And Nothing For Loved Ones? –
January 11, 2020 – The closest to a victory that families saw was the declaration of bankruptcy by Purdue Pharma in September, which meanwhile offered a $3 billion payment to families of victims. Despite this, a straightforward path to pharmaceutical course correction remains unclear. “Opioids [are] the class of drugs that includes prescription painkillers like codeine, morphine, Vicodin, Percocet, as well as illegal drugs like heroin,” said Dr. Thad Polk, an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan. “Opioids have been around for thousands of years, and they’ve been the gold standard medical treatment for pain since the Civil War, providing genuine relief to millions of people suffering from severe pain.”
These medicines offer legitimate benefits for those in pain. In the 1990s, they were recommended by pharmaceutical companies that believed the potential for addiction was low, Dr. Polk said. Unfortunately, addiction ran rampant. “In fact, about 25 percent of people who are prescribed an opioid drug end up misusing it, and over two million Americans are now estimated to be addicted to these drugs.”
