Inside the opioid industry’s marketing machine

Beginning in the mid1990s, Purdue Pharma helped change the culture of prescribing opioids through an extensive marketing campaign that persuaded the medical community that addiction was rare and patients were suffering needlessly, according to recently unsealed corporate documents and plaintiffs attorneys suing two dozen drug companies in a landmark federal case in Cleveland. In 2007, the federal government came down hard on Purdue, fining the drugmaker and three of its executives a record $634 million for misbranding its blockbuster OxyContin pill as safer and less addictive than other painkillers. But the attorneys argue that other drug manufacturers continued the aggressive marketing even after the Purdue fine, leading to a surge in opioid overdoses. Read moreSubscribe to The Washington Post on YouTube