So you claim that the FDA isn't in bed with the drug companies but wont back that up. Just look at the mass lawsuits against Purdue. The man at the FDA who approved it's use joined Purdue a year later.

So I will give you a brief summary.

- Oxycontin is simply Heroin in tablet form.
- Purdue owned the rights to a very restricted painkiller for end of life treatment e.g. you give it to dying patients who are in agony.
- Richard Sackler and the Purdue board re-branded the drug as Oycontin with the sole intention of mass marketing it in the US as a new pain medication similar to aspirin e.g. take one if you have a twinge in your back.
- It quickly became the drug of choice for existing recreational drug users and worse made addicts out of people who originally took it for legitimate purposes.
- It caused a mass opiate crisis destroying many lives and also increasing crime as people were desperate to pay for it.

- The FDA approved the use of the drug for general use despite warnings from doctors and researchers that it has the same addictive qualities are heroin.

- Their application to the FDA contained many lies e.g. only 1% of patients would become addicted (nonsense claim it's heroin for god sakes).

- The guy who approved it at the FDA joined the company on a fat salary after they groomed him for months whilst he kept rejecting their application and then he changed his mind.

As of today there have been congressional hearings and the company is now controlled by the courts whilst various lawsuits are ongoing.

At best the FDA failed completely to investigate the application at worst some of their staff colluded with Purdue and the FDA had no oversight to prevent this.

Oxycontin became the biggest selling painkiller in the US. What is shocking about this scandal is not that a drug company was lying for profit but this:

- The FDA failed to do it's research this drug has been around for a century in fact Hitler's doctor used to give him injections. So unlike the COVID vaccines this is not a new drug and there is plenty of data available yet somehow the FDA ignored the red flags that this was a highly addictive drug and should only be prescribed in rare cases.

- The FDA did not have controls in place to ensure that their staff were not influenced or bribed by the drug companies.

- Thousands of doctors made a fortune prescribing this drug and yet so few spoke out against it's misuse.

To summarise the system to protect the public was broke the regulators and doctors failed in their responsibility of care to the public.

I don't believe in conspiracy theories but but neither do I have blind faith in the regulators and the drug industry.

An industry which funds 75% of its own regulatory body?

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It’s not unusual for an industry to be charged a levy to fund the regulatory body that oversees it. What’s important is how that body is managed and kept at arms length from the industry.

There will always be people who disagree with decisions and claim they are wrong. Someone though does have to take decisions.

Obviously there is a lot of criticism of the way the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry interacts, but it’s nothing new. Claims have been made for decades about corruption, over pricing and profiteering. Ultimately it’s down to the politicians to ensure that the oversight is robust and fit for purpose.

The opioid crisis in the USA is clearly very severe but how much of this can be laid at the door of the industry and the FDA is not so clear. Developing new drugs for profit has brought us all great benefits, but also unfortunate side affects. Can we have one without the other? We can try, but with imperfect results.

The fact it's been happening for decades is unlikely to be the main point of their defence.
What possible reason could there be for politicians to allow this to continue? It's a mystery.

f*** people with side effects - it's their problem and just unfortunate. These things happen. If they voted Trump or Brexit - they deserve what they get. If not, simply a little unlucky. That's life.