Reply #4: On a related issue: [View All]

[The Backlash Cometh]

I don't know why no one has commented on a thread I posted earlier regarding a 6 month investigation from the Orlando Sentinel regarding Oxycontin.

Here are some interesting points:

1) The FDA approved the drug in 1995 (A year after the Newt Gingrich revolution) and failed to regulate the marketing of the drug. The marketing progressively targeted a broader patient base, from cancer patients to moderate back pain users.

2) In Florida there has been nearly 600 deaths due to overdoses of the drugs -- 52% of those deaths are white males between the ages of 30 & 60.

Here are interesting excerpts from three article that were printed in the paper today:

"After <Haddox joined Purdue in 1999>, the company continued to distribute thousands of videos titled "From One Pain Patient to Another" that claimed less than 1 percent of patients taking opioids became addicted."

"DEA reports nationwide show prescription drugs are abused almost twice as often as illegal drugs, such as heroin and cocaine. A DEA study stated almost 1 million people said they used OxyContin for nonmedical reasons."

"'This drug is tearing apart families; it is ruining lives; it is stretching the resources of law-enforcement and social services agencies to the absolute limit,' Rogers told the FDA advisory panel last month." (You can almost say the samething about crack cocaine, but is the compassion there for the users of that drug? Of course not.)

"If this was a rash of crimes resulting in death ... we wouldn't stand for it."

My original post is at:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=556108