and loved ones who have to pick up the pieces and right there in the middle of the suffering was purdue pharma the manufacture of a highly addictive prescription drug painkiller oxycontin. this company played a central role in the most devastating public health crisis. purdue has generated more than $35 billion in revenue since bringing oxycontin to market. been in the family since 1952 they have profited enormously in the oxycontin business since bringing the painkiller to market the family has withdrawn more than $10 billion from the company purdue has now admitted after he got caught or after it pled guilty and paid a fine it continued to commit crimes for another decade like nothing happened. documents contained by our committee by state attorneys general that members were directly involved with the day-to-day operations of the company and launched an incredibly destructive campaign to flood the communities they ignored and worked around safeguards intended to reduce misuse to promote a false narrative about their products and to deflect blame from people struggling with addiction despicab

relatives against purdue pharma.s i got emails, ai would let them know, look, we're trying to do something. >> rapp parents fanned out at public protests, in front of congress, and on television news, letting the country know of the dangers of oxycontin and other opioids. >> it has now been over ten years since oxycontin first came on the market. the deaths and addiction continue unabated. >> my 19-year-old son, bobby, died from an overdose of oxycontin. >> my wife mary jo died from oxycontin. >> my 18-year-old son matthew died of an overdose of oxycontin. >> bisch sent articles to every reporter and prosecutor he could find. one of the offices he contacted was the u.s. attorney in the western district of virginia. that u.s. attorney, john bro brownlee soon launched the first criminal probe of purdue for fraud and mislabeling of the drug. >> he sees these overdose figures and deaths, and he says to himself, what's going on here? when he looks at it, he sees one drug, oxycontin. so he starts to digs into what's going

as part of a grant to that was provided to them by the pharmaceutical company purdue pharma the joint commission on accreditation of health care organizations recently defined and adopted stringent pain standards on the basic thrust of our new standards is the organizations that practitioners have an obligation to ask the patient even if the patient doesn't look like he or she is in pain ask them to be surprised but here when you go to a doctor's office now they ask you or are you having pain. no you may go for a raise that has nothing to do with pain which just added lighter fluid to the fire because because it became equivalent to say if you have pain you need opioids. at least in the united states you know 2 plus. you know probably not for making people smile and on oxy contemn produce marketing of oxycontin depending on how you look at it very successful very tragic all the marketing legislative maneuvering cash and free giveaways handed to doctors and politicians might have been justified if opioids were a safe effective non-addictive treatment for chronic pain but they weren't m

they took steps to suppress negative information within a month received a 3 page letter from purdue pharma. basically saying why are you bothering the doctors this is not a prescribing problem this is a patient misuse problem this is a drug abuse problem patients need to be able to get what they need and then we got a year later got sued in federal court we were all all the medical directors were served in our homes current efforts to stop this overprescribing have been met with much pushback from the pharmaceutical industry they rationalized that the billions of dollars they were making were helping more people than they were hoarding they insisted and still insists today that only those who are diverting and misusing the drugs to get high are responsible for the epidemic and not those who are prescribe the drug produced distributed a follow up video to i got my life back the double down on their claims that oxycontin was a safe non-addictive long term chronic pain relief returning to these patients off to 2 years shows that when pain treatment is successful it stays successful over the l

they took steps to suppress negative information within a month received a 3 page letter from purdue pharma. basically saying why are you bothering the doctors this is not a prescribing problem this is a patient misuse problem this is a drug abuse problem patients need to be able to get what they need and then we got a year later got sued in federal court we were all of the medical directors were served in our homes current efforts to stop this overprescribing have been met with much pushback from the pharmaceutical industry they rationalized that the billions of dollars they were making helping more people than they were hoarding they insisted and still insists today that only those who are diverting and misuse.