The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported last week that about 28,000 Americans died of an opioid overdose in 2017—up from just 3,000 in 2013. While people who use opioids are being charged with murder for sharing drugs with their friends and doctors have begun to ease up on prescribing opioids, pharmaceutical companies that created this crisis (and continue to profit from it) have yet to be held accountable.
Senator Jeff Merkley wants to change that. On Wednesday, Merkley announced that he’s sponsoring a new bill that would require the major drug companies that fueled the opioid epidemic to contribute to a $2 billion fund. That money would be distributed to states to be used for substance abuse treatment and prevention. Oregon would receive $23 million from the fund annually for 10 years.
The opioid crisis is an epidemic. We need a massive treatment surge so that Americans suffering from addiction can get help. And we can fund it by holding the pharmaceutical companies responsible for the #OpioidCrisis that they fueled. Here’s how:https://t.co/tJhE7BcQP8
— Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) December 5, 2018
“Drug companies flooded the streets with massive quantities of opioids to enrich themselves while a generation of Americans got hooked,” Merkley said in a statement announcing the bill, titled the Opioid Treatment Surge Act. “It is time for those companies to commit a portion of those profits to dramatically increase treatment capacity to address this crisis.”
Merkley’s announcement didn’t identify which drug companies would be asked to pay up. But that list would almost certainly include Purdue Pharma, the inventor of OxyContin. Last year the New Yorker published a damning profile of Purdue and its ruling family, the Sacklers, that indicated those in charge knew OxyContin was dangerously addictive, even as the company sold it to doctors as a chronic pain cure-all in the late 1990s. From the New Yorker piece:
The company advertised in medical journals, sponsored Web sites about chronic pain, and distributed a dizzying variety of OxyContin swag: fishing hats, plush toys, luggage tags.
Purdue also produced promotional videos featuring satisfied patients—like a construction worker who talked about how OxyContin had eased his chronic back pain, allowing him to return to work. The videos, which also included testimonials from pain specialists, were sent to tens of thousands of doctors. The marketing of OxyContin relied on an empirical circularity: the company convinced doctors of the drug’s safety with literature that had been produced by doctors who were paid, or funded, by the company.
It’s unclear if Merkley’s bill has any chance of making its way to Donald Trump’s desk, or if Trump would sign it. Easing the opioid crisis was a major campaign tenet of Trump’s—probably because it is erroneously seen as mainly affecting many white, rural Americans in his voting base—and fixing this epidemic has emerged as a rare bipartisan issue in DC.
But this bill specifically goes after the pharmaceutical industry, which has a powerful GOP lobbying presence, so Republicans might not support it.
Purdue alone reported $3 billion in revenue for 2017. So while Merkley’s bill would make a dent in pharmaceutical companies’ profits, it would by no means match what they earned off of the opioid crisis, which continues to claim thousands of lives.
and they should. they marketed oxycontin as a non-addictive pain reliever and told doctors to give it to EVERY SINGLE PATIENT WHO HAD ANY KIND OF PAIN WHATSOEVER. the marketing tapes exist as proof (Anthony Bourdain showed one of them in a Massachussetts episode of one of his shows, I think Parts Unknown, and it is SO EVIL it is literally incomprehensible). now, because of the shit show they purposefully created, with depraved indifference to all of the lives they would ruin/destroy/take if you are someone who is in real pain and requires medications to alleviate that real pain, you are treated like a criminal by your doctor, pharmacist, and insurance company (i know first hand and it is a pain in the ass and in it enrages me). people who are literally sick and dying and suffering cannot get relief because of a crisis caused by the pharmaceutical companies (a crisis they made billions on before things got so ugly the government stepped in to stop them).
and all of the white people dying of heroin overdoses because they could no longer get their hands on the oxy they were addicted to are directly the fault of big pharma. i know the country never cared about any opioid or heroin OD epidemic when non-white people were the ones dying. no one showed any empathy or concern about those lives. response to that problem was the war on drugs and prisons filled to the max.
all this being said, i won’t hold my breath on big pharma paying one red cent for anything.
Great comment, Christina!
Known Drug Pushers purdue pharma needs to take Responsibility for the deaths (and addictions) they encouraged, perpetrated and profited oh-so-Handsomely from.
Let’s make sure our War on Drugs, always popular with the Get Tough on Crime afficianados, also includes those in the Corporate World — especially when their blatant Evidence Tail indicates they’re Guilty as Hell.
Hell, Death Penalty lovers — let’s remove Purdue’s golden Charter — and put a little Fear in those who so willingly (and obviously) would priortize massive Profits over actual Human Lives.
After all, Corps are Peeps, too, aren’t they, my friend?
(Imagine if this Crime had been committed by
some gangbangers in some Ghetto somewhere.
How swiftly would Republicans Demand that Justice be meted out?)