Opioid Crisis In The Tv Series Dopesick

In the TV series Dopesick, the portrayal of the opioid crisis highlights some of the major factors contributing to its rise: inadequate regulations from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), susceptibility to corruption, coupled with the lack of public awareness, contributed to the widespread impact of the opioid crisis, while the government’s delayed response hindered an appropriate response. In the series, the pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma took advantage of the lack of regulation and corruption within the FDA to help give their opioid, OxyContin, a label claiming that “Less than one percent of patients get addicted”. This controversial claim supposedly came from a famous and exhaustive study conducted by Porter and Jick, when in

This lack of public awareness around the manipulation of data made the claims Purdue made believable, allowing for the widespread treatment of these powerful narcotics even for moderate pain. Once the opioid crisis started, there were many attempts to get the government to revoke the FDA’s label given to Oxycontin. One such attempt was when Bridget Meyers, an executive of the Drug Enforcement Association (DEA), conducted an exhaustive study that proved oxycontin was dangerous even when taken exactly as prescribed, the FDA ignored this blatant piece of evidence, allowing the crisis to continue developing. Pharmaceutical companies such as Purdue Pharma took advantage of the FDA’s lack of regulation by aggressively marketing their products, downplaying the addictive risks. The FDA approved of these claims and even took bribes to let them pass. The public blindly accepted these claims, having been approved by the FDA, and with the public having no knowledge of the actual workings of these opioids, allowed for them to be widely prescribed for any type of pain, leading to the