UW psychiatrist quoted in New Yorker feature on opioids

The Sackler dynasty's ruthless marketing of painkillers for Purdue Pharmaceuticals has generated billions of dollars and millions of addicts, says magazine

Writes reporter-at-larger Patrick Radden Keefe: "Purdue has continued to fight aggressively against any measures that might limit the distribution of OxyContin, in a way that calls to mind the gun lobby’s resistance to firearm regulations. Confronted with the prospect of modest, commonsense measures that might in any way impinge on the prescribing of painkillers, Purdue and its various allies have responded with alarm, suggesting that such steps will deny law-abiding pain patients access to medicine they desperately need. Mark Sullivan, a psychiatrist at the University of Washington, distilled the argument of Purdue: 'Our product isn’t dangerous—it’s people who are dangerous.' "

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Tags:psychiatry & behavioral healthopioids

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