Barry Meier, whose e book about OxyContin impressed the Netflix drama Painkiller, acknowledges that the drug is “valuable for treating severe pain caused by cancer or chronic health issues.” The issue, he says, was that OxyContin’s producer, Purdue Pharma, “could only make billions from it by lying, by saying it was good for everyday, common pain.”
Netflix’s six-part miniseries highlights that second level, vividly portraying Purdue Pharma’s reckless advertising and marketing of OxyContin. But it surely dismisses the caveat: that there are legit medical makes use of for this drug and different prescription opioids, which may make life bearable for sufferers who in any other case would endure from excruciating ache.
Just like the 2021 Hulu sequence Dopesick, Painkiller embraces an indiscriminate aversion to opioids. That perspective has impressed ham-handed restrictions on ache remedy, which have helped drive drug-related deaths to file ranges whereas leaving thousands and thousands of sufferers to endure needlessly.
The episodes are launched by grieving mother and father who inform true tales about lethal addictions, a few of which contain sufferers who acquired OxyContin prescriptions. However such dire outcomes are removed from typical. A 2016 New England Journal of Medication analysis assessment discovered that amongst sufferers who use opioids for persistent ache, “rates of carefully diagnosed addiction” averaged lower than 8 %. The authors concluded that “addiction occurs in only a small percentage of persons who are exposed to opioids—even among those with preexisting vulnerabilities.” In 2021, a California choose equally discovered that the proof signifies an dependancy charge “less than 5%.”
Painkiller goals to stoke outrage at clueless medical doctors who carelessly prescribed OxyContin primarily based on Purdue’s hype. But the misconceptions the sequence reinforces have resulted in a unique type of outrage, mirrored within the headline above a 2023 New York Instances video: “They Live in Constant Pain, but Their Doctors Won’t Help Them.”