Richard Sackler worked tirelessly to make OxyContin a blockbuster, telling colleagues how devoted he was to the drug’s success. The F.D.A. approved OxyContin in 1995, for use in treating moderate to severe pain. Purdue had conducted no clinical studies on how addictive or prone to abuse the drug might be. But the F.D.A., in an unusual step, approved a package insert for OxyContin which announced that the drug was safer than rival painkillers, because the patented delayed-absorption mechanism “is believed to reduce the abuse liability.” David Kessler, who ran the F.D.A. at the time, told me that he was “not involved in the approval.” The F.D.A. examiner who oversaw the process, Dr. Curtis Wright, left the agency shortly afterward. Within two years, he had taken a job at Purdue.
- Comment
- Reblog
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
gratuitousblahg 
I’m obviously not saying we don’t benefit from science or scientific studies, of course, but if you’ve ever taken OxyContin, it should be obvious that it would have plenty of addictive potential, even if you’re not prone to that kind of behavior. It’s just funny to me that we need studies to tell us certain things. Like a study to tell us that eating massive amounts of sugar is bad for you. We’ve been tricked into trading our collective, would-be often unanimous and correct common sense for a proliferation of “expert opinions” that are at war with each other in every domain of life: health, politics, parenting, you name it. A delayed-absorption mechanism combats addictiveness? Doesn’t a delay mechanism just mean you take more of it and you get the same high compared to the alternative but it lasts longer?
True dat. In the case of the deceptive marketing of OxyContin , you’ve got a lot of interested parties getting rich and paying tiny settlements here and there for the many deaths they cause, instead of being locked up as drug pushers. These creeps are like mass purveyors of delicious poisonous foods driving the American health crisis and so forth. Let’s commission a ten-year study, seeing what all this death and diabetes is about…. meanwhile, have another bag of triple cheeseburgers. Don’t need a goddamned weatherman to tell you that there’s a shit storm out there. Read the linked article, if you want a little rush of anger for any reason.