yes. Conflating Perdue Pharma/OxyContin with the larger opiate epidemic is a particularly egregious example. Perdue engaged in criminal actions, but it did not

yes. Conflating Perdue Pharma/OxyContin with the larger opiate epidemic is a particularly egregious example. Perdue engaged in criminal actions, but it did not cause the epidemic. It is just a small part of the story. Deceitful labeling and aggressive marketing of OxyContin in the 90's has zero bearing on people dying from fentanyl laced weed in 2024. I think the biggest factor in all of this misinformation is a human desire to compress the complexity of life into simple soundbite narratives that make sense. The more emotionally charged or pressing an issue is, the greater the human desire is to think/feel like they have it all figured out. Even if that means sacrificing truth. Humans have a compulsion to categorize and explain everything they encounter. Failure to do so is cognitively painful so anything too difficult is simplified until it "makes sense". In my opinion, this compulsion is at the heart of all human problems, but also all of our achievements.