Opioid manufacturers made parody rap videos to help push products | US news | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/07/opiod-makers-music-videos-sales
▻https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f1e914cfcd94cd42c208e1f3bfba932ce2b665b4/0_118_2000_1200/master/2000.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-ali
Newly released videos show opioid manufacturers produced music videos, sponsored local news segments and held dramatic new launches for products even after they were warned against aggressive marketing.
The music videos are evidence in a huge, multi-state lawsuit fought in Cleveland, Ohio. Opioid manufacturers fought to keep them under seal but the Washington Post and the Gazette-Mail of Charleston, West Virginia, sued to make them public.
From 1999 to 2017, more than 702,000 people died of drug overdoses in the US – more than 70,000 in 2017 alone. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 68% of such deaths involved a prescription opioid.
As a comparison, roughly 58,000 American soldiers died in battle in the Vietnam war, and about 40,000 Americans die each year in car accidents.
In statements to the Washington Post, manufacturers argued their marketing campaigns did not mislead doctors and provided patients with needed medications.
But the newly unearthed videos and documents show how aggressively the products were marketed.