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The LA Times's investigation into Purdue Pharma in 2016 revealed internal Purdue documents demonstrating the company's culpability in fueling the opioid crisis.

The LA Times's investigation into Purdue Pharma in 2016 revealed internal Purdue documents demonstrating the company's culpability in fueling the opioid crisis. > The documents provide a detailed picture of the development and marketing of OxyContin, how Purdue executives responded to complaints that its effects wear off early, and their fears about the financial impact of any departure from 12-hour dosing. I don't have many recurring subscriptions, and I don't live in LA, but I signed up for the Times the day the reporting came out. So rare is quality investigative journalism these days. Fast forward 3 years, and "Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family were in negotiations to settle the claims for a payment of $10-$12 billion" (Wikipedia). As far as I know the settlement was never finalized. And I don't want to make it seem that the Times was the only organization looking into Purdue. But I wish a fraction of that settlement could be re-invested into investigative journalism. https://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-part1/ https://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-part1/

easytiger 7y ago
At the end of the day, if a doctor is prescribing medication against clinical guidelines, surely the doctor is at fault? If a pharma warehouse is burgled then it's on the burglars. Am I missing something regarding this case? Did they mislead doctors? Edit: Downvotes to -4 with no engagement for asking a question. This place has gone downhill rapidly
- smitty1110 7y ago
  First, they I mislead doctors. They insisted very enthusiastically that’d OxyContin relieved pain for 8 hours, when 4-6 was much more common for most patients. Secondly, I don’t remember the laws and requirements exactly, but there are reporting requirements for abnormal behaviors that indicate drug abuse. One of the long form articles over the past few years saw a memo where Perdue deliberately decided not to report large orders in certain areas. Of course, I haven’t had coffee yet, so caveat lector.
- mehrdadn 7y ago
  > At the end of the day, if a doctor is prescribing medication against clinical guidelines, surely the doctor is at fault? Even if you assume that's the case, there's no reason a doctor being at fault would mean nobody else can be at fault.
  - easytiger 7y ago
    Well there would have to be some wrongdoing to be proven.
    - JumpCrisscross 7y ago
      > there would have to be some wrongdoing to be proven Are you claiming the extensive evidence brought in numerous cases across the country against Purdue and the Sackler family, accepted in many cases by juries and judges, has not done that?
      - easytiger 7y ago
        I was asking what it was. I'm in the UK and am not familiar with this issue despite the same medication being available here
        mehrdadn 7y ago
        If you're genuinely interested, there's so much reading on this. I'll quote one snippet here for you. Just to give you an idea. (This is not an invitation to reply to it and debate the issue. Just trying provide a pointer for reading more on the topic since you expressed interest.) > The drugmaker admitted in 2007, when confronted with evidence gathered by prosecutors, that it trained sales representative to tell doctors that OxyContin was less addictive and prone to abuse than competing opioids, claims beyond the one approved by the F.D.A. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/health/purdue-opioids-oxycontin.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/health/purdue-opioids-oxy...
  - LateRuin 7y ago
    If you are not for publicly executing several thousand doctors and pharma executives, you are equally guilty in the opioid crisis.
- PopeDotNinja 7y ago
  That's saying killer whale don't kill seals, only killer whale teeth do.
- DanBC 7y ago
  Purdue mislead doctors, and the public, in several different ways. They said that their medication was unlikely to lead to addiction if used to treat pain. They said their medication was less likely to lead to addiction than other opioids. They knew some doctors were prescribing vast quantities of opioids - far more than even Purdue recommended as treatment for pain. They used a variety of marketing to doctors and to members of the public, and some of that was designed to evade regulation of marketing. They used stealth marketing methods such as employing physicians to speak at conferences without disclosure. They interfered with the creation of treatment guidance. They used front groups. They targeted vulnerable and wealthy populations. They concealed what they knew about the addictiveness of their product. They concealed what they knew about the efficacy of their product (people may tolerate an addictive medication if it increases function. Purdue knew their meds didn't increase function for many patients.) There's a huge list of absolutely scumbag behaviour from that company, and we need to recognise their part in driving death and misery to millions of Americans.
- sigmaprimus 7y ago
  You might be right, but it's not an either or situation. Some sales reps that told doctors Oxy was NOT or LESS addictive and knew that was untrue so they did lie. Ironically the exact same thing happened a century earlier with Bayer and Heroin, history does indeed repeat itself. The thieves that burgled drugs from pharma are also responsible obviously. As far as the fast down votes, chances are everyone knows someone who has been hurt from the opiod crisis. It is a very painful subject for people. Playing the devils advocate is going to get a swift response that just the way it is. My personal experience with the opiod crisis is typical, I had a friend who got hurt, started taking oxy, got hooked, his doctor cut him off, he spent a ton of money buying pills off the street, when the cost got too high he switched to heroin, when he decided to get help he went to a doctor for methadone, they did a blood test, because of the fentinyl he tested positive for abusing methadone and was refused. Three months later he was gone. I feel the entire system failed him, ofcourse he was not without blame, everyone played a part in his death, including me for giving him money.
- rgovostes 7y ago
  I linked to a 6,500-word article answering your question and you are surprised you got downvoted? Or feel free to look into why armies of lawyers on both sides negotiated a $10bn settlement. If "surely the doctor is at fault" held water, they wouldn't have come close to that number.
bilbo0s 7y ago
And if you think about it, there is a lot more money to go around. Purdue was only responsible for roughly 8% of the market. That means whatever money we get from the Sacklers, in an ideal world, should only be 8% of what we ultimately collect! That could fund a lot. Now all that assumes an ideal and non-corrupt US where everyone is equal under the law and all politicians are not corrupt and judges and lawyers are not bent etc etc. So, it would not surprise me at all if even among the billionaires, the pattern of only the smaller drug dealers getting prosecuted continues to hold true. I'm hoping at least for some media pressure to help take down some of these larger dealers. Probably won't actually take the big boys down by itself, but it can't hurt to try. 92% is a lot of money to leave on the table. (Not to mention a lot of crime to let go unpunished.)
koheripbal 7y ago
We exactly need to reward original investigative journalism like this with subscriptions. So few "journalists" do anything more than repeat twitter trends these days.
- streb-lo 7y ago
  The journalists are just doing what their employer asks them too. Their employer is trying to sell papers/clicks. No enough people are willing to pony up for good journalism like the parent comment -- I'm generalizing but most people don't even like to read long form journalism anymore. If we want to know why journalism sucks we need to look in the mirror.
  - selectodude 7y ago
    “When you’re young, you look at television and think, There’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That’s a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It’s the truth.” Steve Jobs
    - ceilingcorner 7y ago
      It's far more of an ongoing loop rather than a one-way conversation.
    - claudiawerner 7y ago
      Jobs was right to say it's not part of some grand conspiracy, but if you look more closely, you see that people ("consumers") and media are both produced by the same ideological and economic forces that serve each other. It's not some sinister plot, it's just how culture has developed to this point. The media does give people what they want, but where do people get ideas of what they want? It's a dialectic, not a one-way causative relationship.
jrumbut 7y ago
I think there is a lot to this idea. I've wondered whether something like the False Claims Act (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_Claims_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_Claims_Act) could be expanded or modified (or just used) to fund journalism. Not perfect by any means but it would protect one of the most important functions of the papers.
- gnzoidberg 7y ago
  Absolutely not. Do you want to directly reward newspapers for attacking individuals and companies? I'm sure that's going to end well. That would be a perverse incentive. Right now the link is very loose and that's fine.
  - bobthepanda 7y ago
    Yeah, this could easily incentivize unethical behavior like the phone hacking scandal in the UK: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_International_phone_hacking_scandal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_International_phone_hac...
soperj 7y ago
Harriet Ryan, Lisa Girion and Scott Glover Wonder if they still work for the Times? Maybe if we rewarded the journalists behind the investigations more than the newspaper itself, they could all bandy together and create something that only does investigative journalism.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- patrickcteng 7y ago
  I think ProPublica does what you're describing.
ummonk 7y ago
I’ve always wished I could directly pay for investigative journalism instead of having to pay for opinion writing as well.

easytiger 7y ago

At the end of the day, if a doctor is prescribing medication against clinical guidelines, surely the doctor is at fault? If a pharma warehouse is burgled then it's on the burglars. Am I missing something regarding this case? Did they mislead doctors? Edit: Downvotes to -4 with no engagement for asking a question. This place has gone downhill rapidly

smitty1110 7y ago
First, they I mislead doctors. They insisted very enthusiastically that’d OxyContin relieved pain for 8 hours, when 4-6 was much more common for most patients. Secondly, I don’t remember the laws and requirements exactly, but there are reporting requirements for abnormal behaviors that indicate drug abuse. One of the long form articles over the past few years saw a memo where Perdue deliberately decided not to report large orders in certain areas. Of course, I haven’t had coffee yet, so caveat lector.
mehrdadn 7y ago
> At the end of the day, if a doctor is prescribing medication against clinical guidelines, surely the doctor is at fault? Even if you assume that's the case, there's no reason a doctor being at fault would mean nobody else can be at fault.
- easytiger 7y ago
  Well there would have to be some wrongdoing to be proven.
  - JumpCrisscross 7y ago
    > there would have to be some wrongdoing to be proven Are you claiming the extensive evidence brought in numerous cases across the country against Purdue and the Sackler family, accepted in many cases by juries and judges, has not done that?
    - easytiger 7y ago
      I was asking what it was. I'm in the UK and am not familiar with this issue despite the same medication being available here
      - mehrdadn 7y ago
        If you're genuinely interested, there's so much reading on this. I'll quote one snippet here for you. Just to give you an idea. (This is not an invitation to reply to it and debate the issue. Just trying provide a pointer for reading more on the topic since you expressed interest.) > The drugmaker admitted in 2007, when confronted with evidence gathered by prosecutors, that it trained sales representative to tell doctors that OxyContin was less addictive and prone to abuse than competing opioids, claims beyond the one approved by the F.D.A. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/health/purdue-opioids-oxycontin.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/health/purdue-opioids-oxy...
- LateRuin 7y ago
  If you are not for publicly executing several thousand doctors and pharma executives, you are equally guilty in the opioid crisis.
PopeDotNinja 7y ago
That's saying killer whale don't kill seals, only killer whale teeth do.
DanBC 7y ago
Purdue mislead doctors, and the public, in several different ways. They said that their medication was unlikely to lead to addiction if used to treat pain. They said their medication was less likely to lead to addiction than other opioids. They knew some doctors were prescribing vast quantities of opioids - far more than even Purdue recommended as treatment for pain. They used a variety of marketing to doctors and to members of the public, and some of that was designed to evade regulation of marketing. They used stealth marketing methods such as employing physicians to speak at conferences without disclosure. They interfered with the creation of treatment guidance. They used front groups. They targeted vulnerable and wealthy populations. They concealed what they knew about the addictiveness of their product. They concealed what they knew about the efficacy of their product (people may tolerate an addictive medication if it increases function. Purdue knew their meds didn't increase function for many patients.) There's a huge list of absolutely scumbag behaviour from that company, and we need to recognise their part in driving death and misery to millions of Americans.
sigmaprimus 7y ago
You might be right, but it's not an either or situation. Some sales reps that told doctors Oxy was NOT or LESS addictive and knew that was untrue so they did lie. Ironically the exact same thing happened a century earlier with Bayer and Heroin, history does indeed repeat itself. The thieves that burgled drugs from pharma are also responsible obviously. As far as the fast down votes, chances are everyone knows someone who has been hurt from the opiod crisis. It is a very painful subject for people. Playing the devils advocate is going to get a swift response that just the way it is. My personal experience with the opiod crisis is typical, I had a friend who got hurt, started taking oxy, got hooked, his doctor cut him off, he spent a ton of money buying pills off the street, when the cost got too high he switched to heroin, when he decided to get help he went to a doctor for methadone, they did a blood test, because of the fentinyl he tested positive for abusing methadone and was refused. Three months later he was gone. I feel the entire system failed him, ofcourse he was not without blame, everyone played a part in his death, including me for giving him money.
rgovostes 7y ago
I linked to a 6,500-word article answering your question and you are surprised you got downvoted? Or feel free to look into why armies of lawyers on both sides negotiated a $10bn settlement. If "surely the doctor is at fault" held water, they wouldn't have come close to that number.

bilbo0s 7y ago

And if you think about it, there is a lot more money to go around. Purdue was only responsible for roughly 8% of the market. That means whatever money we get from the Sacklers, in an ideal world, should only be 8% of what we ultimately collect! That could fund a lot. Now all that assumes an ideal and non-corrupt US where everyone is equal under the law and all politicians are not corrupt and judges and lawyers are not bent etc etc. So, it would not surprise me at all if even among the billionaires, the pattern of only the smaller drug dealers getting prosecuted continues to hold true. I'm hoping at least for some media pressure to help take down some of these larger dealers. Probably won't actually take the big boys down by itself, but it can't hurt to try. 92% is a lot of money to leave on the table. (Not to mention a lot of crime to let go unpunished.)

koheripbal 7y ago

We exactly need to reward original investigative journalism like this with subscriptions. So few "journalists" do anything more than repeat twitter trends these days.

streb-lo 7y ago
The journalists are just doing what their employer asks them too. Their employer is trying to sell papers/clicks. No enough people are willing to pony up for good journalism like the parent comment -- I'm generalizing but most people don't even like to read long form journalism anymore. If we want to know why journalism sucks we need to look in the mirror.
- selectodude 7y ago
  “When you’re young, you look at television and think, There’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That’s a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It’s the truth.” Steve Jobs
  - ceilingcorner 7y ago
    It's far more of an ongoing loop rather than a one-way conversation.
  - claudiawerner 7y ago
    Jobs was right to say it's not part of some grand conspiracy, but if you look more closely, you see that people ("consumers") and media are both produced by the same ideological and economic forces that serve each other. It's not some sinister plot, it's just how culture has developed to this point. The media does give people what they want, but where do people get ideas of what they want? It's a dialectic, not a one-way causative relationship.

jrumbut 7y ago

I think there is a lot to this idea. I've wondered whether something like the False Claims Act (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_Claims_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_Claims_Act) could be expanded or modified (or just used) to fund journalism. Not perfect by any means but it would protect one of the most important functions of the papers.

gnzoidberg 7y ago
Absolutely not. Do you want to directly reward newspapers for attacking individuals and companies? I'm sure that's going to end well. That would be a perverse incentive. Right now the link is very loose and that's fine.
- bobthepanda 7y ago
  Yeah, this could easily incentivize unethical behavior like the phone hacking scandal in the UK: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_International_phone_hacking_scandal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_International_phone_hac...

soperj 7y ago

Harriet Ryan, Lisa Girion and Scott Glover Wonder if they still work for the Times? Maybe if we rewarded the journalists behind the investigations more than the newspaper itself, they could all bandy together and create something that only does investigative journalism.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
patrickcteng 7y ago
I think ProPublica does what you're describing.

ummonk 7y ago

I’ve always wished I could directly pay for investigative journalism instead of having to pay for opinion writing as well.