Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This story contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.
Oxycontin was touted as a miracle, pain relief with few side effects and less addictive than morphine. Soon it was the most prescribed drug in Canada, with tragic results. We track Oxycontin’s fall from grace, ending in 100 families filing a lawsuit.
When Oxycontin hit the market it was a big moneymaker – a drug to relieve pain all day long, an alternative to addictive narcotic pain pills. Prescriptions soared, but it wasn’t long before stories of addiction, abuse and side effects surfaced.
In the US, the company that owned Oxycontin made a shocking admission – it lied, misleading doctors and the public, all in the name of pill-popping profit. That left claims from thousands of Americans and Canadians, hooked like drug addicts.
slow East coast town were first to get hooked by the ocyxontin addiction quickly blew west thousands of canadians were looking for help, what they found ,was hell.
are we a pill – popping nation addicted to prescription drugs and cold your family doctor unknowingly be your drug dealer ?. .well ,when it comes to the highly popular and addictive painkiller oxycontin, are we dying by prescription?..
some argue is canada’s biggest pharmaceutical cover up .
Ada thompson has kept her son’s bedroom pretty as it stood siX years ago.
that’s where he died.he was found on his side.
Michael and his mother Ada thompson .
michael was a car buff , loved mustangs, ran his own constructionbusiness until he got sick kidney stones not a serious health thrat but painful.
michael was living with his parents, he was doubled over in pain and his mother took him to the emergency departement . the doctor gave them a precription .
that presciption was for percocet and that’s what started it all .
what started was a dependency, at the time Ada started noticing changes in his behavior, he loved his work ,his mother was proud of him and then all of a sudden ..he pulled away from his family …..
he pulled away from friends and people that he was close to .
michael became increasingly withdrawn all he wanted to do seemed was sleep ,sometimes, right through the alarm.
Ada turn off his alarm clock and noticed his breathing was little shallow so she thought she was gonna turn him around so he gets more air. 12 hours later , michael just 29 years old was dead.
michael had overdosed on the medication his doctor had presscribed .
the coroner explained that michael would have stopped breathing and then his heart went into palpitations and then cardiac arrest .
Ada found it extremely difficult that it was a legal drug that did this.
michael’s toxicology report found high levels of the the ingredient oxycodone found in the prescription painkillers he was prescribed such as hydromorphone and oxycontin .
incredibly ,michael had been prescribed a cocktail of eight diffrent types of prescription drugs resulting in more than 13,000 of those pills in just 14 months.
That works out to more than 30 pills a day .
michael’s mom say she don’t want to blame the doctors and paint them all with the same brush because there are good doctors but thinks they have to change that standard of care to find the cause of the problem and not just medicate the symptom of pain for people.
Ada sued herson’s doctor and won. his license was suspended at least temporarily and he was sanctioned but in the six monts since all that happened ada says ” not much has change”
and all those celebrities such as Heath Ledger …
…Michael Jackson
and corey haim the reality is ….
the profile of users is shifting
certainly there are people of low income who die from opioids but they’re also people of high incomes.said dr dhalla
this man knows the impact of oxycontin and how it cuts across all segments of society .
he’s a doctor and a researcher at saint michael’s hospital in toronto .
his says , all physicians know that opioids can have serious side effects but what they may be surprise to find is just how how many people are dying from prescription opioids.
dr dhalla and research team recently published a study in the canadian medical association journal noting that drugs like oxycontin are killing users in Ontario at twice the rate they were in 1991.
in fact the rate of death involving narcotic painkillers went from 13.7 per milllion in 1991 to 27,2 per million in 2004.
and prewscriptions for oxycontin have incrased by more than 850% during the study period from 1991 to 2007.
why the surge oxycontin was added to the list of drugs covered by Ontario’s health plan.
after oxycontin was introduced in 2000 deaths releated to oxycodone the drug in that’s in oxycontin rose fivefold.
there were between 3 and 400 deaths eaxg year from prescription opioids
in comparison this year so far. here have been about a hundred deaths in Ontario from h1in1 so probably a hundred and fifty from hiv/aids in Ontario in a year.
in comparison it’s a big problem said dr dhalla.
the startling facts is that opiates such as oxycontin are prescribed been used in Canada more than anywhere else in the world.
canadians first began hearing about oxycontin almost a decade, not as an effective pain killer .
but as a sheap and easy way to get high.
known as ” hillbilly” heroin , when the drug is chewed or crushed and inhaled it produces Rapid heroin ,like effect euphoria
but when oxycotin was first introduced it was promoted by its manufacturer Purdue Pharma as a safer less addictive alternative to morphine.
David Seal was also told oxycontin is a better alternative to morphine when he was diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrom.
he basically started getting sick his last year of university,he woke up in the middle of the night and had horrible several pains and throwing up
david told his doctor he didn’t want morphine so he put david on oxicontin that you take every 12 hours.his doctor assured him this was far less addictive . and david trusted his doctor.
but instead david found he couldn’t live without it . he was hooked and slowley but surely kept asking for more and higher doses and he got it.
he build up a tolerance to it.the body used to having this in its system and you need more to have the same effect that it was having on you.
doctors don’t seem to realize that or at least david’s didn’t.
but david knew he had a problem. he says that’s the worst feeling in the world knowing that you need something to get out of bed, and that he had never had a problem with drugs , alcoholanything before he was placed on this.
he didn’t smoke cigarettes , i was put on this medication and he became a raging adict.
david’s doctor started to realize the promblem as well. but the promise to slowly wean david off oxycotin was not working.
david said this doctor got scared and abandoned him ,david didn’t think that there was anything that was going to save him. he just thought that was it ,he felt bassically hopeless.
according to dr dhalla,it’s a thin line when you dealing with oxycotin.
he sais their main messages to doctors that they need to be very careful about the amount of opioids that they’re prescribing and in particular perhaps oxycontin.
Ada thompson said that it’s her duty as a mother who lost a child to let people know because she says the government isn’t doing that and they are afraid to use the word heroin .
she says they think it’ll frighten people away from taking it and says
” if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck it’s a duck”
when oxycotin hit the market it became an instant success finally drug that could relieve paine all day long.
it became a wounderful alternative to addictive narcotic pain pills, prescriptions for oxycontin soared but it wasn’t long before harrowing stories of addiction ,abuse and side -effects began to surface.
New waterford, nova scotia on cape Breton Island, it’s here oxcontin had allready made a name for itself on the street. but addiction problems are nothing new here
cocaine was relatively new to the community and caused a number of incidents. new waterford had problems with opioids although much more so over the past ten years or so.
Dr peter littlejohn practice family medicine ,he’s been doing it for thirty four years sewing up cuts delivering babies and yes treating chronic pain.
Dr littlejohn was typical of the small town physician targeted by man drug companies including reps from makers of oxycotin pordue Pharma.
people would come down from halifax or from Ontario and make presentations on the use of medications for chronic pain and often times not just opioids.
many of them were paid by purdue the person who detailed that particular drug was very supportive in providing excellent lectures
and funding experts to come in and provide knwoledge and resource on on chronic pain management.
Dr littlejohn don’t think that was done unethically here. and what he heard made sense .
Oxycontin was supposed to be less addictive have fewer side effects than other painkillers.
the drug manufacturer Purdue Pharma marketed oxycontin as a miracle pill for anyone in constant pain.
just look at this ad from the journal of the american medical association .
also widely read by canadian doctors showing patients getting their lives back .
all completely pain- free thanks to oxycontin.
figures and graphs like this were distributed to physicians
promoting oxycotin steady 12-hours protection.
from coast to coast ads textsboks, medical conferences….
all saying praises of oxicontin’s superior slow- release formula.
so ,dr peter littlejohn began writing out prescriptions for oxycontin.
lots of them.
dr peter littlejohn said they were not people who were going to the street for opioids, they were coming to have the pain managed and that’s largely the vast majority of cases .
and as far as managing pain well oxycotin got the job done.
dr peter littlejohn said the twin necessities of getting comfort and functionality,he thinks for the majority of people were probably fairly well mad.
not everyone saw it that way.dr little john was writing too many prescriptions for oxycontin prescribing doses that was too high .
patients complained and in 2006 the Nova Scotia college of physicians and surgeons stripped him og his narotics license for five years.
for dr peter littlejohn this came as a big suprise .
he said “on a personal note i think the ambition to try and treat pain perhaps not the regards for dosing.
dr azir , another family doctor in the same community says ,dealing with oxycontin is a double -edged sword.
he says ” it is a wounderful pain medication if it is used properly best way to look at it is think about a knife in the hand of a chef ,he would make a wonderful meal with that knife ,give the same knife to a criminal and the outcome is totally different. the problem is not the knife ,its how and why it was used “
jennifer tryson reporter 16:9: so,how does it need to be used properly , what is the key?
“the key thing is always patient selection you can not give the same drug to anybody and expect to have the same result.” said dr azir
but dr azir says there’s a catch most doctors get very little pain training to even know how to select the right patient.
a recent survey from the university of Toronto psed this questionwho in canadian medical schools gets the most training in pain management, the answer : the veterinarians
veterinarians got five times more pain training compared to physicians who got the double what the nurses got.
this gap in training drug companies can easily try and fill.
it’s one of the few canadian resurces on pain management,
the same book given to students at U of T .
and if you look closly you’ll notice it’s published by the makers of oxycotin Purdue Pharma.
in a new version of the text all of those claims about oxycontin being less addictive and having fewer side effects are gone
and today’s ads for oxycontin now warned of the potential for abuse and addiction.
Jennifer Tryon reporter from 16:9 confronts dr peter littlejohn.
” so in 2006 which is they year that all of this happened for you ,this book , managing pain the canadian healthcare professionals reference published by purdue pharma suggest that the slow-release formula which is oxycontin has lower abuse potential fewer persistent side -effects,fewer peaks and valleys than other opioids.”
dr peter littlejohn said “it clearly said something which you know to be incorrect.wheter it was done with intent is…is difficult to say.”
Oxycotin was a big moneymaker for the pharmaceutical company that developed it convincing doctors.
it was safer less addictive painkiller but in the US that company made a shocking admission .
it lied purposely missleading doctors and the public all in the name of pill popping profit.
that left claims from thousands of americans and canadians who were hooked like drug addicts .
Guilty two missbranding,missleading marketing , the maker of the oxycontin purdue pharma’s top executives michael friedman , president and CEO
and the company’s medical director paul goldenheim.
and layer howard udell all three executives and athe company pled guilty in U.S .to misleading regulators, physicians and patients about oxycontin’s risk of addiction and potential for abuse.
the fine 634 million,the biggest drug settlement ever .
prudue Pharma heavily promoted oxycontin to doctors like general practitioners who often had little training in the treatment of serious paun or in recognizing signs of drugs abuse in patients
but the company claims that only happened south of the border .
it would seem halifax serious injury lawyer rae wagner walking in to the easiest case of his career.- a legal slam-dunk.
after all the criminal case has already been settle in the US with an admission of guilt.
rae wagner says ” we’re ralking about the mislabeling, the missbranding and the missinformation in the profits that they earned as result of that should be returned to those people that have suffered harm as a results of its use”
Jennifer Tryon reporter 16:9” any idea how much that migt be”?
rae wagner ” i believe that they’ve up to between 1995 and to approximately 2005 i think believe their profits were up around 2,8 billion dollars
so that’s worldwide of course in terms of marketing the drug so you can see the proportion in canada when you take that into account it’s hundred of millions of dollars “
court documents obtained by 16 by 9 reveal executives at perdue pharmas US operation designed the misleading campaign for one purpose.
to boost sales and drive profits
and there was never any proof that oxycontin as purdue fond of suggesting was any better than morphine.
littlejohn who is still being punished for over prescribing oxycontin now concedes he would have don things differently.
dr peter littlejohn ” i think my level of suspicion was probably not tweaked as high as it could have been , it’s probably you know very stressful area of practice to prescribe potentially addictive drugs.
jennifer tryfon : you weren’t given all the information either .
dr peter littlejohn”no, but nonetheless i firmly believe that i have responsibility to practice properly with the information you have “
the US court documents also reveal how purdue’s sales reps were trained to pitch the drug .
they could tell healt care providers that oxycontin potentially caused less chance for addiction.
and patients who took oxycontin would not develop a tolerance for the drug.
documents also show that even when concerns were raised to produce supervisors the company did nothing . because it didn’t want to affect the unique position that oxycontin had n many physicians minds.
purdue decline an interview with 16:9.
but sent this e-mail instead.
bu that’s a line halifax attorney ray wagner simply doesn’t by nor do the 100 canadian families he representing in a canadian class action lawsuit against prudue.
david seal and his mother have joined the class -action lawsuit seeking a portion of the profits purdue made from the sale of oxycontin in canada.
ada thompson isn’t sitting idle any longer , she’s tired of waiting for government to take action.
having lost her son she’s a mother turned crusader.she’ on a personal mission to warn canadians about the dangers of prescriptions drugs.
especially the kind that killed her son . she’s targting the professional bodies that represent the doctors and pharmacists
but for Ada ,this is ground zero.the place where her first lawn sign will go .the spot where her 29 year old son is buried.
ada doesn’t much care wheter purdue is forced to pay a big settlement in canada
” no amount of money can bring michaelback “
what she wants is something far more permanent.
she want oxycontin banned.