Healthy Skepticism Library item: 11310

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Painkiller Use Rises Sharply
Associated Press 2007 Aug 21
http://www.wsj.com/

Full text:

People in the U.S. are living in a world of pain — and they are popping pills at an alarming rate to cope with it.

The amount of five major painkillers sold at retail establishments rose 90% from 1997 to 2005, according to an Associated Press analysis of statistics from the Drug Enforcement Administration.
More than 200,000 pounds of codeine, morphine, oxycodone, hydrocodone and meperidine were purchased at retail stores during the most recent year represented in the data. That total is enough to give more than 300 milligrams of painkillers to every person in the country.

Oxycodone, the chemical used in OxyContin, is responsible for most of the increase. Oxycodone use jumped nearly sixfold from 1997 to 2005. The drug gained notoriety as “hillbilly heroin,” often bought and sold illegally in Appalachia, but it is a big seller in small cities and their outskirts, including suburban St. Louis, Columbus, Ohio, and Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
An aging population, heavy marketing by drug makers and changes in pain-management philosophy were among the reasons found for the increase in medication.

As age increases, so does the need for pain medications. In 2000, there were 35 million people older than 65. By 2020, the Census Bureau estimates the number of elderly in the U.S. will reach 54 million.

Drug makers, meanwhile, have embarked on unprecedented marketing campaigns. Spending on drug marketing has gone from $11 billion in 1997 to nearly $30 billion in 2005, congressional investigators found. Profit margins among the leading companies routinely have been three and four times as high as in other Fortune 500 industries.