- While the payout is noteworthy for its size, this has been a year of reckoning across the pharmaceutical industry. Insys Therapeutics, Purdue Pharma and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries have agreed to pay state and federal agencies a combined total of more than half a billion dollars to settle opioid-related claims.
In May, seven current and former Insys executives pleaded guilty to or were convicted of federal racketeering conspiracy charges tied to the marketing of opioid medications. That company later declared bankruptcy. Purdue Phama has talked openly about filing for Chapter 11.
Meanwhile, Johnson & Johnson is in court in Oklahoma, with that state's attorney general demanding $17 billion in compensation. That trial is expected to wrap up early next week.
I looked the company up on Wikipedia and it looks like their net profits for 2018 were 2.186billion Pounds, which is about 2.7billion US Dollars. So it's a little over half of all their profits from last year. I have so many thoughts on this issue and if you look at my post history, it shows. Everytime NPR posts an article about these lawsuits, I share. If I knew how, I'd probably create a custom newsfeed for myself so I could stay more up to date. In a nutshell though, here are some of my feelings.
These companies have done us wrong and we need to hold them accountable, both individuals in the company as well as the companies themselves. And if people outside the companies are commiting wrongs too, we need to go after them as well. Fortunately, it think we starting to see that happen.
That said though, as much as I want justice served, I know that fining these companies to the point that they're destroyed will probably create harm in a different way. After all, they do make other medicines that people need and they're a core part of our economy. If we, in our thirst for justice, cause innocent people to lose their jobs and make it more difficult and more expensive for the ill to get the medicine that they need, then we're commiting a whole new act of injustice.
I care about the dollar amount, a lot. I think for the punishment to be meaningful, it needs to have a meaningful impact on the companies. However, i think more important than raw dollar amounts is what we do with it. If the various levels of government get half a trillion dollars by the time things are said and done and none of that goes to services aimed and restoring destroyed lives, I don't think that's anywhere near as good than if we got a fraction of the money and spent it wisely to help as many people as possible restore their lives as fully as possible. So in a way, I think more important than focusing on punitive dollar amounts is that we focus on what we can do with that money. I can't speak for the whole country, but I know locally, that's a big part of the active conversation and that fills me with some hope.
I hope you don't mind the rant, it's not directed at you, and I agree that I feel like we don't get enough information in these articles. No one ever seems to want to talk about this issue, online or in meatspace, so it's nice to have an opportunity to say something. I just feel like this issue is so big and I have a hard time not thinking about it and with each article I see I just keep feeding hope after hope that we turn things around. It's all a big mess, but it's good to see people starting to clean things up. It's long overdue.
- If we, in our thirst for justice, cause innocent people to lose their jobs and make it more difficult and more expensive for the ill to get the medicine that they need, then we're commiting a whole new act of injustice.
Fortunately, their in-demand products are valuable. So if the penalty for committing a crime harms the company, they can always sell their valuable assets (rights to the production of a medication) to another company.
That way, the customer is not inconvenienced. The supplier gets punished according to the severity of their crime, while the market does not lose a valuable product.
Of course, there need to be regulatory controls on price-gouging by the new owners, to protect the people that need the medication, but that's normal business and getting better with the publicity around the price-gouging for insulin.
So punish the bastards. Knock them out of business, if necessary. There will always be someone to buy up the assets and continue providing a medication that the world needs.
- If we, in our thirst for justice, cause innocent people to lose their jobs and make it more difficult and more expensive for the ill to get the medicine that they need, then we're commiting a whole new act of injustice.
No worries. I read your rant as venting in general; not yelling at me.
Sometimes we just need to yell at the clouds and make ourselves feel heard. I'm happy to be that cloud for you, on this issue... =)