Barack Obama & the Opioid Crisis
<p>In the fall of 2001, southern Virginia’s US Attorney John Brownlee launched an investigation of Purdue Pharma, a company he believed misled government officials and medical practitioners regarding the potentially addictive nature of its opiate painkiller OxyContin. Short-staffed and without much in the way of a budget, Brownlee and his investigators lumbered along, compiling evidence and building a picture of corporate negligence and wrongdoing. Finally, on October 19, 2006, they presented defense counsel a final settlement offer: a mix of plea deals, financial penalties, and modifications in the way Purdue Pharma presented Oxycontin in its marketing efforts. Take it, Brownlee advised, or Purdue Pharma and some of its key executives would face “other things.”</p>
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