Report: Sacklers Using Fake Doctors, False Marketing to Sell OxyContin in China
upstart writes in with a submission, via IRC, for Runaway1956_.
Report: Sacklers using fake doctors, false marketing to sell OxyContin in China
The mega-rich family behind the OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma is back to selling its highly addictive pain-killer with underhanded tactics and deceptive advertising-this time in China, via its international company, Mundipharma. That's all according to a searing new investigation by the Associated Press.
The Sackler family, which owns both Purdue and Mundipharma, is embroiled in litigation in the United States over its alleged role in sparking the country's epidemic of opioid abuse and overdoses. Thousands of plaintiffs-many state and local governments-claim that Purdue and the Sacklers misled patients, doctors, and regulators on the addictiveness of their drugs, aggressively marketed them, and wooed doctors into over-prescribing them.
While Purdue has since declared bankruptcy and stopped promoting OxyContin in the US, the Sacklers seem to be employing the same practices in China.
Based on documents and interviews with multiple Mundipharma representatives in China, the AP investigation found that reps were at times posing as doctors, providing debunked information that its long-acting opioids are safe and less addictive, and even illegally copying private medical records of patients to inform sales tactics.
[...]Mundipharma, meanwhile, is still hiring in China.
The AP story linked above is in-depth and well worth reading. See also: HuffPost.
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