Crime & Justice
Purdue Pharma Doubled Down on OxyContin Marketing After $600 Million Fine
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Danger Close | The Fourth Option Podcast: Gerald Posner
"I would say it's over for them. They're going to have to follow the rules. This big OxyContin problem is finished. You know what? It's astonishing to me, and it's infuriating. They went back, they ignored the consent agreement, they essentially doubled down. They got more aggressive on their marketing, and nobody in the government came back to bring them in until 2018, 2019, 2020."
After Purdue Pharma paid a $600 million fine in 2007 and signed a consent agreement for mismarketing OxyContin, Posner discovered the company actually increased its aggressive marketing efforts rather than curtailing them. The government failed to enforce the agreement for over a decade, allowing the opioid crisis to worsen substantially while the Sacklers accumulated billions.
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