Profits or Population Control? –
Oct. 3, 2018 – The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) initially rejected Purdue’s patent request for extended-release oxycodone, citing the combination as “obvious.” But Purdue responded with a statistical falsehood – which the company knew was false – and the patent office made an about-face, granting the 20 year patent for OxyContin. Since then, the cozy relationship between Big Pharma and government has grown, with the pharma industry spending almost a billion dollars in ten years on lobbying federal and state governments and campaign contributions. As the Harvard study notes, “low patenting standards” and “a history of tepid enforcement” provided incentive for Purdue to embark on a massive, fraudulent marketing campaign. With the guarantee of no competition provided by government, Purdue spent obscene amounts of money getting American hooked on their newly-patented product.
