US Opioid crisis

[Sasaferrato]

If we must have the death penalty let's start with these...

The Family That Built an Empire of Pain

For oxycontin in the UK read tramadol. The death rate isn't huge, but the addiction rate is.

 

[yield]

Price for drug that reverses opioid overdoses soars amid record deaths

Pfizer manufacturing problems leave nonprofits paying exorbitant prices for dwindling supplies of life-saving naloxone

www.theguardian.com

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday that nearly 100,000 people died of overdoses during the first year of the pandemic – a record high and a 30% increase from the year before. A majority of those deaths were caused by opioids, especially drugs tainted with fentanyl, an extremely dangerous substance that is 100 times more potent than morphine.

 

[yield]

Drugmaker Teva fueled opioid addiction in New York, jury finds
reuters.com. December 30, 2021

U.S. officials have said that by 2019, the health crisis had led to nearly 500,000 opioid overdose deaths over two decades. More than 100,000 people died from drug overdoses during the 12-month period ending April 2021, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report in November, a record driven in large part by deaths from opioids like fentanyl.

Other defendants in the case settled before or during trial - major pharmacies, distributors McKesson Corp, AmerisourceBergen Corp and Cardinal Health Inc, and drugmakers Johnson & Johnson, Endo International Plc and AbbVie Inc. AbbVie's settlement, for $200 million, came at the very end of the trial, on the day of closing arguments.

The settlement with J&J and the distributors was part of a nationwide deal worth up to $26 billion. Teva did not take part in that deal.

 

[yield]

New book chronicles how America's opioid industry operated like a drug cartel​

August 2, 2022

NPR Cookie Consent and Choices

A lot of people believe that the Sacklers and Purdue [Pharma] are solely responsible for the epidemic. And we realized, according to the data, that that would be wrong and that a lot of companies jumped into this emerging market, companies that we all know, household names like CVS, Walgreens, Walmart, Johnson & Johnson, and others that we never knew existed.

Like Mallinckrodt, a company that's been in existence for 100 years. They produce 30 times the amount of pills that Purdue Pharma produced and their conduct was so egregious that the DEA once called them a drug kingpin.

 

[teqniq]

Fucksake:

Pete (@[email protected])

After more than a year of delay, the Second Circuit has confirmed the massive opioid Purdue Pharma bankruptcy deal. The settlement is $5-6 billion, of which the Sackler family will pay only $225 million. (The Sackler family wealth is estimated to exceed $11 billion.) No member if the Sackler...

mastodon.xyz

https: //www.npr.org/2023/05/30/1178850879/sackler-family-purdue-pharma-immunity-lawsuits-oxycontin-opioid

I've had to break the above link to the article as it just displays some bullshit cookie preferences thing

 

[farmerbarleymow]

For oxycontin in the UK read tramadol. The death rate isn't huge, but the addiction rate is.

That's something that has always puzzled me - I stopped tramadol abruptly after several months of use with no side effects. Granted, I might just have weird physiology.

 

[tim]

At least the Tate and National Portrait Gallery have stopped taking donations from the disreputable Sackler family.

The Sacklers are still memorialised at the Dulwich Gallery.

 

[wemakeyousoundb]

That's something that has always puzzled me - I stopped tramadol abruptly after several months of use with no side effects. Granted, I might just have weird physiology.

different strokes for different folks, opioid addiction is a bit of a fucker to beat, and it is a deadly substance in an overdose.

 

[gosub]

Watch Painkiller | Netflix Official Site

The causes and consequences of America's opioid epidemic unfold in this drama following its perpetrators, victims and an investigator seeking the truth.

www.netflix.com

Worth a watch . Claims it was Gulliani got Sackler his deal

Though as this bloke points out 'Painkiller': Netflix Miniseries Tells Shameless Lies About Opioids. Fentanyl is the bigger problem

 

[newme]

Watch Painkiller | Netflix Official Site

The causes and consequences of America's opioid epidemic unfold in this drama following its perpetrators, victims and an investigator seeking the truth.

www.netflix.com

Worth a watch . Claims it was Gulliani got Sackler his deal

Though as this bloke points out 'Painkiller': Netflix Miniseries Tells Shameless Lies About Opioids. Fentanyl is the bigger problem

Yeh fentanyl is what's killing people now but the sacklers got a lot of people on opiates to begin with. Then when that was stopped suddenly you had a lot of people looking at withdrawal and cheap fentanyl appearing looked like nice profits to dealers knocking out gear, local supply gets it added to stretch and overdoses result.

 

[CNT36]

Yeh fentanyl is what's killing people now but the sacklers got a lot of people on opiates to begin with. Then when that was stopped suddenly you had a lot of people looking at withdrawal and cheap fentanyl appearing looked like nice profits to dealers knocking out gear, local supply gets it added to stretch and overdoses result.

The other series (the Michael Keaton one) shows this. One character starts on prescription opioids but eventually

Spoiler

iirc ends up on heroin and that's what kills her in the end

.

 

[pbsmooth]

decent article on the subject

‘I don’t see how it ends’: expert sounds alarm on new wave of US opioids crisis

Dr Art Van Zee set out in the early 2000s to tell anyone who would listen how a powerful opioid was destroying lives. Two decades later, he’s still in disbelief

www.theguardian.com

 

[Sasaferrato]

That's something that has always puzzled me - I stopped tramadol abruptly after several months of use with no side effects. Granted, I might just have weird physiology.

I was on 200mg twice a day. Withdrawal was not nice. The second time I bought pharmaceutical scales and empty capsules, Re-engineered the capsules to give more steps. 50mg to 0 was too big a step. The capsules contain little granules, so easy to make a two week batch stepping down 10mg each time.

 

[TopCat]

In 2023 the overdose death rate topped 112,000 in a 12 month period for the first time, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Biden administration officials say they have "flattened" the upward curve.

 

[yield]

Ad firm Publicis, drugmaker Hikma settle US opioid cases for $500 million
February 1, 2024

Massachusetts, which sued Publicis in 2021 alleging it collected more than $50 million to help Purdue get doctors to prescribe its opioids to more patients, for longer periods of time, and at higher doses, served on the executive committee of states investigating the company.

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell in a statement said the settlement would "bolster accountability and transparency for this ongoing crisis" and provide $8 million that the state can use to fund treatment and services.

Publicis denied wrongdoing, and had called Massachusetts' case an unprecedented attempt to sue an advertising agency over a manufacturer's marketing of its products. But a state court judge declined to throw the case out in October 2021.

"an unprecedented attempt to sue an advertising agency over a manufacturer's marketing of its products"

 

[yield]

Overdose Deaths Are Finally Starting to Decline. Here’s Why.
scientificamerican. August 6, 2024
Opioid overdoses have fallen since their pandemic peak, according to new data from the past few months

The scale and tragedy of the U.S. opioid epidemic have few comparisons. More than 100,000 people have died of overdoses every year since 2021. Most drug overdose deaths have a single culprit: the extremely potent synthetic opioid fentanyl.

But the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest that this brutal trend may have crested: overdose deaths have declined slightly overall since last fall, as have overdose deaths from opioids, including fentanyl.

It’s too soon to celebrate, however. Deaths over the last 12 months remain incredibly high, at more than 102,000, which is still well above prepandemic numbers: From 2017 to 2019, for example, it’s estimated that more than 68,000 people died every year from overdosing. These recent numbers are provisional and may represent an undercount, according to the CDC.

 

[Sasaferrato]

Overdose Deaths Are Finally Starting to Decline. Here’s Why.
scientificamerican. August 6, 2024
Opioid overdoses have fallen since their pandemic peak, according to new data from the past few months

Is the death rate falling because the number of new people using those substances has fallen? As generation one is dying from overdoses, is 'generation two' looking at what has happened and decided not to go down that road? Is the number of new people falling?

 

[yield]

Is the death rate falling because the number of new people using those substances has fallen? As generation one is dying from overdoses, is 'generation two' looking at what has happened and decided not to go down that road? Is the number of new people falling?

The link to the CDC data is in the article - Products - Vital Statistics Rapid Release - Provisional Drug Overdose Data

 

[gosub]

Looking at the graph in that link. Think the headline owes more to an election coming up than any meaningful improvement

 

[newme]

Looking at the graph in that link. Think the headline owes more to an election coming up than any meaningful improvement

Have you seen Trump? I would be interested to see this broken down by politician affiliation.

 

[gosub]

If by that you are saying 'whatever Jarad Kusner was supposed to do didn't work' ..not disagreeing

 

[yield]

McKinsey to pay $650m to settle opioid charges
BBC News. 13 December 2024

Consulting firm McKinsey has agreed to pay $650m (£515m) to settle criminal charges related to its role in the US opioid crisis.

The company "knowingly and intentionally" conspired with pharmaceutical firm Purdue Pharma to "aid and abet the misbranding of prescription drugs... without valid prescriptions", according to the US Department of Justice.

McKinsey faced charges of conspiring to misbrand a drug and obstructing justice. Prosecutors said it gave Purdue Pharma advice on how to "turbocharge" sales of OxyContin, a brand name for the painkiller oxycodone hydrochloride.

McKinsey apologised in a statement, saying "we should have appreciated the harm opioids were causing in our society".