OxyContin maker, executives fined $634.5 million for misleading public

http://asp.usatoday.com/community/tags/topic.aspx?req=tag&tag=Oxycontin

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/07/20/ap3937456.html


OxyContin maker, executives fined $634.5 million for misleading public

By SUE LINDSEY
Associated Press Writer

ABINGDON, Va. -- A federal judge on Friday fined the maker of
painkiller OxyContin and three executives $634.5 million for
misleading the public about its risk of addiction.

U.S. District Judge James Jones said he would have preferred to have
the plea agreements call for spending money on education of those at
risk of drug abuse and treatment of those who are addicted to
OxyContin. But Jones said he would not reject the agreement.

"Many young people mistakenly believe today that prescription drugs
are safer than other drugs," Jones said.

Designed to be swallowed whole and digested over 12 hours, the pills
can produce a heroin-like high if crushed and then swallowed, snorted
or injected.

Purdue Pharma L.P., its top lawyer and former president and former
chief medical officer pleaded guilty in May and under an agreement
for claiming that OxyContin was less addictive and less subject to
abuse than other pain medications.

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.

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.

The hearing lasted about four-and-a-half hours with statements by
numerous people who said their lives were changed forever by the
addiction potential of OxyContin, a trade name for a long-acting form
of the painkiller oxycodone.

Many of those who gave statements had spoken at a rally before the
hearing.

"The first time I heard the word OxyContin was when I was told my 18-
year-old son died of an overdose," said Ed Bisch of Palm Coast, Fla.

Bisch drove to the hearing with two other parents, including Lee
Nuss, who held up an urn slightly larger than a pill bottle that she
said contained her son's ashes.

"I feel you are legal drug users, nothing more than a large corporate
drug cartel," Nuss said addressing the Purdue Pharma contingent.

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.

The coal-mining region of southwest Virginia where the sentencing
took place has had a number of oxycodone-related deaths -- 119 from
2003 through 2005, according to the state medical examiner's office.

Purdue, based in Stamford, Connecticut, has said it accepted
responsibility for its employees' actions and has put in place
training and monitoring programs to ensure overpromotion of OxyContin
doesn't happen again. But officials objected to any ties between the
plea agreement and abuse of the drug.

"One of my main infuriations with that company is that for years they
denied there was an epidemic," said Bisch, who has a Web site called
http://www.oxyabusekills.com.

The fines are to be distributed to state and federal law enforcement
agencies, the federal government, federal and state Medicaid
programs, a Virginia prescription monitoring program and individuals
who had sued the company. About $5 million will go toward a six-year
company program to monitor compliance with the agreement.

Survivors of the victims want the Food and Drug Administration to
reclassify OxyContin for use only for severe pain. The drug currently
can be prescribed for moderate pain.

may need it for pain management, it'll be near impossible.

is those people who are in chronic unrelenting pain. These kinds of judgements makes it all the more likely less treatments will be available for them. A side issue.