OxyContin-pusher Purdue blames everyone but itself for opioid crisis

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In a motion to dismiss an explosive lawsuit brought by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma argues that it is not responsible for the current epidemic of opioid overdoses as the Commonwealth alleges—even if the people now overdosing were initially patients who became addicted to opioids while using its highly addictive painkiller.
Purdue, which forcefully marketed OxyContin after its 1995 FDA approval, notes that opioid overdose deaths are currently driven by use of illicit opioids, namely heroin and fentanyl. Those overdoses, regardless of whether they stem from an addiction formed using OxyContin, are “far removed from a physician prescribing a Purdue medication,” the company argues. The motion goes on:
Those alleged harms happen because of numerous additional intervening acts, including criminal acts by third parties such as drug dealers who sold deadly heroin and fentanyl in the Commonwealth. These are not Purdue’s acts and any connection between Purdue and these illegal acts is too remote to be actionable.
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, deaths from opioid pain killers rose in parallel with the amount (in kilograms) of opioids sold in the US—both quadrupling within the time frame of 1999 and 2010. While opioid prescriptions leveled off and began declining in 2012, deaths from the extremely potent opioid fentanyl began spiking nationwide in 2013. Likewise, deaths from heroin also didn’t begin significant upticks until around 2011.
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