“The other day I was invited to a gala celebrating a leader of the pharmaceutical industry as a moral leader. I nearly threw up. That’s because the pharma industry bears huge responsibility for the opioid crisis that has killed more than 200,000 Americans.”
Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times.
Abstracts
… “One reason our efforts have failed is we ignored the biggest drug pushers of all: American pharmaceutical companies.
Our policy was: You get 15 people hooked on opioids, and you’re a thug who deserves to rot in hell; you get 150,000 people hooked, and you’re a marketing genius who deserves a huge bonus.” …
… “Today, 75 percent of people with opioid addictions began with prescription painkillers. The slide starts not on a street corner, but in a doctor’s office.”…
…”Our pattern of opioid addiction points to a tragedy, driven by the greed of some of America’s leading companies and business executives, systematically manipulating doctors and patients and killing people on a scale that terrorists could never dream of.”…
- Read ‘Drug Dealers in Lab Coats’, nytimes, OCT. 18, 2017.
- Featured image inthesetimes.