Hacker News

Purdue Pharmaceuticals paid off the FDA to allow a very addictive form of opioid into mainstream medical use. They then used pharma reps to push it on patients, falsely citing low addiction. This caused a massive addiction epidemic in the US. Once all of this came to light, doctors stopped overprescribing the opioids, and many people turned to the streets.

There’s a Netflix series called “Painkiller” that’s based on the Sackler family, who controls Purdue Pharma and is responsible for all of this.