Anyone watching Dope Sick (Disney+)

[HermioneWeasley]

I’m gripped and then discovered there’s only 2 episodes uploaded so far. Am I expected to watch one a week like it’s 1993?!

It’s fascinating and horrifying. I’d heard references over the years to “America’s opioid crisis” and wondered why we didn’t have it here. Well, here are the answers.

@PoohTiggerEeyoretoo

Thank you so much!!!! It has been driving me insane!

I still don’t understand the need for the false advert as those people were actually on OxyContin at the time. Why couldn’t they say the brand name? If they weren’t taking the drug fair enough it’s false advertising but they were. There was no reason for them to be saying ‘pain medicine’ rather than OxyContin. What was the company’s rationale for that?

I didn't think they were taking it though?

I just tried to Google about the advert - couldn’t find an answer but this article was just shocking.

www.statnews.com/2019/01/15/massachusetts-purdue-lawsuit-new-details/

I would guess that the advert didn’t actually say the patients were taking OxyContin, and so Purdue would argue that they weren’t lying (obviously it is misleading but that doesn’t seem to have been something they had a problem with…!). I was struck with the repeated ‘I haven’t missed a day of work’ bit they kept saying - this is why paid sick leave is important…

So good but 1 episode a week is driving me mad

I rarely follow programmes but I do watch to watch this.

@spudlet it’s so they can’t steal drugs and hide them in their clothes.

I think it’s also a power/status thing, as the guys guarding the drugs/in charge like being round semi-naked women.

@NotDonna I think it’s just because the people would be more likely to agree to appear in a PSA than an ad, because it’s helping other people not making money for a company.

I also wondered if it was because Purdue originally intended to use it was part of publicity from the pain societies they funded (like the pamphlets and pain charts). So it looks like something from an impartial third party, but then part way through changes their minds and decided to use it as ad instead.

So they are blurring the boundaries about how trustworthy the information is, a bit like with the letter to the Journal that kept getting quotes as if it was an article. Just create a whole sea of half truths and misinformation and o create an overall false impression.

Can’t wait til the next episode.

@NotDonna

I still don’t understand the need for the false advert as those people were actually on OxyContin at the time. Why couldn’t they say the brand name? If they weren’t taking the drug fair enough it’s false advertising but they were. There was no reason for them to be saying ‘pain medicine’ rather than OxyContin. What was the company’s rationale for that?

The reason is because a PSA (public service announcement) has less restrictions than a promotional video. So it is much easier to get a PSA authorised by the governing body.

If the patients are saying "OxyContin" then it would obviously be a promotional video. So Purdue insist that the patients are not allowed say the product name to make it seems non-promotional.

Purdue got the video made as a PSA (to get it approved by the governing body), they then edited it post-production and turned it into a promo video, which got through the red tape.

Hmm, got Disney for one month, I'll look into it now

Further to my post above, a promo video would have to substantiate any marketing claims like "I didn't have to miss a day of work", as it could be deemed misleading. A PSA would not have to substantiate a claim like that.

Its gripping but also depressing reminder
how greedy some people are that they've zero morals when comes to fellow humans welfare. Much like with Dark Waters and Erin Brockovich they were well aware but profits come first and I end up feeling so angry that the government officials that should be looking after the communities interests aren't.

I've seen pain med addiction covered in few programs but didn't know anything about oxycontin epidemic. I liked that it shows full range of people circumstances that become addicted, work injury, pensioners arthritis, school kids wanting a high etc and how easy could happen and then be written off as scum druggies when it causes life to fall apart.

@NotKnowingArseFromElbow

Further to my post above, a promo video would have to substantiate any marketing claims like "I didn't have to miss a day of work", as it could be deemed misleading. A PSA would not have to substantiate a claim like that.

That makes sense. Thank you Hate that I can’t binge watch this.

I agree @Scattyhattie - it's hard to fathom how people have zero morals at all. I know people talk about companies but all companies are a collection of people at the end of the day and just how awful that so many really have no thought for anything but profit.

Companies have to persue profits - literally, they have to - and the public health bodies in the US are constantly under attack/underfunded.

That's why it's important to keep the private sector out of the NHS

@WaterAndTheWild well perhaps companies should decide it's not sustainable & fold if alternative involves making load of people sick, ruining lives and a massive fallout to social & environment, just so a few people can live a more luxurious life.

Yes it's a good insight how bad things could get for out for health care, although I thought in some countries the integration is better than US system. It does seem like more of a culture issue too.

@JacquelineCarlyle yes I can't get my head around who these people are that make these decisions in some meeting then probably go home to family. The Perdue guy is being shown as clever and calculated.

Dark Water left feeling bit disturbed, knowing that people had casually decided to test on bunch of employees ( including pregnant women) without their consent already knowing it was bad. It went over such a long period that it wasn't even bad decision of a few awful people but loads that must've been complicit in it. Dopesick seems to be heading that way too.

Michael Keaton is excellent in this, it's really good but horrific at the same time

I'm watching it. It's a little terrifying to see how the drug approval process worked (hopefully was massively tightened up after that) in the US. Seeing that the "study" that was used for so long to perpetuate the less than 1% addiction claims was a 4 sentence letter to a science journal. Just... How? Did the FDA not do even a modicum of due diligence to find out just where that claim came from and the context?

@Rochim20 the implication in an early episode was the guy who approved it at the FDA turned up shortly after in a highly paid job at Purdue. Why the rest of them are protecting oxy/Purdue is unclear.

It’s excellent - the slow spiralling out of control is shown so well.

I’ve always refused opioids for fear of addiction - was offered methadone for kidney stones (I was in America) and refused, after they passed they gave me tramadol to take if I needed it - I had no idea they were an opioid too! I assumed from the name it was super strong paracetamol (I know - so naive). Explains why I was off my tits for a few days when I was taking them. I can see how if you were taking them longer term for something chronic it would be so easy to get addicted

The episode that dropped on Disney today was really good.

They focussed a lot on the wording on the label.

It made me realise how much damage that labelling did. Not just for the people who got hooked on oxy, but it people’s trust in the FDA and medicine generally.

I wonder how much this played a part in people not trusting government assurance that Covid vaccines are safe. As in a “ yeah, we beloved you when you said Oxy was age, look at how many people died or had their lives ruined”.

Sheer evil.

Safe not age sorry

Very good and utterly horrifying. That pharma guy who made himself CEO makes me sick to my stomach.

Been watching it, it's a gripping series. I take morphine myself for a chronic problem, and I'm so careful to take it as little as humanly possible to make sure I don't get addicted - it's so easy when it is needed to start small and increase the dose little by little, as you become acclimated to the existing dose and it no longer adequately kills the pain.

What I noticed in the series was the questioning of the quote that "opiate addiction does not occur when the opiate is prescribed for legitimate pain". That quote was taught to me (UK!) in part of my - medical area - undergrad degree...

Ep7 oh god