If doctors prescribe harmful drugs without evaluating their efficacy and without questioning the marketing, aren’t they responsible ? They are ultimately the ones “pushing” OxyContin after all.
Should doctors not be allowed to prescribe OxyContin?
Very weird to me that the focus is on the people least responsible. Doctors, FDA, AMA all have to approve the prescription of OxyContin. The whole point of the FDA is to evaluate drugs using science instead of marketing.
If one accepts that Purdue is the party most responsible for the opioid crisis then one must consider doctors, the AMA, and the FDA all incompetent idiots, right?
OxyContin is a perfectly legitimate drug and it is reasonable for the FDA and AMA to sign off on its use. What isn't legitimate is doctors and pharmacists prescribing the drug over and over again when there was no reason to.
I.e., "pill mills."
Doctors are highly trained specialists with limited time, and no, their job isn't to evaluate drug efficacy and safety. That's the FDA's job, and yes, to some extent the FDA failed here.