Purdue Pharma and OxyContin – A Commercial Success But a Public Health Disaster

Abstract

Over the past two decades, nearly half a million Americans have died from opioid overdoses1,2. This ongoing opioid crisis in the United States began in 1999, with the increased deaths during the time period attributed to three causes – (1) the rise in deaths during the early 2000s occurred after a rise in prescription opioids, (2) the rise in deaths in 2010 is attributed to a rise in heroin usage, and (3) the rise in deaths in 2013 is related to a rise in an increase in overdose deaths due to synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl1,2.