Master in Food Ethics and Law

UNESCO Chair in Bioethics

Contact

  • Bioethics and Law Observatory
  • UNESCO Chair in Bioethics
  • University of Barcelona
  • Faculty of Law
  • Ave. Diagonal, 684
  • 08034 Barcelona
  • (+34) 93 403 45 46
  • obd.ub@ub.edu
  •  
  • Master in Bioethics and Law
  • (+34) 93 403 45 46
  • master.bd@ub.edu

 

"Preying on Prescribers (and Their Patients) — Pharmaceutical Marketing, Iatrogenic Epidemics, and the Sackler Legacy"

The New England Journal of Medicine

In 2018, Massachusetts joined more than two dozen other states in suing Purdue Pharma, the makers of OxyContin, for “the harm they inflicted in our state” by helping to drive the current opioid crisis. Drawing particular atten-tion to the actions of the family that  controls  the  company,  the  Sacklers, the case against Purdue has been framed in terms of un-conscionable corporate (and indi-vidual) profit at the expense of the public’s health — chief ly through the  manipulation  of  prescribing  practices  and  of  the  approach  to  pain  recommended  in  clinical  journals,  medical  curricula,  and  professional guidelines.