[ad_1]
A lawsuit filed on behalf of Tennessee taxpayers against the maker of Oxycontin Purdue Pharma in May reveals corporate documents that reveal how a giant of Big Pharma intentionally fueled the drug. opioid epidemic to attract profits.
Michael Schwab / USA TODAY
The running orders for the 87 Tennessee Purdue Pharma opiates from their bosses each day were simple: "Sell hope in a bottle" and "always close", newly revealed internal records show.
An unsealed trial this week in Knox County Circuit Court filed on behalf of Tennessee taxpayers accuses Purdue Pharma – a company family who turned Oxycontin into a Forbes scoring fortune – intentionally fueling the opioid epidemic that claimed millions lives
The lawsuit, filed by Tennessee Attorney General Herbert H. Slate ry III, uses Purdue's archives and his employees' own words to show that the company's founders and rulers have pushed drug providers to prescribe higher and higher doses of Oxycontin for long periods – even after Purdue has promised a highly regulated and highly profitable marketing campaign, based on lies and deceptions, targeting specifically medical providers and the most vulnerable patients of Tennessee, including the elderly and veterans. [19659089] 19659011] Three Things Revealed by the Tennessee Trial Against Purdue Pharma Manufacturing Oxycontin For More: The Secrets of Opioid Sales Will Be Unveiled After USA TODAY NETWORK, Tennessee Coalition for Open Government
"We sell hope in a bottle"
"Purdue summarized the marketing of its opioid products with the slogan" We sell hope in a bottle "in One of the
Purdue employees up to 87 sales representatives in Tennessee for the last decade. None were a health professional. All, however, were aggressive traders – trained, records show, to deal with the deadly opioid such as real estate.
"Purdue has trained its representatives to be aggressive in sales calls with suppliers," the lawsuit said. Tennessee sales representatives have been specially trained at ABC – "Always be closing" – a well-known phrase of "Glengarry Glen Ross", a piece theater and a film about aggressive sellers who use deceptive tactics to sell unwanted real estate.Purdue told its sellers to target overworked medical providers, serving poorer Tennessee communities with less training, calling them high-value prescribers' easily persuaded to increase prescriptions and doses of Oxycontin.
"Track the money"
The company literature – obtained by the office of Slatery in a 2007 lawsuit that the state alleges that Purdue raped – shows employees that it was a "strategic imperative" to target primary care – practices and clinics employing nurse practitioners and assistants to the doctor.
"Follow the money," a "call note" from a sales representative said. 8] Suppose the doctor "do not know med", another reading.
The strategy, alleges the trial, worked.
In an effort to combat the growing epidemic of drugs and heroin, the FBI and the DEA released "Chasing the Dragon: The Life of an Opiate Addict" , a documentary aimed at educating students and young adults about addiction.
FBI
"Between January 2007 and August 2017, these providers prescribed 65% of all Oxycontin tablets in Tennessee," says the trial
. Tennessee providers – Tennessee prescribers distributing Oxycontin prescriptions at a rate guaranteed to cause fatal overdoses – continue to push the drug on their patients.
The company even had a club for the vendors who grew the most Oxycontin. "Purdue specifically told his representatives to focus on the doctors who would give the best return on investment and the best potential prescribers," said the lawsuit
. ] Sales employees were trained to position themselves as medical experts and then provide suppliers with carefully written lies about the addictive and deadly properties of Oxycontin, the internal archive file.
oviders) believe me on info? "A salesman wrote." Buy-in … (Provider) "buys me first."
Purdue representatives made more than 300,000 calls to medical providers in Tennessee in seven years, often in person and always bringing false fake opium safety advocacy literature and tagging the growing epidemic of opioids as "pseudo-diction" that would stabilize if providers simply prescribed more d & rsquo; Oxycontin
Vendors were trained to teach providers that the best way to prevent habituation was to "prescribe higher and higher doses." The "symptoms" of addiction gone, the trial declared
To find out more: Here's what the new opioid restrictions of Tennessee mean for your doctor and your pharmacy
For know more s: "Henry's Law", named for the local teenager Granju, increases the time of imprisonment for drug traffickers if the OD miners and die [19659011] "Unlikely to become hooked"
Staff members lied to medical providers, business leaders, and even members of the firm's founders who used the profits of Oxycontin to pay doctors to lecture, intentionally lying on the dangers and addictive properties of opioids. The firm funded the creation of advocacy groups with names such as the American Pain Society and American Pain Foundation, and brochures, videos, and social media campaigns to convince Tennesseans that Oxycontin was a drug wonderful – even as the number of fatal overdoses related to it began to skyrocket. In an effort to combat the growing epidemic of heroin abuse, the FBI and DEA have published " Chasing the Dragon: The Life of an Opiate Addict, "a documentary aimed at educating students and young adults about the dangers of drug addiction. (Photo: FBI) The firm specifically targeted veterans with a Web campaign called "Exit Wounds," and called Oxycontin "the gold standard" for the treatment of pain. "Long experience with opioids shows that are not predisposed to addiction are not likely to become addicted to opioid drugs," veterans said. "When used properly, opioid pain relievers increase the level of functioning of a person. " To learn more: Haslam sign TN Together, gives life to the state of epidemic d & # 39; Opioid The lawsuit reveals that purdue sellers have been instructed to ignore police warnings, indictments and overdose deaths involving medical providers in Tennessee and continue to ask them to distribute Oxycontin – the most profitable brand of the business –
The lawsuit and Purdue's internal records link the firm's vendors to some of the most famous doctors of the Tennesseen pills factories ee, including one of the largest in eastern Tennessee
Source link