Dangerous & Addictive Drug OxyContin Claims

Recently, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) informed healthcare professionals of several claims brought against Purdue Frederick in connection with several illegal schemes to promote, market and sell OxyContin.  OxyContin is a powerful prescription pain reliever that the company produces and sells. The manufacturer's sales force was trained to make false claims about the product to healthcare professionals, thereby, misbranding OxyContin by illegally promoting the drug as being less addictive, less subject to abuse, and less likely to cause tolerance and withdrawal than other pain medications. These practices falsely promote the product and may cause health risks for consumers.

If you or someone you know has suffered addiction, injuries, or death from an overdose of OxyContin, please feel free to e-mail Texas Dangerous Drug Lawyer Jason Coomer for a free review of your OxyContin claim or use our online form for a free case evaluation.

All too often big drug companies and others in the pharmaceutical industry begin to value money and profits over the health of the consumer.  When this happens these pharmaceutical companies can deceptively market drugs or hide known dangers of dangerous drugs.  In the case of OxyContin, the drug producer used deceptive information to push their drugs and made hundreds of millions of dollars.  However, a recent investigation have uncovered the extensive, long-term scheme by The Purdue Frederick Company, Inc. to generate the maximum amount of revenues possible from the sale of the pain killer, OxyContin. Purdue had a practice of training its sales representatives to make false representations to health care providers about the difficulty of extracting oxycodone, the active ingredient, from the OxyContin tablet; trained its sales force to represent to health care providers that OxyContin did not cause euphoria and was less addictive than immediate-release opiates; and allowed health care providers to entertain the erroneous belief that OxyContin was less addictive than morphine. In addition, Purdue falsely labeled OxyContin as providing "fewer peaks and valleys than with immediate-release oxycodone," and falsely represented that patients taking lower dosages of the drug can always be discontinued abruptly without suffering withdrawal symptoms or tolerance.

"FDA will not tolerate practices that falsely promote drug products and place consumers at health risk," said Margaret O.K. Glavin, Associate Commissioner for Regulatory Affairs. "We will continue to do all we can to protect the public against drug companies and their representatives who are not truthful and bilk consumers of precious health care dollars."

To resolve the criminal charges, Purdue pled guilty to a felony count of misbranding a drug with intent to defraud and mislead. As part of the plea, Purdue will pay a $600 million settlement. That amount includes a criminal fine, restitution to government agencies, over $276 million in forfeiture, and a related civil settlement under which Purdue will pay $100.6 million to the United States.

If you have lost a person that you love from an addiction to OxyContin or have suffered severe damages from addiction or withdraw from the drug, please feel free to e-mail Texas Dangerous Drug Lawyer Jason Coomer with your name & contact information or use our online form for a free case evaluation.

Texas Dangerous Drug Attorney Jason Coomer commonly works with other lawyers throughout Texas including Houston OxyContin Lawyers, San Antonio Pharmaceutical Lawyers, Dallas Defective Medication Lawyers, and other Austin Dangerous Drug Claim Lawyers.  By sharing information and working together, his law firm and other firms throughout Texas are able to provide better representation for there clients.