116th Congress: Episode 2 The Turtle Has Total Control

[SJHovey]

Re: 116th Congress: Episode 2 The Turtle Has Total Control

Pretty amazing that the State of Oklahoma did this considering how red they are. 90% of their voters voted for Johnson and Johnson to do exactly what they did and will vote for it again. Also fun to watch our Congress just sit and do nothing while they watched it all happen.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/26/health/oklahoma-opioid-trial-verdict-bn/index.html



It's big Tobacco all over again. You would think humanity would learn from it's mistakes.

I think there are significant differences.

Tobacco engaged in advertising that was arguably misleading, and certainly phonied up "studies" and other papers minimizing the risk of smoking when they knew the complete opposite to be true. But they were marketing to idiots -- the public.

With opioids, there is an intervening party -- the medical profession. So are we to believe the medical professionals were completely clueless regarding the addictive nature of opioids? I remember a doctor friend of mine 25 years ago talking about patients that were constantly calling and looking for painkillers because they were hooked on them like meth or heroin. No way that I believe the medical profession was that clueless.

 

[unofan]

They're a nation, not a territory or federal district.

They're not a state, though.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: 116th Congress: Episode 2 The Turtle Has Total Control

I think there are significant differences.

Tobacco engaged in advertising that was arguably misleading, and certainly phonied up "studies" and other papers minimizing the risk of smoking when they knew the complete opposite to be true. But they were marketing to idiots -- the public.

With opioids, there is an intervening party -- the medical profession. So are we to believe the medical professionals were completely clueless regarding the addictive nature of opioids? I remember a doctor friend of mine 25 years ago talking about patients that were constantly calling and looking for painkillers because they were hooked on them like meth or heroin. No way that I believe the medical profession was that clueless.

Sure. Lock the doctors up. Not the profit motive. Capitalism is never the problem.

 

[SJHovey]

Re: 116th Congress: Episode 2 The Turtle Has Total Control

Sure. Lock the doctors up. Not the profit motive. Capitalism is never the problem.

I don't blame doctors. They are in an extremely difficult position with problems like this. They see patients every day who are in real pain, or claim to be. It isn't always easy to tell the difference. They are trying to help their patients, get them to a point where they can live their lives, go to work, etc...

All I'm saying is that the sale of opioids to the general public is different than the sale of cigarettes to the general public.

 

[trixR4kids]

Re: 116th Congress: Episode 2 The Turtle Has Total Control

Tobacco engaged in advertising that was arguably misleading, and certainly phonied up "studies" and other papers minimizing the risk of smoking when they knew the complete opposite to be true. But they were marketing to idiots -- the public.

Perdue created similar "studies".

 

[SJHovey]

Re: 116th Congress: Episode 2 The Turtle Has Total Control

Perdue created similar "studies".

The chicken company?

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: 116th Congress: Episode 2 The Turtle Has Total Control

Perdue created similar "studies".

So, did Johnson and Johnson from what I heard on the Telly this morning. Corporations are destroying America and you can draw a direct line to Citizens United as to when it reached it's Apex.

 

[Kepler]

Re: 116th Congress: Episode 2 The Turtle Has Total Control

So, did Johnson and Johnson from what I heard on the Telly this morning. Corporations are destroying America and you can draw a direct line to Citizens United as to when it reached it's Apex.

We don't know that it's its apex.

Have you seen the federal judiciary? It's gonna get worse before it gets better unless we cowboy up and put 2 judges in for every judge Dump named.

 

[SJHovey]

Re: 116th Congress: Episode 2 The Turtle Has Total Control

So, did Johnson and Johnson from what I heard on the Telly this morning. Corporations are destroying America and you can draw a direct line to Citizens United as to when it reached it's Apex.

So what were the Johnson and Johnson studies results? That opioids are not addictive?? That taking too many of them are not bad for you?

They are narcotics, for crying out loud. You have to get a prescription to actually acquire them. You don't get to go down to the corner market and buy them, like skittles, or like cigarettes.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: 116th Congress: Episode 2 The Turtle Has Total Control

So what were the Johnson and Johnson studies results? That opioids are not addictive?? That taking too many of them are not bad for you?

They are narcotics, for crying out loud. You have to get a prescription to actually acquire them. You don't get to go down to the corner market and buy them, like skittles, or like cigarettes.

What the opioid crisis illustrates is not that there are a few bad apples in the pharmaceutical industry, but that the country’s entire health care system is driven by profit at the expense of public health and safety. Drug manufacturers, pharmacy chains, drug distributors, and insurance companies got rich while people, especially people lower down the income ladder, suffered—and the DEA, through neglect or incompetence or a mix of both, watched it all happen.

https://newrepublic.com/article/154560/opioid-crisis-corporate-greed

First, a doctor must write a prescription, which must be filled at a pharmacy, and is likely paid for by an insurance company. Depending on the needs of their customers, pharmacies place orders for these drugs (customers, it turns out, need a lot of them). Shipping companies then go between the pharmacy and the drug manufacturers. Overseeing this entire system is the DEA, which sets the quota for how many opioids a company is allowed to manufacture, and tracks where those pills go.

While politicians are making hay out of Big Pharma’s wanton greed and recklessness, far less attention has been paid to the DEA. Attorneys general suing Big Pharma recently unearthed a database that both the corporations and the government—each for their own self-interested reasons—fought to keep sealed, called the Automation of Reports and Consolidated Orders System (ARCOS). Mammoth in size and granular in detail, ARCOS tracks the shipments of every single controlled substance, from the company that manufactured it, to the company that shipped it, to the pharmacy that received it. It is the world atlas for how the opioid crisis began.

All told, from 2006 to 2012, roughly 76 billion oxycodone and hydrocodone pills crisscrossed America, according to a Washington Post analysis. While many of these pills went to legitimate patients, millions more were showered on troubled communities with a voracious thirst for pain relief. While drug manufacturers produced more and more opioids (approved by the DEA), and distributors shipped those pills to pharmacies all over the country (tracked by the DEA), drug companies saw record profits—and America’s overdose death rate soared off the charts.

“I think this [database] brings home what we all knew,” says Corey Davis, an attorney and public health expert at the Network for Public Health Law. “This wasn’t just incompetence on the part of the DEA and the Department of Justice, it was knowing and intentional failure to do what most people think is their jobs.”

What is the DEA’s job, exactly? Its first task, and the one most associated with the agency, is the Sicario-esque disruption of illicit flows of drugs coming into the U.S. from abroad, like intercepting speedboats filled with cocaine. Its other major responsibility is controlling licit pharmaceuticals. “The whole goal of the prescription system is to make sure that patients are getting their medications, and that medications are not going to those who aren’t patients,” which is called “diversion,” says Bryce Pardo, a drug policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. “That’s the whole point of the system, which was invented a hundred years ago. Clearly, the system broke. The system failed.”

Pardo points out, in the DEA’s defense, the story of a so-called DEA whistle-blower blaming a pharma-backed piece of legislation passed by Congress in 2016, which prevented agents from stopping suspicious shipments of opioids, and stunted investigations into the very corporations that are now being villainized and sued. Just as DEA agents were working their way up the pharmaceutical supply chain, much as they would in a case against any transnational crime organization, Congress hamstrung their enforcement efforts.

 

[trixR4kids]

Re: 116th Congress: Episode 2 The Turtle Has Total Control

Perdue basically fabricated a "study" that showed it wasn't addictive and that the only people getting addicted were using them wrong or were previous drug addicts and then had distributors push opiates by the millions to small towns with only hundreds of people.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: 116th Congress: Episode 2 The Turtle Has Total Control

Perdue basically fabricated a "study" that showed it wasn't addictive and that the only people getting addicted were using them wrong or were previous drug addicts and then had distributors push opiates by the millions to small towns with only hundreds of people.

Correct. I think that story was on 60 Minutes this season. Or another one like it.

 

[French Rage]

Re: 116th Congress: Episode 2 The Turtle Has Total Control

Perdue basically fabricated a "study" that showed it wasn't addictive and that the only people getting addicted were using them wrong or were previous drug addicts and then had distributors push opiates by the millions to small towns with only hundreds of people.

Also (from some book I read on the subject), a lot of the "evidence" they would refer to was a letter to the editor in some medical journal 30 years ago that was not based on a study but just some anecdotal evidence, but everyone would point to it like it was unassailable.

 

[trixR4kids]

Re: 116th Congress: Episode 2 The Turtle Has Total Control

Also (from some book I read on the subject), a lot of the "evidence" they would refer to was a letter to the editor in some medical journal 30 years ago that was not based on a study but just some anecdotal evidence, but everyone would point to it like it was unassailable.

Oh yeah I forgot about that part.

 

[Kepler]

Re: 116th Congress: Episode 2 The Turtle Has Total Control

Also (from some book I read on the subject), a lot of the "evidence" they would refer to was a letter to the editor in some medical journal 30 years ago that was not based on a study but just some anecdotal evidence, but everyone would point to it like it was unassailable.

Hey, this was the foundational strategy for Citizens United.

The rich can kill millions with a footnote.

 

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: 116th Congress: Episode 2 The Turtle Has Total Control

Similar to lobbyists and pols, Big Pharma also quietly rewards doctors who push lots of their pills.

 

[Handyman]

Re: 116th Congress: Episode 2 The Turtle Has Total Control

Also (from some book I read on the subject), a lot of the "evidence" they would refer to was a letter to the editor in some medical journal 30 years ago that was not based on a study but just some anecdotal evidence, but everyone would point to it like it was unassailable.

Yeah I remember Jon Oliver bringing that up when LWT did their story on the Opiod Crisis.

These companies made billions and paid doctors millions (in benefits mostly) and the fines they are paying now arent even a drop in the bucket. Unless every state hits them like OK did they will walk from this laughing.

Of course...the only reason people really care is because White People have the biggest issue with these drugs.

 

[Kepler]

Re: 116th Congress: Episode 2 The Turtle Has Total Control

Of course...the only reason people really care is because White People have the biggest issue with these drugs.

When black people in the cities had a drug epidemic it was because of immorality and the response was criminal prosecution. Now that white people in the countryside have a drug epidemic it's a public health crisis and the response is medical studies and increased funding and outreach.

It's almost as if racism is built right into the fabric of the American political and economic system.

But yeah, the flyovers really need electoral college and Senate advantages because my god what would rural white people do otherwise?

Won't someone think of the white people?

 

[mookie1995]

https://newrepublic.com/article/154560/opioid-crisis-corporate-greed

Poorly written article if it didn't list the sponsors of the referenced legislation there.....

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: 116th Congress: Episode 2 The Turtle Has Total Control

BREAKING: Purdue Pharma and its owners, the Sackler family, are offering to settle more than 2,000 lawsuits against the company for $10B to $12B, according to 2 people familiar with the mediation.

Hmmmm...........I heard earlier that it was Doctor's prescriptions that were the issue. Why is big Pharma settling lawsuits then to make this go away?

Congress should ALSO be liable but we can't sue them.