How OxyContin Was Sold to the Masses

How OxyContin Was Sold to the Masses

When OxyContin came on the market, in 1995, physicians were understandably wary of the addictive potential of a powerful new opioid. As Patrick Radden Keefe reports, the manufacturer, Purdue Pharma, aggressively marketed OxyContin to physicians, claiming that the drug’s delayed-release mechanism could limit the risk of addiction. Instead, OxyContin led to many new addictions, and many addicted patients eventually sought street drugs like heroin. Steven May started at Purdue Pharma as a sales rep in 1999, and years later went on to allege fraud against Purdue as a participant in a whistle-blower lawsuit (which was dismissed on procedural grounds). May tells Keefe that he was trained to market the drug as one “to start with and to stay with,” despite seeing early on its addictive potential.

Purdue Pharma is a privately held company controlled by members of the Sackler family, who have a net worth of thirteen billion dollars. The Sacklers have donated handsomely to cancer research, medical schools, art museums, and universities. But Keefe tells David Remnick that the Sacklers have donated “nothing for the opioid crisis. Nothing for addiction treatment. If there is any sense in that family that they bear any moral culpability for where we are today, they’re not acting on it.”

Jaksot(1020)

Atul Gawande on Elon Musk’s “Surgery with a Chainsaw”

Atul Gawande on Elon Musk’s “Surgery with a Chainsaw”

Two weeks after the Inauguration of Donald Trump, Elon Musk tweeted, “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into a wood chipper.” Musk was referring to the Agency for International Development, an agency...

14 Maalis 202527min

How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars

How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars

Recently, the former New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez was sentenced to eleven years in prison for accepting bribes in cash and gold worth more than half a million dollars. He is the first person senten...

10 Maalis 202523min

What Trump Has Got Wrong—and Right—About the War in Ukraine

What Trump Has Got Wrong—and Right—About the War in Ukraine

Since emerging on the national political scene a decade ago, Donald Trump has openly admired the dictatorial style of Vladimir Putin. Trump’s lean toward Russia was investigated, it was psychoanalyzed...

7 Maalis 202537min

Alan Cumming on “The Traitors” and His Brush with Reality Television

Alan Cumming on “The Traitors” and His Brush with Reality Television

When Emily Nussbaum introduced Alan Cumming at the New Yorker Festival, she said, “Plenty of actors light up a room, but Alan Cumming is more of a disco ball—reflecting every possible angle of show bu...

4 Maalis 202516min

Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?

Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?

Democrats in Washington have seemed almost paralyzed by the onslaught of far-right appointments and draconian executive orders coming from the Trump White House. But some state governors seem more wil...

28 Helmi 202534min

Richard Brody Presents the 2025 Brody Awards

Richard Brody Presents the 2025 Brody Awards

David Remnick is joined by Alexandra Schwartz, the co-host of the podcast Critics at Large, and The New Yorker’s august film critic Richard Brody. They talk about the past year in film and predict the...

25 Helmi 202516min

John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong

John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong

Since the election, Senator John Fetterman—once a great hope of progressives—has conspicuously blamed Democrats for the electoral loss. Fetterman tells David Remnick that the Democratic Party discoura...

21 Helmi 202534min

Celebrating 100 Years: Jia Tolentino and Roz Chast Pick Favorites from the Archive

Celebrating 100 Years: Jia Tolentino and Roz Chast Pick Favorites from the Archive

Staff writers and contributors are celebrating The New Yorker’s centennial by revisiting notable works from the magazine’s archive, in a series called Takes. The writer Jia Tolentino and the cartoonis...

18 Helmi 202516min

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