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- Title
OxyContin: A Tale of Advertisement and Addiction.
- Authors
Jiang, Amy
- Abstract
Purdue Pharma is under scrutiny for its role in North America's opioid crisis with its widely marketed narcotic OxyContin. Released in 1995, the same year as the American Pain Society announced their Pain is the Fifth Vital Sign campaign, OxyContin quickly became a blockbuster drug through aggressive advertisement. Purdue Pharma sponsored tens of thousands of pain management education programs, funded influential organizations, and marketed directly to physicians. They publicized research that downplayed the risk of addiction, suppressed early reports of drug abuse, and led physicians to believe that iatrogenic narcotic addiction was rare. By 2004, OxyContin had become the most prevalent prescription opioid abused in the USA. Purdue Pharma has since acknowledged misleading regulators, doctors and patients about OxyContin's risk of addiction and abuse. The company recently filed for bankruptcy, as thousands of jurisdictions are now seeking to recover costs associated with the opioid crisis. This story demonstrates how vulnerable physicians are to marketing and misinformation, and the importance of critical appraisal when new drugs, technologies, and practice patterns are introduced to our practice.
- Subjects
ADVERTISING; ANALGESICS; BANKRUPTCY; DRUG addiction; EPIDEMICS; NARCOTICS; OPIOID abuse; PHARMACEUTICAL industry; OXYCODONE
- Publication
Update in Anaesthesia, 2020, Vol 35, p56
- ISSN
1353-4882
- Publication type
Article