Drug Maker And Executives Plead Guilty

Yesterday in a U.S. District Court in Virginia, the drug company Purdue Pharma L.P., it's CEO Michael Friedman, it's top lawyer Howard Udell and it's chief medical officer Paul Goldenheim all pled guilty. They were charged with giving their salesmen false information, which was then passed on to doctors and the general public.

The company makes the pain-killer OxyContin (the brand name for oxycodone). The company and its executives misrepresented the drug as being less-addictive and less prone to abuse than it really is.

Known on the streets as "Hillbilly Heroin", the drug was made to be taken as a tablet and digested over a 12-hour period. However, many users were crushing the tablets into a powder, which was then injected or snorted, giving the user a heroin-like high.

By underplaying the drugs' serious effects, the company is responsible for the addiction of thousands and the deaths of hundreds of people. The company and its executives have been fined a total of $634.5 million.

U.S. Attorney John Brownlee said, "With its OxyContin, Purdue unleashed a highly abusable, addictive, and potentially dangerous drug on an unsuspecting and unknowing public. For these misrepresentations and crimes, Purdue and its executives have been brought to justice."

This is representative of the kind of giant pharmaceutical companies that Republicans have been protecting in Congress. These companies care little for the American public, as long as they can keep on raking in windfall profits.

Just last week, Congress refused to allow the American public buy less expensive drugs from other countries. This forces Americans to pay higher prices for the same drugs than people in other countries have to pay. This is just wrong.

These giant drug companies are willing to sell their drugs in other countries at a discount price, but demand that Americans pay outrageous and inflated prices. Their congressional stooges say it is a safety issue. Nonsense! It's all about windfall profits and huge campaign donations.

Is it any wonder that Americans have little faith in Congress?