Unintended-Consequences

Illicit Fentanyl Overtakes Prescription Opioids as Leading Cause of Overdose Deaths

2016-01-01 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 9/10

In 2016, illicit fentanyl and other synthetic opioids overtook prescription opioids as the leading cause of opioid overdose deaths in the United States, marking a deadly transition in the opioid epidemic. This shift represented the catastrophic unintended consequence of belated efforts to restrict …

Drug Enforcement Administration Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Illicit Fentanyl Suppliers opioid-crisis fentanyl synthetic-opioids public-health unintended-consequences

Purdue Reformulates OxyContin as "Abuse-Deterrent" After 14 Years, Drives Users to Heroin

2010-04-05 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 8/10

On April 5, 2010, the FDA approved Purdue Pharma’s reformulated OxyContin designed to make it more difficult to crush, snort, or inject—14 years after the original drug’s launch and three years after the company’s guilty plea to criminal misbranding. Purdue ceased shipping the old …

Purdue Pharma FDA Sackler Family opioid-crisis pharmaceutical-industry regulatory-failure public-health unintended-consequences