Yesterday I received a very kind email from someone associated with Partnership for a Drug Free America alerting me to the launch of an innovative new website designed to help parents navigate the confusing maze of options, recommendations, costs and other factors involved in finding help for their kids and teens who are struggling with addiction. Having been through this confusing and emotionally draining experience myself, I was interested to go check out the site, called “Time to Get Help”.
The site is well designed and seems to have some very good information. My enthusiasm for the concept began to grow until I noticed the bottom of the press release, which explained that Time to Get Help is sponsored by Purdue Pharma, along with one other anonymous donor.
This is troublesome to me.
In case you aren’t aware, Purdue Pharma is the pharmaceutical company that markets and sells oxycontin, oxycodone and dilaudid, three of the most deadly drugs of abuse on the market today. Purdue has been the target of high level and ongoing criticism for the way the company has marketed and labeled oxycontin, and only three years ago, three of its top execs pleaded guilty to criminal charges in the way they labeled and marketed this potentially deadly drug. Purdue remains the topic of widespread criticism by families of oxycontin overdose victims related to the way the company markets its multi-billion dollar goldmine of a drug.
Thus, the company’s sponsorship of a website designed to offer unbiased and accurate info to parents of children struggling with addiction – a large percentage of whom are certainly addicted to the very pills sold by Purdue – raises ethical questions that I believe will need to be addressed before parents such as myself can in good conscience recommend this online resource to other parents.
In considering whether Purdue’s sponsorship of this site is appropriate, I checked out the sponsorship guidelines for Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), which read: “MADD is unable to consider proposed partnerships or donations of any kind from the Alcohol Industry or companies affiliated with the Alcohol Industry as defined under MADD policy…”
That seems clear enough. And it makes sense to me.
I have responded to the individual who sent me the link to Time to Get Help, and asked for some info and background on the decision to allow Purdue to sponsor this site, and I look forward to hearing her response. In the meantime, check the site out for yourself, and let me know what you think of Purdue offering sponsorship funds to support an anti-drug-addiction resource such as Time to Get Help.
Did you mention there had been lawsuits against Purdue? Sponsoring an information campaign such as this might be part of the settlement–it often is for alcohol and tobacco companies.
Right, it could be part of a settlement.
It would be interesting to see where other groups get their funding.
Drug Free America gets 1/4 of its funding from corporations.
See the pie chart: http://www.drugfree.org/about/financials
Keep us posted.
it seems odd to me. but could be part of the settlement. But I would be leary much as when a tabacco company has a program to keep kids from smoking….
Pharma companies do not want to see their medications used for illegitimate purposes. The people who do use them that way are jeopardizing the majority of people who actually need, and appropriately use their products.
Pharma companies are nothing like alcohol companies (although I would argue that they too have a legitimate concern about the legitimate use of their product). Don't demonize them.
The real demons are those who abuse medication, particularly those who deal to others.
Rosecity – numerous judges and juries have diisagreed with your assertion that pharmaceutical companies do not have any interest in creating dependency and addiction in users of their products.
And my son was not a "demon."
I'm with MADD on this one. I smell a terrible conflict of interest here….
So this is sort of like taking breastfeeding advice from a formula company?
As a hematology/oncology nurse, I have administered oxycontin, oxycodone and dilaudid to many patients suffering severe, unimaginable pain. They are medications desperately needed by patients dealing with pain crisis issues secondary to sickle cell anemia, cancer and chemotherapeutic side effects. I am grateful that there is something that can help these unfortunate individuals.
Unfortunately, frequent hospitalizations and treatments are astronomically expensive and there are some unscrupulous people that care for these poor patients (be they pharmacy techs, nurses, maybe even patient family members) that have access to medication lists and will throw all patient confidentiality out of the window to sell patient information to dealers. These dealers will pay these patients cash (to help with bills) to turn over their medications and "just get your doctor to write you for more" . It's beyond tragic.
Whether Purdue Pharma's sponsorship of the site is a court-ordered mea culpa or not, I don't think it takes away from the legitimacy of the website and the help it's trying to provide.
Being an ER nurse, we pass out the Dilaudid like it was nothing, It has become the drug of choice for many physicians, not the drug to try when others fail.
We really have become a pill popping society, so much more than when I was a kid (70's). I remember taking baby asprin and cough medicine. That was it. Now we have a pill or syrup for you name it and we can medicate it. Hope the trend turns around soon, I think I liked it better in the 70's (getting to be that way more and more).
Lynn
Lynn,
I think a huge part of the problem is that ER physicians are trained for emergency medicine with the motto being "treat 'em and street 'em", not primary care. So many people don't have adequate access to a primary care physician and end up utilizing ER's inappropriately. Unfortunately, insurance reimbursement for a family medicine physician is pitiful and very few out of med school are willing to go into it because they may never be able to pay off their 200K worth of med school debt and support themselves/their families. That leaves a shortage of primary care and an overflowing ER where docs will write for pain pills instead of taking the time to figure out what is really wrong and fixing it. It super sucks but unless something worthwhile happens in re: to health care reform, it's a problem that will get worse.
In 2001 my 16 year old son who was in early recovery from addiction died in a drug related drowning from sudden sniffing death syndrome caused by inhaling the propellant in a can of computer duster. When he was pulled from the swimming pool that day by one of his best friends the can of Fellows Air Duster was clenched tightly in lifeless hand. My wife and I might have responded with understandable rage and anger toward the Fellows Company for manufacturing an “unsafe and deadly” product but we did not for several reasons. The first was that our son was purposefully misusing a product (against the manufacturer’s instructions) that when applied appropriately is of great benefit and value to the hundreds of millions computer users through-out the world. The second was that he did so knowingly and intentionally to get high from a product that he misused in this manner. Finally after his death my wife and I supported the work of others who have lost sons and daughters to inhalant abuse who engaged and successfully worked with the “industry manufacturers” of aerosol products to attach warning labels and introduce ”bittering” agents into the gases to make them unpalatable to those who would abuse them. These actions came under similar criticism voiced in an early post here.
My point is that commercially available products like aerosols and prescription pharmaceuticals when used in the manner they were developed provide incalculable benefit to our society. Consequently I feel that not engaging the industries and manufacturers in assisting to either make their products safer or to minimize the effect of their misuse is short sighted and naive. Further the comparison of this issue and MADD’s stance on receiving support from the alcohol industry is a false one. Alcohol products, unlike aerosol inhalants or pharmaceuticals provide no real benefit to our society, never have and never will. The prescription pain killers produced by Purdue Pharma provide great benefit and relief to the millions who suffer from cancer, surgeries and other life threatening injuries and illnesses. Further I see their financial contribution to the Partnership at DrugFree.Org without any expectation of vetting or approval of Partnership tools and services as incredibly generous.
I have always placed much stock in the truism that if you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem. Purdue Pharma is definitely part of the solution to the problem of adolescent substance abuse, and after losing my precious boy to this issue I welcome them to the fight.
Kim – i am so sorry for your terrible loss. I know all to well how terrible it is to lose a child.
I disagree, however, with your stance that Purdue pharma's role in addiction deaths in the U.S. is akin to household products never intended for human consumption, and with minimal risk for dependence and addiction. And even within the pharma industry space, Purdue has been an admittedly unethical player – misrepresenting the risks of Oxycontin dependence in patients and aggressively marketing directly to consumers.
To me, the salient question when considering the appropriateness of a corporate entity sponsoring public health messaging is whether the entity derives any meaningful profit from the behavior associated with the messaging. So for example, alcohol companies make a great deal of money off of people who drink to excess, making their role in promoting any sort of anti-alcoholism campaign inappropriate. Purdue makes huge profits off the growing market for their product – a market that necessarily includes abuse, addiction and overdose. Thus, their role in anti-drug-abuse messaging is inappropriate.
Again, I am so terribly sorry for your loss. Thank you for taking the time to share your point of view on this issue.
Katie