Greedy Trial Lawyer
OxyContin's Marketers Guilty But Not Bad Enough For Jail Time
Category: The Latest Baddest
OxyContin, the drug, probably has a proper place in the treatment of certain types of pain in particular patient populations (such as, the pain of a terminal cancer patient). OxyContin, the marketing campaign, had no place in the drug industry.
OxyContin maker, execs fined $634.5 million
Judge ruled that drug company misled the public about addiction riskPurdue Pharma L.P., the maker of OxyContin, and three of its executives were ordered Friday to pay a $634.5 million fine for misleading the public about the painkiller's risk of addiction.
U.S. District Judge James Jones levied the fine on Purdue, its top lawyer and former president and former chief medical officer after a hearing that lasted about three-and-a-half hours. The hearing included statements by numerous people who said their lives were changed forever by addiction to OxyContin, a trade name for a long-acting form of the painkiller oxycodone.
From 1996 to 2001, the number of oxycodone-related deaths nationwide increased fivefold while the annual number of OxyContin prescriptions increased nearly 20-fold, according to a report by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. In 2002, the DEA said the drug caused 146 deaths and contributed to another 318.
Purdue Pharma L.P., its top lawyer and former president and former chief medical officer pleaded guilty in May to claiming to doctors that OxyContin was less addictive and less subject to abuse than other pain medications. The sentencing Friday ends the national case.
Michael Friedman, who retired in June as Purdue's president, general counsel Howard Udell and former chief medical officer Paul Goldenheim each pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of misbranding the drug. Of the total fine, $34.5 million was levied on those three.
From AP and MSNBC
Sounds like some serious, intentional wrongdoing that caused well over 100 deaths. Apparently, not serious enough to justify even a Paris Hilton county jail sleepover.
Jones placed the company on probation for five years and each of the executives on probation for three years. He also ordered the three to perform 400 hours of community service related to prevention of prescription drug abuse.
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