in recovering addicts. However, patients will sometimes take these out of their mouth quickly before the healthcare provider notices, so that they can inject it later (which can definitely provide the euphoria associated with opioids). Suboxone gets around that somewhat, by combining the buprenorphine with naloxone, an opioid antagonist. This works because if the provider wants to give the patient a longer term supply, the user can't abuse it by dissolving the med and injecting it. Why? Because the opioid antagonist that is built in only works when injected, causing severe withdrawal. The issue with this, however, is that opioid addicts are smart. They burn off the naloxone and then inject. So this drug patent offers an alternative: give wafers of buprenorphine at addiction centers that dissolve immediately in front of the healthcare provider. This avoids the hiding issue of subutex, and provides the same route of administration which is the benefit of subutex over suboxone. Now, at the end of the day, does any of this matter? Not really. Subutex is still hard to get covered by insurance, so most providers stick with Suboxone (or generics, as I think that's available now) anyways. Do you think that this new medication will make it into practice? We don't even have phase 1 trial data on the drug, just a patent. If you're really outraged over a drug being patented, though, then the discussion becomes far more complicated. Smarter individuals than myself argue that on HN all the time.
CodeWriter23 8y ago
Also, all forms of buprenorphine (aka Suboxone) often end up being a heroin substitute rather than weaning the addict from heroin. Kinda like how Oxy functions in real-world application. The difference is, Suboxone is mandated in alternative sentencing programs by the judiciary of certain states. And in some states, with no consideration of whether the addict was addicted to opiates/opioids.
- mattnewton 8y ago
  Do you have a source on that last part I could read more about? The idea of a court mandating opiate treatment because someone smoked weed is terrifying.
  - monochromatic 8y ago
    Yeah that seems... implausible.
  - devin 8y ago
    I'm assuming he means people who are caught with opioids who are not necessarily addicted to them.
- drooogs 8y ago
  plenty of people successfully use buprenorphine to taper off heroin. some people do end up going on long term buprenorphine maintenance, but the harm there is radically less than an active oxy/heroin addiction. even in the worst case scenario, any day that an opioid addict takes buprenorphine is a day where they have far less risk of fatal overdose.
  - stochastic_monk 8y ago
    Exactly. Additionally, methadone increases cardiac mortality by increasing the QT interval, so the drug with better efficacy and safety profile should fully replace it. Buprenorphine is good. And someone can’t get on it if they’re too addicted to opiates because as a partial agonist it can precipitate accelerated withdrawal, which acts as a protective mechanism, I imagine.
RickJWagner 8y ago
This is great news. Anything to fight the opioid epidemic is a good thing.
- lostlogin 8y ago
  If this drug works it may well fuel the fire.
fenwick67 8y ago
"We share the state’s concern about the opioid crisis. While our opioid medicines account for less than 2% of total prescriptions, we will continue to work collaboratively with the state toward bringing meaningful solutions to address this public health challenge" This is such a scummy spin.
- lostlogin 8y ago
  I wonder how they count that too. Number of script letter? Number of pills charted, or boxes shipped? Number of dollars earned? You can bet it’s a carefully chosen statistic.
dillondoyle 8y ago
I hate this profit seeking marketing BS and I think it's kind of evil. They must know better. I can't believe they don't have data on actual use of Buprenorphine specifically the number of patients who take it long term and have huge issues tapering off Buprenorphine itself. Getting off suboxone itself is very difficult. It seems most users describe the withdrawal as harder than heroin because it lasts a much longer time. [1] [2] I'm perfectly fine with the idea of replacement therapy. And in fact I actually think we should just provide pure morphine to users for free it would actually be pretty safe for long term use (and WAY cheaper). Long term Suboxone replacement therapy also sounds like a great tool if it weren't for the marketing lies and profit. That's where my huge beef is. Yet again making big profit by marketing the (at best not the whole truth, I think truth is closer to false and morally corrupt) idea that this is temporary. Maybe after they make a few billion and get people hooked on subs they will pivot to sell another expensive patented drug to 'wean off' suboxone and continue the profits. Of course there are examples of users being able to taper off. But there seems to be far more examples of users not being able to wean from Buprenorphine itself. 1: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/health/in-demand-in-clinics-and-on-the-street-bupe-can-be-savior-or-menace.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/health/in-demand-in-clini... 2: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5398454/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5398454/
- coleifer 8y ago
  There was a prominent doctor here in Topeka who was fired from the hospital for keeping folks on Suboxone. The idea of course is that you can have a nice gentle taper, same with methadone, but the reality is you can't "beat" withdrawal. So people stay on it. The euphoria from these drugs doesn't come close to heroin, so people are continually going back and forth. There's an added danger because buprenorphine binds tighter that if it's in your system it takes a lot more dope to kick the buprenorphine off the receptors, so lots of overdoses. This, I believe, is the reality. Of course Suboxone and methadone are so much safer to use than street heroin. And doctors will help those who want to, to taper. I just don't think that describes most sub/methadone users. I don't think the issue is a lack of safer alternatives. It's whatever is driving the person to seek out the effects produced by those drugs in the first place.
coleifer 8y ago
Crazy. Sub clinics are sad places. Gray-faced junkies paying $3-400/month to stay hooked. A buprenorphine script is probably $10/month. It's a racket. Capitalism at work.
- natalyarostova 8y ago
  This seems much more related to the specific political economy of government health institutions and their interaction with electoral systems, than a specific causal attribution to systems based on capital. That is to say, there are many failure and success modes of a government response to drugs that are orthogonal, or at least only loosely correlated, with the specific marker system that is implemented.
- tmp-20150107 8y ago
  Wow! This makes slightly less angry about the hoops I had to jump through to get on a treatment program with the NHS in the UK. (Well, the part of it where prescriptions are still free.) At least they don't add to the problem by making you pay to get help...
jwilk 8y ago
Archived copy without GDPR nag screen: https://web.archive.org/web/20180908213017/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2018/09/08/the-man-who-made-billions-of-dollars-from-oxycontin-is-pushing-a-drug-to-wean-addicts-off-opioids https://web.archive.org/web/20180908213017/https://www.washi...
stevebmark 8y ago
Jack Donaghy: Imagine that your favorite corn chip manufacturer also owned the number one diarrhea medication. Liz Lemon: That'd be great, 'cause then they could put a little sample of the medicine in each bag. Jack Donaghy: Keep thinking. Liz Lemon: [beat] Except then they might be tempted to make the corn chips give you... Jack Donaghy: Vertical integration.
fapjacks 8y ago
“We believe it is inappropriate for the state to substitute its judgment for the judgment of the regulatory, scientific and medical experts at FDA.” If this doesn't tell you all you need to know about regulatory capture and the FDA...
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  To be fair I wouldn't want that either - especially depending on the state. The state positions are far too subject to demagoguery for the sake of career advancement. An appointed and tenured agency like the FDA is at least better in that respect that they are more likely to act based upon actual problems with some degree of caution and attention to evidence instead of stirring up panics for the sake of advancement. Unlike literally every 'tough on crime' politician and the abhorrent historical trends. Precisely the reason why they are appointed instead of elected officials.
  - fapjacks 8y ago
    You are right, of course, generally speaking. It -- corruption -- seems to be one of humanity's most intractable problems. But just talking only about the FDA specifically, they are clearly in the pockets of the pharmaceutical industry. The FDA makes policy decisions that are highly influenced by pharmaceutical companies and completely counter to the body of scientific evidence. Just go read Scott Gottlieb's Twitter feed. Or do even the most minimal, cursory research on the FDA's history. This may not mean anything to you, but I personally believe that regulatory capture is greater in the FDA than it is in the CPUC, California's hilarious "public" utilities commission.
    - Nasrudith 8y ago
      Yeah it is all heuristic at this point. There is one radical theoretical solution for regulatory capture that I can see which could have its own issues both economically and incentive wise: regulatory jobs are the last job one takes. In exchange for a lifelong pension they can never work or accept any form of compensation ever again. This would include running their own business and indeeed all forms of compensation including speaking fees and even amenities. You are free to go speak at every Ivy league after retirement but that is essentially just a hobby. It would no doubt be expensive in itself but it could pay off in reduced corruption costs.
bogomipz 8y ago
>"And it comes amid news that the company’s former chairman and president, Richard Sackler, has patented a new drug to help wean addicts from opioids" For those who aren't familiar with Richard Sackler or the Sackler family. I highly recommend this piece: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/30/the-family-that-built-an-empire-of-pain https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/30/the-family-tha...
lerie82 8y ago
start the buprenorphine clinics, forget methadone, let's give em a new addiction.
village-idiot 8y ago
While I'm interested in anything to halt or stop the opioid crisis, anything from the owners of OkyContin must be treated with a large grain of salt. OxyContin was nominally supposed to be a slow release low risk opioid for chronic pain sufferers. Not only has that not worked out so well, it's pretty clear that they understood the risks and basically straight up lied to doctors about the risks. They have the capability to create these compounds, but they also have very low trustworthiness.
md224 8y ago
People will abuse anything that helps to numb painful emotions. Demonizing the drug isn't helpful; if you get rid of one, people will lean on something else. The solution to drug addiction is very simple: give people better ways of dealing with their emotional pain. Of course, actually accomplishing that is the hard part. My personal belief is that we need a two-fold attack: 1) Harm reduction: provide people with less harmful emotional anesthetics (like Kratom) 2) Fix the underlying problem: provide people with better mental health care, better coping strategies, more community and more human connection. Most people agree that #2 is needed, but #1 is controversial. I think that we should treat emotional injuries like physical injuries. When someone breaks their leg and they ask for painkillers, we don't tell them "sorry, but you know that painkillers aren't going to help you heal any faster." Sometimes people need palliative treatments, but we're unwilling to provide these when it comes to psychological pain. As far as I can tell, this unwillingness is based entirely on an aphoristic assumption: "if you want to heal it, you have to feel it." Okay, great, but where's the science? Where's the research? Do you have to feel it completely to heal it, or can you take a drug that helps you feel it a bit less? What's the exact relationship between experiencing distress and healing that distress? We can't allow slogans to guide the treatment of psychological trauma.
- caseymarquis 8y ago
  Addiction is physiological. You're describing psychological dependence. You can die from drug withdrawal. Given that, medicine which aids in weaning off addictive drugs seem useful.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
fipple 8y ago
I’d support a political platform to create a legal framework to execute high-level corporate criminals like the Sacklers and their henchmen.
- java_script 8y ago
  Slippery slope. Reminds me of that one poem. “First they came for the big pharma capitalists that caused opioid epidemic, and I did not speak up because I was not a big pharma capitalist that caused the opioid epidemic.” Etc. What if I work real hard and become one of those guys one day. I don’t wanna get executed.
  - fipple 8y ago
    Don’t knowingly create a mass death epidemic and you won’t be executed.
    - Nasrudith 8y ago
      That sounds literally identical to 'If you're not doing anything wrong do you haven't anything to hide.' or 'Don't commit crime if you don't want to be raped in prison.' "Lets just throw out civil rights." is an incredibly dangerous notion.
      - fipple 8y ago
        Don’t see anything anti “civil rights” about using a punishment often given to people who kill a single victim to people who kill hundreds of thousands, just because the more efficient killers do so from an office building.
  - teddyh 8y ago
    There’s another quote which I think you illustrate perfectly: “[…] the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” — John Steinbeck See also http://www.temporarilyembarrassedmillionaires.org/ http://www.temporarilyembarrassedmillionaires.org/
conchy 8y ago
This guy is the Sylvester McMonkey McBean of pharmaceuticals
cityzen 8y ago
If you understand who Richard "Dirty Dick" Sadler is, the story makes a lot more sense: Sackler joined Purdue Pharma in 1971, as assistant to the president.[8] He became head of R&D and head of marketing before becoming president in 1999, and co-chairman in 2003.[8] Sackler was in charge of the research department that developed OxyContin. As president, he approved the targeted marketing schemes to promote sales of OxyContin to doctors, pharmacists, nurses, academics, and others. Shelby Sherman, an ex-Purdue sales rep, has called these marketing schemes "graft".[2] In 2015, Sackler was deposed by four lawyers in Louisville, Kentucky. The deposition concerned the development and marketing of OxyContin under the watch of him and his family, who were and are active board members of their private company, Purdue Pharma. The marketing and prescribing of OxyContin in Pike County, Kentucky, was of particular interest. Before the case could go to trial and thus before the deposition could become a matter of public record, Purdue settled for $24 million, admitting no liability, sealing the deposition, and requiring the Kentucky prosecutors to destroy, or return to Purdue, millions of pages of internal documents obtained from the company during discovery. The medical news website STAT then sued to unseal Richard Sackler's deposition. A state judge ruled in its favor. Purdue appealed, and, as of October 26, 2017, that appeal remains outstanding. The deposition cannot be made public unless the appeal is decided in favor of STAT again.[9] Sackler has donated to both Republican and Democratic politicians, though chiefly to Republicans.[3] His charitable foundation, the Richard and Beth Sackler Foundation, has donated to anti-Muslim organizations, as well as to organizations that have promoted the falsehood that millions of undocumented immigrants voted in the 2016 presidential election.[3] Sackler is a member of the board of advisors of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.[7] -------------------- Even when they were developing opioids, they knew that that long term care was ineffective and that the risks outweigh the benefits for long term care. This guy does not care. Politicians are on the take so they don't care. As long as companies can patent and profit off of prescription drugs, this problem will continue. It's that simple, yet no one in government has the guts to take these people on. For starters, someone get that damn transcript because I'm sure it has plenty of information to blow the lid off of this.

217 points by dsr12 8y ago

The correct course of action is to charge the manufacturers of addictive drugs for the recovery costs. It would discourage pushing over prescription, encourage more work into accurately identifying addictiveness (and presumably reducing it), and if all else fails would encourage them to develop cheap drugs to recover from addiction.

tejtm 8y ago
A more abrupt correct course of action comes to mind followed by seizing all assets even tangentially related as inadequate compensation for horrific damages. ya know, to make an example, like we do with the little people.
- meowface 8y ago
  So if a manufacturer produces a drug which saves tens of millions of people from suffering and a few million of those don't follow manufacturer or doctor instructions and abuse it, the drug manufacturer should be shut down?
  - wjn0 8y ago
    If a drug dealer sells a drug that people enjoy and use to improve their quality of life, but a few people don't follow his advice and become addicted and die as a result, the drug dealer should go to prison for manslaughter?
    - drooogs 8y ago
      ideally, no.
    - meowface 8y ago
      No, I don't think they should, if what they're selling is what they claim to be selling. If it's laced with fentanyl or some other adulterant, that's another story (regardless of whether they were aware it was adulterated or not).
    - fjsolwmv 8y ago
      Centuries of case law on negligence, recklessness, and torts sort out the nuance. It's not a 1-bit function.
  - phry 8y ago
    This is a total whitewash of the role pharmaceutical companies played by intensely pushing opiates while downplaying negative ramifications they were well aware of.
  - tejtm 8y ago
    You are home, sleeping after another boring day at work. You wake up being beaten back unconscious, extremities broken, ribs kicked in. They dial 911 and leave. When you get back from the hospital they will come take your drugs. Why? Nothing personal, just that unlike many of your rural brethren, you have insurance. People deliberately created your guests and are profiting even now from your pain, should they be shut down?
    - lostlogin 8y ago
      That’s dark. Is this a thing?
      - tejtm 8y ago
        I could not make it up. Came to me as non fiction via an inhabitant of northern Maine.
        tmp-20150107 8y ago
        Urban legend. With broken bones and enough injuries to be prescribed an amount of take home opiates that would be worthwhile for an addict, you'd be in hospital fora day or two at least, maybe more. One thing about addiction is that immediate access to the drug is more important than anything else. No addict is going to bother with this sort of thing just to get a dozen or so Codeine pills...
        fjsolwmv 8y ago
        Once you are hooked they can steal your refills...
  - DanBC 8y ago
    You might want to read Dopesick because it's an eye-opening look at what Purdue actually did.
  - lostlogin 8y ago
    What number of deaths is ok? There were 63,632 fatal overdoses in 2016 and nearly two-thirds of those deaths involved a prescription or illicit opioids.
  - watwut 8y ago
    Is that what happened, historically? You checked it or just assume it happened like that when the drug started?
  - int_19h 8y ago
    If they expected this to happen and went ahead anyway because profits, then yes, absolutely.
  - freyr 8y ago
    Yes, if they’ve contributed to the opioid addiction of a few million people, they should bear some responsibility. Of course the distributors supplying the black market and pill mills should also bear responsibility. But if you penalize the drug companies, you can be sure they’ll tighten up their distribution.
- olliej 8y ago
  That just won’t happen in America (look at equifax). But making manufacturers responsible for covering costs for recovery/withdrawal from drugs they sell would encourage them to work to make drugs less addictive (currently making an addictive drug is a perpetual money printing machine), and result in them coming up with better/faster/cheaper drugs to withdraw. I mean if an individual stage did this of course they’d just bribe (I mean support) some senators to make such a rule unenforceable at a federal level.
buttcoinslol 8y ago
Opiates are fungible. Heroin and oxy are interchangeable, how do you determine what liability Purdue has if someone started using heroin but also buys oxy or starts on oxy and switches to heroin?
- lostlogin 8y ago
  There would be an expected prescription rate for geographic areas, specialties, doctors etc. I’m sure it’s very easy to tell who is going through a lot of it and potentially causing harm. Knowing this and continuing to provide the drug is where the line is crossed in my opinion.
  - Nasrudith 8y ago
    Wait wouldn't that mean expecting them to profile and essentially engage in redlining /from the upper supply chain/ instead of the patients and subscribers? Assuming that it is 'easy' to tell who is abusing drugs in itself sounds like a way to do a lot of harm.
    - lostlogin 8y ago
      It works pretty well where I live. https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/regulation-health-and-disability-system/medicines-control/controlled-drugs https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/regulation-health-and-di...
- freyr 8y ago
  Do you give the heroin dealer the same consideration?

peakai 8y ago

Build the poison, with the antidote to (much) later follow ... A perfectly sound business model. Reinforce the pathways that ensure that an industry's products (prescription drugs) will never fall out of vogue as the mechanism to solve all of people's problems, and make (a lot of) money all the while. Subjugation through palliation, a textbook case.

pizzazzaro 8y ago
Remember when Oxycontin was supposed to be a pain pill that was "impossible to get addicted to"? Yeah... I'm trusting this "relief measure" about as much as I trusted that line in the 90s. This is just gonna be their new wave of "milder" Oxy, that people get hooked on first. Sure, we're sold that its for helping things now... But give it a few years and this will be just another prescription opiate slung by street dealers. "Oh its safer!" Methadone is addictive too. And so is this filth.
- darpa_escapee 8y ago
  Buprenorphine has been on the streets for years. This article talks about yet another buprenorphine formulation.
- blattimwind 8y ago
  > Remember when Oxycontin was supposed to be a pain pill that was "impossible to get addicted to"? Yeah... I'm trusting this "relief measure" about as much as I trusted that line in the 90s. Huh? Oxycodone is extremely addictive, just like every other opioid. This has been well known since always.
  - 0xcde4c3db 8y ago
    I don't know that they ever flat-out phrased it as extremely as "impossible to get addicted to", but Purdue Pharma definitely made puffed-up claims that the extended-release nature of OxyContin drastically lowered addiction potential compared to immediate-release opioids. They were fined $600M for aggressively misleading marketing about its addiction potential and reduced side effects [1]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/10/business/11drug-web.html https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/10/business/11drug-web.html

hn_throwaway_99 8y ago

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to go through life with no conscience. I don't really want to be a sociopath but I admit that to be free from guilt or anxiety over my actions at even a level one tenth of this guy would be nice.

rubbingalcohol 8y ago
Opioid pain drugs are life savers for people who actually need them, so I think this is a bit more complicated than capitalist Satan-incarnate vs. the poor helpless fools duped into taking his wicked drug.
- hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
  I'm not denying that opioid drugs are useful, but the way Purdue Pharma actually acted is much more in line with a capitalist Satan-incarnate view, regardless of the benefits of opioids.
  - travmatt 8y ago
    Yea, framing the discussion as “people believe pharmaceuticals acted amorally because the produce opioid medicines” is reframing the debate imo.
- theossuary 8y ago
  It is certainly more complicated, but that doesn't necessarily make the manufactures look better. From all accounts, they marketed their drug as non-addictive, in spite of evidence they had to the contrary. Now after getting people addicted to their safe medication, they've made a "cure" for it. Who's to say the cure isn't worse than the disease? I wouldn't trust them to make that judgement call. It isn't as if Oxycodone is the only way to manage pain either.
  - NegativeLatency 8y ago
    Not only the manufactures, but also the pharma sales reps who make commission. Plenty of blame to go around.

ChuckMcM 8y ago

It would be an interesting use of civil asset forfeiture to seize the patent on this drug and make it free for anyone to produce.

21 8y ago
It wouldn't be the first time. During the bird flu scare, a bunch of countries said that they were ready to ignore the patents on Tamiflu and produce it on their own if they don't get shipments of it - Taiwan, India, Indonesia...
Dowwie 8y ago
Economic incentives were likely the only reason for this development, though. Claim civil asset forfeiture on drug patents and watch how quickly the well dries. Oxy won't be the last dangerous, addictive drug that society faces.
- timr 8y ago
  Buprenorphine has been a drug for decades.
fjsolwmv 8y ago
That's eminent domain Cibil forfeiture would be seizing the assets of these drug cartels for their intentionally criminal behavior of bribing doctors and lying to regulators.

codr4 8y ago

Been there, done that; went through hell to get off OxyContin after a climbing accident. Repeat customers are created by doing long term harm while providing short term relief, expecting corporations to actually solve problems or have a conscience is beyond silly.

hansthehorse 8y ago
I was switched from Oxy (liquid) to morphine after tongue cancer surgery and months of mouth and neck radiation treatment. Was on a maintenance plus "break through pain" prescription for 6 months. It took a week to get withdrawal symptom free with the first 3 days being the worst. It wasn't terrible but I don't want to have to do it again.

dixie_land 8y ago

I was prescribed Oxycondon (the generic) for kidney stones and it really helped me get through excruciating pain. (My stones are not seriously enough to require surgery but you gotta sit through the pain to wait for them to pass through). But as soon as the pain become remotely manageable I stopped it and just used NSAIDs. Because it doesn't take a genius to look up online what you're taking and know the side effects (I'm counting addition as one) To this day I keep the unused pills close just in case but I honestly never once tempted to use them for recreational purposes. I guess my point is that it takes two to tango and let's not throw personal responsibility out of the window when talking about opioids.

InclinedPlane 8y ago
So you're saying you disobeyed your doctor's recommendations in managing a common type of acute pain and you think that justifies demonizing other people who have had different experiences? That seems not only callous but also extraordinarily naive and self-absorbed. You can't know what other people's experiences were like, especially those with chronic or more severe pain.
dixie_land 8y ago
for people downvoting this: did you have something to add to the discussion? or do you just have to downvote anyone who shares a first hand experience that happen to not fit into your narrative?
- stefan_ 8y ago
  I thought the judging was a bit much and highly ironic when coupled with early addict behavior ("let's keep those opioids around just in case").
  - penagwin 8y ago
    I think by "just in case" he meant in the case of needing them therapeutically not recreationally. If you have the self-control the idea is having some in case you fall and break your arm or something(Obviously only for serious injuries).

patientplatypus 8y ago

Not only should they be forced to give this drug patent away, they should be forced at gunpoint to manufacture this until bankruptcy. These people are despicable scum.

jhwang5 8y ago
who hurt you my little dude?
mmirate 8y ago
Luckily we still have some semblance of "rule of law" rather than "rule of mob", else vindictive people would throw medicine (among other industries) back into the Stone Age.
- cocacola1 8y ago
  Rule of law* *Terms and conditions may apply, contingent on wealth.
  - mmirate 8y ago
    So you would rather that if a bunch of people happen to come to agreement to do something immoral, that that immoral thing be done?
    - cocacola1 8y ago
      Immoral or illegal?
      - mmirate 8y ago
        Theft is both. Except when the mob decides that someone is "too rich" and should "have their wealth be distributed for the common good", then it mysteriously becomes legal.

sgibat 8y ago

If you read the patent, this is simply a faster dissolving suboxone, which is already an extremely common form of substitution therapy. This isn't anything radically new. I would say it doesn't deem itself worthy of patent, but I know nothing of patent laws.

mtgx 8y ago
This is the type of "research" Big Pharma often does that needs all of those billions of dollars and 4,000% price increases of life-saving drugs, according to some.

elipsey 8y ago

The patent is for sublingual buprenorphine, which has appears to have been available since the early 80's, while buprenorphine has existed for 50 years.[1] It seems like we're getting the exactly patent ever-greening behavior we have incentivized. *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buprenorphine#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buprenorphine#History

epmaybe 8y ago
I disagree that this is not novel. It's an immediately dissolvable buprenorphine. I discussed this in my top level comment, but subutex has been abused because it does take some time to dissolve, so patients will sometimes take it out of their mouth when the healthcare provider is not looking in order to inject later. This version avoids that to some extent, which is novel enough to be patentable.
- girvo 8y ago
  Eh. Bupe isn’t that abusable, so you very quickly get a couple weeks of take-home doses. So if you’re going to IV it, this new patent makes zero difference.
  - epmaybe 8y ago
    sublingual buprenorphine like Subutex is only indicated for take-home if the patient can not tolerate suboxone (oral buprenorphine/naloxone). If you're prescribing subutex take-home just because, you're not following the preferred prescribing practices. Suboxone and subutex are not used the same way, as I described in my top level comment in this thread. Subutex is for patients that are not clinically stable, so they get daily doses from their treatment center and are watched as they take the medicine. You could argue that the providers should watch them until they have dissolved it, and thus this patent is over-engineering a solution, but that's not what you argued. Suboxone is for patients that are clinically stable, compliant, and/or are unable to make frequent visits to their treatment center, so they are able to take-home their medication and take it as prescribed. These are patients that you as the healthcare provider are relatively certain wouldn't abuse it. And yes, while buprenorphine isn't as abusable as most other medications, and is far more forgiving than methadone, it's not perfect, and there is still some liability for abuse, especially with subutex. So while I agree that this patent makes very little difference (again, check my longer comment), it's not all that bad of an idea, hence why Purdue likely patented it.

epmaybe 8y ago

Just some background information on the drug patent (which washington post's link to the patent is paywalled, so here: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/85/96/76/8ba72daaca8a42/US20160235739A1.pdf https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/85/96/76/8ba72da...). It's basically buprenorphine (an opioid agonist that is technically non-addictive and indicated for pain control in opioid dependent patients) in a different delivery package that is quite frankly superior to our current versions of buprenorphine. Our current methods of providing buprenorphine are via sublingual (under your tongue, Subutex) or orally (Suboxone, which is actually buprenorphine plus naloxone). It's a wafer that immediately dissolves when taken delivering the drug orally. Now, these methods of administration are pretty good. Subutex will dissolve relatively quickly and you've got good pain management in recovering addicts. However, patients will sometimes take these out of their mouth quickly before the healthcare provider notices, so that they can inject it later (which can definitely provide the euphoria associated with opioids). Suboxone gets around that somewhat, by combining the buprenorphine with naloxone, an opioid antagonist. This works because if the provider wants to give the patient a longer term supply, the user can't abuse it by dissolving the med and injecting it. Why? Because the opioid antagonist that is built in only works when injected, causing severe withdrawal. The issue with this, however, is that opioid addicts are smart. They burn off the naloxone and then inject. So this drug patent offers an alternative: give wafers of buprenorphine at addiction centers that dissolve immediately in front of the healthcare provider. This avoids the hiding issue of subutex, and provides the same route of administration which is the benefit of subutex over suboxone. Now, at the end of the day, does any of this matter? Not really. Subutex is still hard to get covered by insurance, so most providers stick with Suboxone (or generics, as I think that's available now) anyways. Do you think that this new medication will make it into practice? We don't even have phase 1 trial data on the drug, just a patent. If you're really outraged over a drug being patented, though, then the discussion becomes far more complicated. Smarter individuals than myself argue that on HN all the time.

CodeWriter23 8y ago

Also, all forms of buprenorphine (aka Suboxone) often end up being a heroin substitute rather than weaning the addict from heroin. Kinda like how Oxy functions in real-world application. The difference is, Suboxone is mandated in alternative sentencing programs by the judiciary of certain states. And in some states, with no consideration of whether the addict was addicted to opiates/opioids.

mattnewton 8y ago
Do you have a source on that last part I could read more about? The idea of a court mandating opiate treatment because someone smoked weed is terrifying.
- monochromatic 8y ago
  Yeah that seems... implausible.
- devin 8y ago
  I'm assuming he means people who are caught with opioids who are not necessarily addicted to them.
drooogs 8y ago
plenty of people successfully use buprenorphine to taper off heroin. some people do end up going on long term buprenorphine maintenance, but the harm there is radically less than an active oxy/heroin addiction. even in the worst case scenario, any day that an opioid addict takes buprenorphine is a day where they have far less risk of fatal overdose.
- stochastic_monk 8y ago
  Exactly. Additionally, methadone increases cardiac mortality by increasing the QT interval, so the drug with better efficacy and safety profile should fully replace it. Buprenorphine is good. And someone can’t get on it if they’re too addicted to opiates because as a partial agonist it can precipitate accelerated withdrawal, which acts as a protective mechanism, I imagine.

RickJWagner 8y ago

This is great news. Anything to fight the opioid epidemic is a good thing.

lostlogin 8y ago
If this drug works it may well fuel the fire.

fenwick67 8y ago

"We share the state’s concern about the opioid crisis. While our opioid medicines account for less than 2% of total prescriptions, we will continue to work collaboratively with the state toward bringing meaningful solutions to address this public health challenge" This is such a scummy spin.

lostlogin 8y ago
I wonder how they count that too. Number of script letter? Number of pills charted, or boxes shipped? Number of dollars earned? You can bet it’s a carefully chosen statistic.

dillondoyle 8y ago

I hate this profit seeking marketing BS and I think it's kind of evil. They must know better. I can't believe they don't have data on actual use of Buprenorphine specifically the number of patients who take it long term and have huge issues tapering off Buprenorphine itself. Getting off suboxone itself is very difficult. It seems most users describe the withdrawal as harder than heroin because it lasts a much longer time. [1] [2] I'm perfectly fine with the idea of replacement therapy. And in fact I actually think we should just provide pure morphine to users for free it would actually be pretty safe for long term use (and WAY cheaper). Long term Suboxone replacement therapy also sounds like a great tool if it weren't for the marketing lies and profit. That's where my huge beef is. Yet again making big profit by marketing the (at best not the whole truth, I think truth is closer to false and morally corrupt) idea that this is temporary. Maybe after they make a few billion and get people hooked on subs they will pivot to sell another expensive patented drug to 'wean off' suboxone and continue the profits. Of course there are examples of users being able to taper off. But there seems to be far more examples of users not being able to wean from Buprenorphine itself. 1: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/health/in-demand-in-clinics-and-on-the-street-bupe-can-be-savior-or-menace.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/health/in-demand-in-clini... 2: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5398454/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5398454/

coleifer 8y ago
There was a prominent doctor here in Topeka who was fired from the hospital for keeping folks on Suboxone. The idea of course is that you can have a nice gentle taper, same with methadone, but the reality is you can't "beat" withdrawal. So people stay on it. The euphoria from these drugs doesn't come close to heroin, so people are continually going back and forth. There's an added danger because buprenorphine binds tighter that if it's in your system it takes a lot more dope to kick the buprenorphine off the receptors, so lots of overdoses. This, I believe, is the reality. Of course Suboxone and methadone are so much safer to use than street heroin. And doctors will help those who want to, to taper. I just don't think that describes most sub/methadone users. I don't think the issue is a lack of safer alternatives. It's whatever is driving the person to seek out the effects produced by those drugs in the first place.

coleifer 8y ago

Crazy. Sub clinics are sad places. Gray-faced junkies paying $3-400/month to stay hooked. A buprenorphine script is probably $10/month. It's a racket. Capitalism at work.

natalyarostova 8y ago
This seems much more related to the specific political economy of government health institutions and their interaction with electoral systems, than a specific causal attribution to systems based on capital. That is to say, there are many failure and success modes of a government response to drugs that are orthogonal, or at least only loosely correlated, with the specific marker system that is implemented.
tmp-20150107 8y ago
Wow! This makes slightly less angry about the hoops I had to jump through to get on a treatment program with the NHS in the UK. (Well, the part of it where prescriptions are still free.) At least they don't add to the problem by making you pay to get help...

jwilk 8y ago

Archived copy without GDPR nag screen: https://web.archive.org/web/20180908213017/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2018/09/08/the-man-who-made-billions-of-dollars-from-oxycontin-is-pushing-a-drug-to-wean-addicts-off-opioids https://web.archive.org/web/20180908213017/https://www.washi...

stevebmark 8y ago

Jack Donaghy: Imagine that your favorite corn chip manufacturer also owned the number one diarrhea medication. Liz Lemon: That'd be great, 'cause then they could put a little sample of the medicine in each bag. Jack Donaghy: Keep thinking. Liz Lemon: [beat] Except then they might be tempted to make the corn chips give you... Jack Donaghy: Vertical integration.

fapjacks 8y ago

“We believe it is inappropriate for the state to substitute its judgment for the judgment of the regulatory, scientific and medical experts at FDA.” If this doesn't tell you all you need to know about regulatory capture and the FDA...

Nasrudith 8y ago
To be fair I wouldn't want that either - especially depending on the state. The state positions are far too subject to demagoguery for the sake of career advancement. An appointed and tenured agency like the FDA is at least better in that respect that they are more likely to act based upon actual problems with some degree of caution and attention to evidence instead of stirring up panics for the sake of advancement. Unlike literally every 'tough on crime' politician and the abhorrent historical trends. Precisely the reason why they are appointed instead of elected officials.
- fapjacks 8y ago
  You are right, of course, generally speaking. It -- corruption -- seems to be one of humanity's most intractable problems. But just talking only about the FDA specifically, they are clearly in the pockets of the pharmaceutical industry. The FDA makes policy decisions that are highly influenced by pharmaceutical companies and completely counter to the body of scientific evidence. Just go read Scott Gottlieb's Twitter feed. Or do even the most minimal, cursory research on the FDA's history. This may not mean anything to you, but I personally believe that regulatory capture is greater in the FDA than it is in the CPUC, California's hilarious "public" utilities commission.
  - Nasrudith 8y ago
    Yeah it is all heuristic at this point. There is one radical theoretical solution for regulatory capture that I can see which could have its own issues both economically and incentive wise: regulatory jobs are the last job one takes. In exchange for a lifelong pension they can never work or accept any form of compensation ever again. This would include running their own business and indeeed all forms of compensation including speaking fees and even amenities. You are free to go speak at every Ivy league after retirement but that is essentially just a hobby. It would no doubt be expensive in itself but it could pay off in reduced corruption costs.

bogomipz 8y ago

>"And it comes amid news that the company’s former chairman and president, Richard Sackler, has patented a new drug to help wean addicts from opioids" For those who aren't familiar with Richard Sackler or the Sackler family. I highly recommend this piece: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/30/the-family-that-built-an-empire-of-pain https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/30/the-family-tha...

lerie82 8y ago

start the buprenorphine clinics, forget methadone, let's give em a new addiction.

village-idiot 8y ago

While I'm interested in anything to halt or stop the opioid crisis, anything from the owners of OkyContin must be treated with a large grain of salt. OxyContin was nominally supposed to be a slow release low risk opioid for chronic pain sufferers. Not only has that not worked out so well, it's pretty clear that they understood the risks and basically straight up lied to doctors about the risks. They have the capability to create these compounds, but they also have very low trustworthiness.

md224 8y ago

People will abuse anything that helps to numb painful emotions. Demonizing the drug isn't helpful; if you get rid of one, people will lean on something else. The solution to drug addiction is very simple: give people better ways of dealing with their emotional pain. Of course, actually accomplishing that is the hard part. My personal belief is that we need a two-fold attack: 1) Harm reduction: provide people with less harmful emotional anesthetics (like Kratom) 2) Fix the underlying problem: provide people with better mental health care, better coping strategies, more community and more human connection. Most people agree that #2 is needed, but #1 is controversial. I think that we should treat emotional injuries like physical injuries. When someone breaks their leg and they ask for painkillers, we don't tell them "sorry, but you know that painkillers aren't going to help you heal any faster." Sometimes people need palliative treatments, but we're unwilling to provide these when it comes to psychological pain. As far as I can tell, this unwillingness is based entirely on an aphoristic assumption: "if you want to heal it, you have to feel it." Okay, great, but where's the science? Where's the research? Do you have to feel it completely to heal it, or can you take a drug that helps you feel it a bit less? What's the exact relationship between experiencing distress and healing that distress? We can't allow slogans to guide the treatment of psychological trauma.

caseymarquis 8y ago
Addiction is physiological. You're describing psychological dependence. You can die from drug withdrawal. Given that, medicine which aids in weaning off addictive drugs seem useful.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

fipple 8y ago

I’d support a political platform to create a legal framework to execute high-level corporate criminals like the Sacklers and their henchmen.

java_script 8y ago
Slippery slope. Reminds me of that one poem. “First they came for the big pharma capitalists that caused opioid epidemic, and I did not speak up because I was not a big pharma capitalist that caused the opioid epidemic.” Etc. What if I work real hard and become one of those guys one day. I don’t wanna get executed.
- fipple 8y ago
  Don’t knowingly create a mass death epidemic and you won’t be executed.
  - Nasrudith 8y ago
    That sounds literally identical to 'If you're not doing anything wrong do you haven't anything to hide.' or 'Don't commit crime if you don't want to be raped in prison.' "Lets just throw out civil rights." is an incredibly dangerous notion.
    - fipple 8y ago
      Don’t see anything anti “civil rights” about using a punishment often given to people who kill a single victim to people who kill hundreds of thousands, just because the more efficient killers do so from an office building.
- teddyh 8y ago
  There’s another quote which I think you illustrate perfectly: “[…] the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” — John Steinbeck See also http://www.temporarilyembarrassedmillionaires.org/ http://www.temporarilyembarrassedmillionaires.org/

conchy 8y ago

This guy is the Sylvester McMonkey McBean of pharmaceuticals

cityzen 8y ago

If you understand who Richard "Dirty Dick" Sadler is, the story makes a lot more sense: Sackler joined Purdue Pharma in 1971, as assistant to the president.[8] He became head of R&D and head of marketing before becoming president in 1999, and co-chairman in 2003.[8] Sackler was in charge of the research department that developed OxyContin. As president, he approved the targeted marketing schemes to promote sales of OxyContin to doctors, pharmacists, nurses, academics, and others. Shelby Sherman, an ex-Purdue sales rep, has called these marketing schemes "graft".[2] In 2015, Sackler was deposed by four lawyers in Louisville, Kentucky. The deposition concerned the development and marketing of OxyContin under the watch of him and his family, who were and are active board members of their private company, Purdue Pharma. The marketing and prescribing of OxyContin in Pike County, Kentucky, was of particular interest. Before the case could go to trial and thus before the deposition could become a matter of public record, Purdue settled for $24 million, admitting no liability, sealing the deposition, and requiring the Kentucky prosecutors to destroy, or return to Purdue, millions of pages of internal documents obtained from the company during discovery. The medical news website STAT then sued to unseal Richard Sackler's deposition. A state judge ruled in its favor. Purdue appealed, and, as of October 26, 2017, that appeal remains outstanding. The deposition cannot be made public unless the appeal is decided in favor of STAT again.[9] Sackler has donated to both Republican and Democratic politicians, though chiefly to Republicans.[3] His charitable foundation, the Richard and Beth Sackler Foundation, has donated to anti-Muslim organizations, as well as to organizations that have promoted the falsehood that millions of undocumented immigrants voted in the 2016 presidential election.[3] Sackler is a member of the board of advisors of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.[7] -------------------- Even when they were developing opioids, they knew that that long term care was ineffective and that the risks outweigh the benefits for long term care. This guy does not care. Politicians are on the take so they don't care. As long as companies can patent and profit off of prescription drugs, this problem will continue. It's that simple, yet no one in government has the guts to take these people on. For starters, someone get that damn transcript because I'm sure it has plenty of information to blow the lid off of this.