I know some others here have been posting up threads about this already, I think it was Motownnative already has a good one up but we've been watching that HBO documentary about the Sacklers, the rich family behind the opiate epidemic in America and running Purdue Pharma, and I swear it made us so angry we had to stop ourselves from throwing a brick through the screen. The documentary was saying more than a half million Americans have been killed by epidemic but some news sources seem to be saying more like a million or more, and the people who've been harmed or permanently damaged must be in the tens of millions. We had a couple opiate victims in our own extended family, fortunately they were able to get help but it still caused them terrible damage and hurt. They'd gotten injured, one from riding a bike and the other hurt at work, and their doctors gave them oxycontin at high dose. It seemed weird to us though, that even when the pain was mostly gone and they were showing signs of addiction, they were still being prescribed high doses of this drug that were clearly making them sicker and sicker.
The documentary is showing us how rotten and corrupt the whole US medical system was getting-- and this includes the FDA that gave approval for prescribing oxycontin in ways that they knew would cause addiction and terrible harms to millions of people. Distributions, suppliers and many doctors were practically getting kick-backs,
that criminal consulting company McKinsey was getting rich for encouraging doctors and health insurance companies, openly to get Americans addicted to opiates and increase profits by increasing addiction. In other words, whole big segments of the US medical system, regulators and the American capitalist leaders knew that Purdue Pharma's opiates were very addictive in the ways they were prescribing and dangerous, and they knew they were killing hundreds of thousands of Americans. But they went ahead anyway, because it made them rich. Profits over people in the worst way. And the worst of all were the Sacklers, owners of Purdue Pharma who pushed this deliberate policy to addict Americans and get rich from it. It's outrageous that these mass murderers, basically committed crimes against humanity, not only not in prison for their crimes, but they're still super rich. Even with all the lawsuits against them, due to their bankruptcy, squirrel away so much money in the Cayman islands tax shelters and just the laziness or incompetence of US officials-- I guess Sacklers are "too big to fail"?-- Sacklers still have billions of dollars and live in luxury thanks to the blood money they got from killing or ruining the lives of tens of millions of Americans. And from what the documentary and newspapers are still saying, it looks like the US officials, politicians and courts have no intention to push criminal charges or further action against Sacklers. So they're going to be literally getting away with murder, and living in massive luxury as billionaires with the billions they still have.
There's a connection here to all those threads on why only a third of Americans are fully vaccinated for COVID19, and why most of us even in high risk groups are still hesitant to try the COVID vaccine. Just think about how our health, media and regulatory system failed so horribly with the opiate epidemic. The opiates were fully FDA approved, there were all kinds of papers by respected scientists and doctors saying how good they were with full knowledge of how they were being prescribed, there were kick-backs all over, and medical and science experts in the US knew that the doses and prescription schemes were addicting and killing Americans. And even spreading overseas to Canada, Britain and Australia, just like when the British tried to force Chinese to get addicted to opium in the 1800's. (Some people like to say this is karma but it's always the less powerful Americans and British who suffer the most for this, and the rich and corrupt either way who get richer). But they went ahead anyway because they got rich, and it took more than a decade for the truth to come out.
Purdue Pharma and McKinsey were even deliberatley doing policies that intentionally got millions of Americans addicted to their poison, and they had the support of FDA, top doctors and scientists, writing up in journals and giving talks at big US universities. Just like with tobacco companies and cigarettes-- for any other seniors out there, remember those ads about how 4 out of 5 doctors recommended Lucky Strike cigarettes? And even now, there's no justice. Tens of millions of Americans are still suffering from the effects of opiate addiction, 2020 and now 2021 apparently a new record of Americans dying or getting addicted to opiates even more, and through this all, the Sacklers are getting away with it. Some poor guy in the inner city gets a sentence of 30 years for carrying a few grams of marijuana, or some poor rural "hick" (somehow the media can call us "hicks" and "white trash" in Appalachia and it's still politically correct and not racist) gets tossed in jail for 40 years trying to cook meth in some dumpy trailer park. All while the Sacklers sell 10,000,000 times as much drugs, kill uncountable number of Americans, and they not only don't face any criminal charges, they still get to walk away as multi-billionaires and one of the richest families in America?
To most of us, this just shows that the power people in the USA don't care about the little guy, they don't do their jobs honestly, regulators like the FDA are corrupt and even doctors, scientists, consultants and experts, who are supposed to be objective, can also be bribed and bought with enough money. Or just the wrong incentives, and they'll willingly go ahead and do great harm to Americans as a whole, but still get away with it. And even when they are caught decades later, they'll still get to keep their billions of dollars, while their victims are still suffering the consequences. Can you see why so many of us then, are skeptical about new COVID vaccines rushed out using new un-tested tech at this scale with less than a year of clinical trials, no long term side effects data? Pfizer especially also has a record for corruption and abuse, but the government and courts make it so we can't sue them if we're harmed by their experimental vaccines? Seeing what's happened with things like the FDA approving opiates at those does, and toher disasters like fen phen, Viox, Zantac or remdisvir last year-- all of which either didn't work or turned out to be harmful, or both-- can you blame so many Americans for being doubtful? The government and regulators clearly don't have the protection of the public in mind, they seem to be just lap-dogs of Big Pharma and the rich, so it's hard for us to trust their claims of safety or anthing rushed out by US pharmaceutical companies. They all look so corrupt, and nowhere this more true than with the opiate epidemic. The whole system was shown to be corrupt, and even now, the Sacklers are getting away with it. There's a real case they're the biggest mass murderers in US history and their poison is still ruining American lives. But they're still walking away, laughing with the billions they made in it. No justice, no good regulation, pure straight corruption and they're being rewarded for it.
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