Everyone is cheering! Ars Technica reports this:
ARRRRGH! This is disgraceful in so many different ways.
While opioids were marketed aggressively by this company and others in this same space, the choice to prescribe was made by physicians, all of whom are responsible to have taken the Hippocratic Oath, and to have actually learned something in medical school.
Physicians have a huge responsibility to the health of their patients and therefore, a duty to remain informed and to be responsible for the care they recommend. Physicians are subjected to a barrage of claims from pharmaceutical reps almost daily, but they are also tasked to be the final voice in determining what is the correct treatment for their patients.
A company may make claims, such as that their medication is "not addictive", but physicians are the one who took advanced courses in pharmacology and they should have known that claims of non-addictiveness were impossible.
Instead, "pain management" clinics popped up everywhere, and "pain management physicians" claimed expertise in this brand-new area of medicine while propagating the overuse of opioids for at least two decades! Really. You can't make this stuff up.
Now, to feel like they're doing something, everyone wants the Sacklers, who made the most money as a single and public entity, to take the fall.
I cry nonsense.
There would have been no problem to public health whatsoever if physicians had done their job. They are the ones who are entirely responsible for the overuse of opioids in the past and, by the bye, the UNDERuse of opioids now, causing much needless suffering for those in legitimate pain.
The entire case is a tragedy for patients -- while big pharma, physicians, clinics, and hospitals rake in the dough. Disgraceful.
