So what is wrong with taking a pill that allows your quality of life to be high enough for you to want to exist. Pills that last for four hours make you up and down all day long, and its really unhealthy. Oxycontin is the best pain killer to come along in the last thirty five years, my pain started in 1967. Sincerely, Sally Grigg
P.S. If you don't believe me, please email me back and I can prove what I say. And why are you so concerned anyway? Are you in pain? Did someone you know hurt themselves with the drug? Are you against capitalism?
>----- Original Message -----
From: "Em" <ewaa@earthlink.net>
To: "Multiple recipients of list ADHESIONS"
<adhesions@mail.medispecialty.com>
Sent: Saturday, June 01, 2002 3:08 AM
Subject: Re: Oxycontin: what are you trying to say here?
> Excuse me, who wrote this original message? Are you a fellow pain
> sufferer? Obviously not!
> OxyContin is a breakthrough medication in a time when many prescription
> drugs are not. It is a known fact that most drugs are remarketed every
> few years with absolutely no change in chemical composition, just a
> different name. But not OxyContin, it is a long acting opioid that has
> saved countless numbers of lives. Severe chronic debilitating pain is a
> killer, and without the current pain medications available there would
> be mass suicides. With the manhunt against doctors willing to treat
> patients in chronic pain the American Government stifles education,
> treatment, and has redirected pain management into an institution that
> has no knowledge of medicine. So, are abusers of prescription
> medications going to cause the FDA to pull these life saving tools off
> the market? I hope not, because there are much more deaths due to
> ongoing use of tylenol, advil, and not to mention the abuse of other
> legal paraphanelia out there like tobacco and alcohol. Geez, just look
> at the gov't involvment in the tobacco companies and there role in
> hiding documents! The United States is in denial of the treatment of
> chronic pain sufferers. It is a with great sadness that I read posts
> like this, because it frightens me that a few deaths due to
> carelessness, and true misuse/addiction scare the LEGITIMATE
> therapeutic/treatment plans that many physicians would use now are
> frightened not to prescribe this medication.
> I would be totally bedridden without this medication. It has been a
> true lifesaver for me. Let me see here, buther my body with more
> surgery, or take a few pills along that aid in the suppressing process
> of my pain? My god, I have to travel out of our country to receive
> proper surgery for adhesions.
> I wish we lived in a time where medicine was truly interested in dealing
> with pain. Unfortunately, this is not the case, and it ires me when I
> read posts like this, and I have to remind myself the author of this
> original post, not you Karen, has never truly experienced pain.
> em
>
> At Tue, 28 May 2002, Karen wrote:
>
> >
> >And your point is....what??? I have been taking Oxycontin for 3 years
> >now, and would have NO quality of life without it. People can abuse
> >anything, from food to sex to...Oxycontin! That doesn't mean that we ALL
> >do. Please don't ruin it for chronic pain sufferers like myself who
> >need help from overwhelming and unrelenting pain.
> >
> >Thank you.
> >
> >>Oxycontin: Painkiller's Sales Far Exceeded Levels Anticipated By Maker
> >>
>> >>>>----- Original Message -----
> >>From: Frank B. Fisher, M.D. To: Alex DeLuca ; allynbeth@aol.com ; Bary
Meier ; Billy Hurwitz ; caauction@earthlink.net ; Carl HALL ; Charles Hixson
; Cheryl Gaul ; Don Link ; Dorothy Bryant ; Doug Thorburn ; Gary Delsohn ;
Gary Greenberg ; Kim Bolander ; Kurtis Ming ; Mary Baluss ; Mike Fisher ;
Pain Issues ; Rich Willner ; Robin Goodfellow ; roy higgins ; Shannon
Sullivan ; Skip Baker ; Tod Mikuriya ; Tom Grace ; Pain + Chemical
Dependency
> >>Sent: Saturday, May 18, 2002 12:21 AM
> >>Subject: Oxycontin: Painkiller's Sales Far Exceeded Levels Anticipated
ByMaker
> >>
> >>Media Awareness Project
> >>
> >>US: Painkiller's Sales Far Exceeded Levels Anticipated By Maker
> >>
> >>URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n928/a05.html
> >>Newshawk: chip
> >>Pubdate: Thu, 16 May 2002
> >>Source: Wall Street Journal (US)
> >>Copyright: 2002 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
> >>Contact: wsj.ltrs@wsj.com
> >>Website: http://www.wsj.com/
> >>Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/487
> >>Author: Chris Adams, Staff Reporter Of The Wall Street Journal
> >>Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/oxycontin.htm (Oxycontin)
> >>
> >>PAINKILLER'S SALES FAR EXCEEDED LEVELS ANTICIPATED BY MAKER
> >>The maker of OxyContin had so underestimated the sales potential of the
widely abused painkiller that in 2000 the drug generated revenue that was
eight times more than projected, internal company documents show.
> >>Over the first five years of marketing, OxyContin sales totaled nearly
$2 billion, sharply higher than the company's initial forecast of about $350
million. The drug's popularity sent Purdue Pharma LP scrambling to expand
production, marketing and its sales force. At the same time, other drug
prospects for the closely held firm fell through, elevating OxyContin's
importance to Purdue's future.
> >>The company's sales projections and marketing assumptions were laid out
in 1995 in an internal product launch plan as well as in documents filed
with the Food and Drug Administration. Together, they provide a look at the
nuts-and-bolts launch plans for a painkiller that became a unexpected boon
for its maker -- as well as a persistent problem for drug abuse and
law-enforcement officials nationwide.
> >>Originally, the documents show, Purdue had hoped to direct its sales
force of 350 to devote 70% of their primary sales calls to OxyContin
immediately after the drug's introduction, and reduce that number to 40% in
the fifth year. Today, however, about 80% of such sales calls are to sell
OxyContin. In 2001, the drug provided about 80% of Purdue's net sales of
$1.47 billion, according to documents and company officials.
> >>Company officials say they hadn't counted on such a large and untapped
market of people who live with chronic pain. Purdue acknowledges OxyContin
has been abused in many parts of the country but says quantifying sales for
illegitimate uses is impossible. It figures sales for illegitimate purposes
are tiny, a spokesman says.
> >>Last month, the Drug Enforcement Administration identified 464 overdoses
in which they say it was likely that OxyContin either caused or contributed
to the death; Purdue Pharma disputed parts of the DEA analysis, and said
that in most of the cases it had reviewed abusers had died after taking
other drugs alongside OxyContin. In several hundred other deaths, the DEA
said OxyContin, or drugs with the same active ingredient, could have played
a role, but other significant factors were involved or information was
insufficient to make a determination. While the drug acts as a time-release
painkiller, many abusers crush the pill and snort the powder for a
heroin-like high.
> >>Officials of Purdue Pharma, based in Stamford, Conn., say they were
shocked when abusers began showing up in emergency rooms in poor, rural
areas of Appalachia, where the black market for the drug burgeoned. While
some users have been able to get OxyContin by shopping from doctor to doctor
to find one willing to write a prescription, others have resorted to extreme
measures such as breaking into pharmacies.
> >>OxyContin abuse has dogged the company, which has been faulted by some
for aggressively marketing the drug while failing to take such steps as
singling out doctors who are heavy prescribers. The administrator of the
DEA recently testified that OxyContin abuse was due, in part, "to aggressive
marketing and promotion" of the drug . Purdue says that it is unrealistic
to expect the company to flag particular doctors, and that local
law-enforcement officials or state medical boards are in a better position
to investigate questionable prescriptions.
> >>Until December 1995 when OxyContin won FDA approval, Purdue was a
little-known company with one main painkiller in its cabinet, MS Contin, a
morphine-based drug that came with a social stigma and generated only $88.5
million in sales the year before. The market was wide open for an equally
powerful, long-acting compound to treat pain.
> >>Purdue had taken an existing morphine-like product, oxycodone, and
applied time-release technology, allowing patients to take it just twice a
day, rather than several. Developing the drug cost "in excess of $40
million," a company official stated in an affidavit on file at the FDA.
> >>>From the beginning, Purdue said that "one of the major strategies in
launching OxyContin will be to replace all prescriptions for MS Contin,"
according to the company's launch plan.
> >>Armed with data on individual doctors' prescribing habits, Purdue
divided physicians into groups and targeted those already high on the list
for prescribing other painkillers. The launch plan details how many sales
calls each of Purdue's representatives were supposed to make each week, and
also how representatives were supposed to call on the hospital committees
that decide on which drugs to use. The plan called for Purdue to use the
"Speakers' Bureau" -- a stable of doctors, now numbering about 1,000 -- to
give lectures during hospital programs about the benefits of OxyContin.
> >>The plan describes common methods drug makers use to build support for a
new drug , although most manufacturers are loath to disclose their tactics.
One such tactic: Mailing doctors information on the new drug along with a
reply card that can be sent back to the company if the doctor is interested
in seeing the drug stocked at a local pharmacy. The company can then use
the reply cards to encourage local pharmacies to stock the drug .
>