Roanoke, VA – A federal prosecutor says the maker of the powerful painkiller OxyContin and three of its current and former executives pleaded guilty to misleading the public about the drug's risk of addiction. [AP]
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Drug giant Purdue Pharma has agreed to pay $600 million in federal penalties for over-promoting OxyContin. Federal prosecutors assert that Purdue’s success with the drug it began racking up more than $1 billion in annual sales several years after its introduction in 1996 was due to an aggressive sales force that misbranded the product and downplayed its addictive nature.
History on OxyContin.
OxyContin was originally approved for use more than a decade ago by the FDA to help chronic pain sufferers deal with symptoms. Unfortunately, since OxyContin is a derivative of the opium poppy, it is incredibly addictive. Kicking an established OxyContin habit often proves too much for individual patients, who get sucked into inevitable cycles of withdrawal and relapse.
The painkiller’s success quickly led to drug problems. Abusers discovered they could obtain a heroin-like high by crushing the pills, then snorting or injecting them. The popularity of the addictive drug touched off crime waves as abusers stole to obtain money to buy it, and black markets sprang up in rural areas across the country, where several doctors were convicted of prescribing the medication without reason and deaths by oxycodone overdose skyrocketed.
Famous Talk show host Rush Limbaugh admited last year publicky that he is addicted to OxyContin. [VIN]
ask your doctor if he wouls prescribe to you Subutex. it helped me greatly when i was trying to get off this stuff.
I’m very serious. Its the first time I talk/write about this, but I can’t get off of this.
I was send to a doctor that kept on giving me these pills, and now I can’t stop.
Serious could anyone post here a number where I could call to get help (but please not someone from the Yiddisha community, I can’t have anyone know about this.
I can tell you that atleast $340,000.000 of that penalty that they are paying has come out of my pocket for these little things. I should sue them for gewtting me addicted.