J&J ordered to Pay $572M by Oklahoma judge, implying J&J is a "pusher" of drugs...

[BehindBlueI's]

I have not yet read the opinion and don’t know if I will have time to do so, but it should be kept in mind that, in our adversary system, the state had to prove its case, and the pharmaceutical company most likely had a team of highly paid lawyers trying very hard to stop them from doing so.



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I can't find the full ruling online yet, but have found the following quotes from the ruling in news articles:

“The Defendants, acting in concert with others, embarked on a major campaign in which they used branded and unbranded marketing to disseminate the messages that pain was under-treated and ‘there was a low risk of abuse and a low danger’ of prescribing opioids”.

“False, misleading, and dangerous marketing campaigns have caused exponentially increasing rates of addiction, overdose deaths.”

“In 2001, Defendants were advised by Defendants’ own hired scientific advisory board that many of the primary marketing messages Defendants used to promote opioids in general, and Duragesic [the company’s high-strength drug] specifically, were misleading and should not be disseminated.”

(emphasis added)

“Defendants additionally executed their strategy of targeting high-opioid-prescribing physicians in Oklahoma, including doctors who ultimately faced disciplinary proceedings or criminal prosecution.”

[BehindBlueI's]

Since doctors must write these prescriptions, I fail to comprehend why drug companies are being sued unless they are producing tons of this stuff that are diverted.

Remember when Sig said the P320 was perfectly drop safe and it wasn't? Remember how most folks thought it was pretty shady to know your product was dangerous and could kill people but continue to market it like it was safe? Remember when people were actually shot by a dropped P320 that they bought not knowing that it wasn't drop safe because Sig failed to disclose that bit of information?

That's why. The company knew the dangers and lied about them, both to the doctors and the end users. People were harmed as a result.

[txdpd]

Remember when Sig said the P320 was perfectly drop safe and it wasn't? Remember how most folks thought it was pretty shady to know your product was dangerous and could kill people but continue to market it like it was safe? Remember when people were actually shot by a dropped P320 that they bought not knowing that it wasn't drop safe because Sig failed to disclose that bit of information?

That's why. The company knew the dangers and lied about them, both to the doctors and the end users. People were harmed as a result.

Around to 2004 maybe 2005, the mantra "Pain management is critical to recovery" went mainstream. It's something with a little bit of truth behind it, got perverted into big pharma propaganda, and people were conditioned to have the expectation that there should be minimal discomfort from any medical condition. Part of the equation of how do you convince doctors to prescribe and convince patients to take highly addictive drugs that can lead to death, for a temporary medical condition causing temporary pain and discomfort. Aggressive “unbranded marketing” ie bogus research, fake blogs, etc, that the patient cannot recover if he feels pain. Then suppress legitimate research on opiate addiction and create bogus research on the safety of opiates. This creates obstacles for responsible doctors and patients.

Pain management is critical to recovery is very real in a hip replacement where the patient needs to get out of bed and immediately begin rehab. Pain management is critical to recovery is not true for dry socket that will probably go away in about a week.


For guns companies to be remotely comparable to big pharma, gun companies would have to create anti gun candidates and get them elected, then manufacturer a mass shooting, have their politicians introduce sweeping anti gun legislation to drive up gun sales, then have their politicians kill the legislation,, and then repeat the cycle with another mass shooting.

If there’s something to take from the Sig fiasco, is the number of Gun industry blogs that came to the immediate defense of Sig. They are really just gun industry marketing and not journalistic sources of information.

[BillSWPA]

Comparing tobacco litigation or pharmaceutical litigation to gun litigation, there is a critical difference. The tobacco companies, and at least this pharmaceutical company did something wrong. As long as the gun companies keep their noses clean, they do not need to fear the outcome of a trial. Unfortunately what they need to fear is the costs leading up to that trial, which was very likely the real purpose to many of the suits against that industry.



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[willie]

Until recent years I had never heard the word oxycontin. Three months ago my wife had knee replacement surgery. We planned for it as if it were the D Day Invasion. I asked the anesthesiologist's advice about giving her the prescribed oxycontin. He said keep a constant level in her blood during the first week by giving maximum dosage by the clock and then begin tapering thereafter. I did this exactly. She had no pain. He urged that I use ice around throughout the day. I did. She had no say so about the medicine. I kept the container at the other end of the house so there would be no mistakes. She did not enjoy taking it. She never asked for it outside of prescribed times, and this includes the tapering effort. The doctor prescribed more of this medicine than some say he should have under the new rules. We had no issues. She had minimal pain. She had zero desire to take this shit longer than necessary. Without it, she would have had a terrible time. We are both ornery and inveterate rule followers. She would not have abused it, and I would not have permitted her too. I kept her mind off her knee by babying her and paying attention and being vigilant. It worked.

[OlongJohnson]

Many of the voices in this thread seem to be falling into the trap of thinking there must only be One Truth. As one commentator says, "Two things can be true."

Big business can be perfectly willing to destroy lives and impose costs not captured by the market on society in pursuit of profit.
Capitalism is pretty much the only successful way of motivating and organizing economic activity that's ever been found.

Regulatory action can both fail of its own accord and be hijacked by malevolent actors.
Regulatory action can get things right and reduce the amount of harm generated by foolishness, malevolence and market failures.

The civil law process can be abused by public, private, and political actors.
The civil law process can be an important tool for achieving justice, by providing the little guy a way to go up against the big guy.

[peterb]

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/09/75892...-opioid-claims

The family that owns Purdue Pharma, maker of Oxycontin, has agreed to give up "the entire value" of the privately owned firm to settle claims that Purdue played a central role in the nation's deadly opioid epidemic.

That's according to a spokesperson for the firm, who detailed the Sackler family's offer in an email sent to NPR on Monday.

"Additionally, the Sacklers have offered $3 billion in cash as part of the global resolution," wrote Purdue Pharma spokesperson Josephine Martin.

[blues]

Wow. So many ways to look at that...