I find it ironic that Purdue Pharma has decided to spend $3.4 million to help fund a research group to develop a lower-cost naloxone nasal spray. It seems to me this is a day late and a dollar short.
Over 72,000 people died from overdoses in this country last year. As an Associated Press story in the Portland Press Herald (“Opioid maker helps fund overdose antidote,” Sept. 6, Page B1) states, that is a 10 percent increase from 2016. Purdue Pharma didn’t stop pushing its OxyContin on doctors until earlier this year, even though they paid a fine of $634 million back in 2007 because they downplayed the fact that their drug was highly addictive.
If this company really wants to help the millions of people who’ve been affected by addiction, then perhaps they should be spending much more than a mere $3.4 million and putting that money toward treatment and recovery programs. Somehow, I don’t believe that Purdue Pharma has any remorse for what their company has done.
Everything I have read about the Sackler family (the owners of Purdue Pharma) and this company leads me to believe that money is the bottom line – not the tens of thousands of people who have died and the families who have been affected by this horrible disease.
Martha Lavendier
Newcastle
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