Should Doctors Be Embarrassed by TV’s ‘Dopesick’?

ONLY IF THEY HAVE FEELINGS –

Nov. 26, 2021 – “I think doctors should watch this series because it carries important lessons for doctors about how pharmaceutical marketing can result in a public health catastrophe,” Kolodny said. To this day, doctors continue to be targeted by pharmaceutical marketing strategies, including data gathering on their prescribing practices, he said Our patients ultimately pay the price for the influence that drug companies have,” Kolodny said.

Kolodny values the industry’s “ability to find cures and treatments. But there needs to be much better firewalls so that drug and device manufacturers don’t have undue influence on medical practice,” as the show so clearly depicts.

While opioid prescribing has fallen in recent years, “there is still no other country that comes close to prescribing as much opioids as we do,” he said.

The series of eight episodes — the last of which aired November 17 on Hulu — is based on the nonfiction book, Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy.