Picture: Netflix
A robust story woven into the material of true life occasions, Painkiller has already impressed Netflix audiences worldwide however in the event you’re on the lookout for some extra studying or questioning what the collection received proper, right here’s our take.
Painkiller is the brand new Netflix collection created by Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster and relies on Patrick Radden Keefe’s New Yorker article “The Family That Built an Empire of Pain” and Pain Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America’s Opioid Epidemic by Barry Meier.
While it’s dubbed as a fictionalized telling of actual occasions surrounding the opioid disaster in America and the start of one in all America’s most notorious opioids, OxyContin, it received loads proper in regards to the true occasions which have and nonetheless are unfolding.
With the assistance of a retired rheumatologist and medical guide on the opioid epidemic, Stephen G. Gelfand, MD, FACP, and loads of digging ourselves, right here’s a rundown of what the present received proper in regards to the true occasions.
Hundreds of Thousands Have Died as a Result of the Opioid Epidemic
It has been reported by the CDC that between 1999 and 2020 greater than 932,000 folks have died as a direct results of a drug overdose.
A terrifyingly giant determine of 82.3% of the 932,000 deaths concerned opioids, which have been primarily artificial opioids.
It is difficult to seek out a precise variety of deaths associated to OxyCodone.
Chart from CDC: Opioid Data Analysis and Resources
However, we do know because the creation of OxyContin in 1995, it generated the Sackler Family and Purdue Pharma nearly $30 billion.
How robust is OxyContin?
As depicted in Painkiller, Purdue Pharma’s patent on MS Contin was ending, and OxyContin was the Sackler household’s reply to their patent drawback.
Roughly 50% stronger than morphine, OxyCodone was the important thing ingredient in OxyContin. The dosage sizes of OxyContin assorted from 10 milligrams to 20mg, 40mg, and 80mg. For a quick time period, 160mg tablets have been additionally obtainable; nevertheless, on account of large dangers of abuse and overdose, the 160mg tablets have been faraway from the market.
OxyContin was designed to be swallowed entire, as its managed launch function was meant to launch the dose over the course of 12 hours slowly. However, a bypass was simply found when addicts started crushing capsules, both snorting them or dissolving them into water and injecting the dose. This bypass meant addicts might get your complete impact of the dose in a single immediate hit moderately than over the course of half a day.
Pictured: A field of 10mg OxyContin – Purdue Pharma L.P.
Glen Kryger
At the beginning of every episode, actual households of the victims of the opioid disaster shared their heartfelt messages for his or her family members, and the way OxyContin impacted their lives.
Throughout the season, Painkiller follows the journey of Glen Kryger, who went from being a hard-working blue-collar mechanic store proprietor to a person crippled by his dependancy to OxyContin and his eventual dying from overdose. Glen’s character was fictionalized. However, there are a lot of stunning and heartbreaking tales from the Opioid disaster that possible impressed the character.
Pictured: Taylor Kitsch as Glen Kryger (middle) and Carolina Bartczak as Lily Kryger – Netflix
Taylor Kitsch, the actor portraying Glen Kryger, has been open about his personal experiences with opioids. While the actor has by no means taken any arduous medicine, he has talked about in interviews how he “went to hell and back seventeen times” whereas taking care of a buddy who was scuffling with dependancy. His unbelievable efficiency as Glen was the right depiction of an individual struggling to beat dependancy.
It solely takes a fast Google search to seek out victims of the Opioid Epidemic; lots have shared their tales on-line.
Pictured: Taylor Kitsch as Glen Kryger – Netflix
Edie Flowers
As the ethical compass of the collection, Edie Flowers is the driving pressure behind bringing the hazards of OxyContin to the eye of the U.S. Attorney’s Office. However, similar to the mechanic Glen Kryger, Edie Flowers, a lawyer of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, is a fictional character.
“Whereas millions were made from Valium, billions were made from OxyContin.” – Edie Flowers
Uzo Aduba’s character of Edie Flowers is comparable to Emily Watson’s character of Ulana Khomyuk within the HBO Max restricted collection Chernobyl. Ulana Khomyuk was the amalgamation of dozens of various scientists that labored on the Chornobyl Nuclear Disaster. Meanwhile, Edie Flowers is more than likely the amalgamation of all the totally different folks liable for bringing the hazard of OxyContin to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the 2006 trial.
Pictured: Uzo Aduba as Edie Flowers – Netflix
Shannon and Britt
Purdue Pharma gross sales reps Shannon Schaeffer (West Duchovny) and Britt (Dina Shihabi) have been additionally fictional. However, they undoubtedly represented what would have been an correct depiction of the military of gross sales reps that Richard Sackler had unleashed on the medical doctors of America, aka legalized drug sellers able to sling “heroin in a pill” in alternate for a lifetime of luxurious.
Pictured: West Duchovny as Shannon Schaeffer – Netflix
Richard Sackler
American billionaire businessman and doctor Richard Sackler was one of many few non-fictional characters of Painkiller. As the previous chairperson and president of Purdue Pharma, he oversaw the analysis and growth, advertising and marketing, and distribution of OxyContin.
Despite being a skilled doctor that was uncovered to the Seventies opioid epidemic in New York City, Sackler had grossly misjudged and overestimated the advantages of OxyContin whereas fully underestimating the dangers related to opioids. In reality, throughout his time at medical college and residency in New York City, Sackler had not clinically evaluated or handled sufferers with painful issues.
Pictured: Matthew Broderick as Richard Sackler (left) and the real-life Richard Sackler (proper)
As proven within the collection, Richard would use the identical ways for promoting OxyContin as his uncle Arthur Sackler had finished to promote valium to the folks of America. Broadening the market to incorporate sufferers with ache unrelated to terminal diseases would finally result in many Americans changing into extremely depending on OxyContin. Thanks to this stage of dependency on the product, Sackler and Purdue Pharma might push for even greater doses of Oxycontin and make billions of {dollars} within the course of.
“Matthew Broderick accurately portrays the character,” Gelfand tells us, and went on to say a number of the gross sales pitches resemble what he’s seen in follow too, saying, “Some of the OxyContin sales pitches used in the series were right out of Arthur’s playbook (who marketed Valium for everyday tension, stress and anxiety).”
Gelfand picks out this memorable quote from the collection particularly:
“If we become gatekeepers for everyone who wants to get away from pain, we have changed the world and never have to worry about money again. I would like to make a painkiller associated with well-being, with life. Let’s make something new. We’re going to give a lot of people their lives back, we’re going to take away a lot of pain with OxyContin, the drug you never knew you needed.” – Richard Sackler as portrayed by Matthew Broderick in Painkiller
Gelfand additionally provides us essential extra perception into Broderick’s character that wasn’t essentially represented within the collection:
“It is important to understand that Richard Sackler was trained as a physician who over-simplified and distorted the universal symptom of pain while markedly over-estimating the benefits and under-estimating the risks of OxyContin and opioids in general. He did not clinically evaluate and treat patients with painful disorders beyond his medical school and residency training in NYC and Connecticut in the early 1970’s, during a previous heroin epidemic in NYC.”
Picture: Netflix
Combining greed and opium led to the lack of lives of many American residents, destroying households and communities within the course of.
Eventually, because the lawsuits towards Purdue Pharma piled up, the corporate needed to file for chapter and the Sackler household needed to pay out a $6 billion settlement.
On prime of the $6 billion cost, over time, and because of the half his household performed within the opioid disaster, quite a few charities, foundations, universities, and extra have lower ties with the Sackler household.
Gelfand concluded his commentary to us on the collection by saying:
“It is sad to think how many lives could have been saved if more doctors and the medical system in general had recognized much earlier that they had been duped by a marketing campaign which had close similarities to that of the snakeoil providers of the past, as clearly portrayed in this first episode of “Painkiller.””
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