Johnson&Johnson Owes Half a Billion

I think that their predatory actions certainly did result in a greater problem than there would have been otherwise by making a huge amount of opiates available to shady pill mill doctors. However, ultimately the problem happened because a lot of people chose to recreationally take opiates. The reasons for the sheer numbers of people getting addicted to opiates are, in my opinion, primarily the result of a sick society. People are scared and depressed and anxious, and watching their ability to live the life they want to slowly being pulled out of their reach. They're fed up and opiates provide a great way to mask that pain. Some people try to do something about it, some people turn to drugs, some people decide to devote their lives to becoming one of the elite that still gets to live the life we are taught we're supposed to strive for, and some people shoot up random crowds of people and then themselves. We've all got our own ways of dealing with it.

It's not fair to pin it all on the drug companies, but for sure, they have profited off of the situation and helped to make it more a more readily available option to people. A lot of people wouldn't turn to buying heroin from dealers on the black market, but when they could go to see a doctor that would write them a prescription for oxy, they went for it. So the lawsuits are totally justified and the drug companies are totally in the wrong. But the epidemic is not their fault, they just cashed in on peoples' already existing existential pain.
 
Captain.Heroin said:
It's not like you saw "POP YOUR OXY, GET NODDING" on a billboard.

The way alcohol/tobacco advertises is *way over the line*; pharmaceutical ads are SO VERY BENIGN.

Even the Zoloft blob was worse but still benign.
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It's not the way they advertised to the common people but to doctors. They skewed scientific data, gave doctors vacations and incentives to loosely prescribe. The makers of oxycontin claimed it wasn't addictive all to get doctors to change prescribing practices and they had marketing associates(on commission) visiting doctors with these free trips and expensive lunch tabs weekly.
 
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People here in North America better start growing their own poppies if they want pain relief.I feel an opioid prohibition coming on.
 
Bo1992 said:
Also no one told those people to put those pills in there mouth or a needle in the arm they did that to themselves
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That's where you're wrong. Doctors told them to and they were giving out high dose round the clock oxycontin for ridiculous stuff back when this all started. Nobody questioned a doctos judgement in giving out high dosages oxycontin for minor pains because pharmacuetical reps convinced the whole medical field that they weren't very addictive.
 
somnilicious said:
That's where you're wrong. Doctors told them to and they were giving out high dose round the clock oxycontin for ridiculous stuff back when this all started. Nobody questioned a doctos judgement in giving out high dosages oxycontin for minor pains because pharmacuetical reps convinced the whole medical field that they weren't very addictive.
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Doctors told them too. But a patient has the right to deny any treatment a doctor gives them.
 
Sarah Marshall said:
Doctors told them too. But a patient has the right to deny any treatment a doctor gives them.
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Opiate pain medication wasn't talked about much back then. People trusted their doctors because they had never had a reason not to. The internet had just come of age and it was still dial up. It was a different time and it all exponentially snowballed when they began marketing to doctors to increase prescribing by lying to them..
 
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somnilicious said:
Nobody questioned a doctos judgement in giving out high dosages oxycontin for minor pains because pharmacuetical reps convinced the whole medical field that they weren't very addictive.
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Shouldn't physicians bear the responsibility to make evidence-based treatment decisions and not take sales pitches from pharmaceutical companies at face value? Surely all that education doesn't leave them as clueless automatons.
 
S.J.B. said:
Shouldn't physicians bear the responsibility to make evidence-based treatment decisions and not take sales pitches from pharmaceutical companies at face value? Surely all that education doesn't leave them as clueless automatons.
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You'de think.. Its inconceivable how they were so easily convinced with simple incentives, spiffs and faulty marketing but greed and ignorance were a potent mix. It was good for business. Chronic medicine always is...

The reps used evidence based studies and scientific literature. You can find science to support any view you want and a lot of studies were funded by pharm companies and lobbyist.
 
So what you're saying is the 527 mill is going towards building more heavily fortified "rehabilitation" centers. Or are they donating 500 mill straight to the DEA?
 
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