Fentanyl Crisis: Made By Big Pharma and Medical Professionals
The United States continues to grapple with a devastating opioid crisis that has evolved into a deadly fentanyl epidemic, claiming thousands of lives annually. In 2022 alone, approximately 82,000 Americans died from opioid-related overdoses, with fentanyl emerging as the primary culprit[13]. This crisis has deep roots in the pharmaceutical industry’s aggressive marketing practices and regulatory failures of the 1990s. The story began when prominent medical experts, led by Dr. Russell Portenoy, dubbed the „King of Pain,“ proclaimed opioids as safe and non-addictive. These claims were based on a misinterpreted one-paragraph letter to the editor, which was falsely promoted as a landmark study[5]. Pharmaceutical companies, particularly Purdue Pharma, capitalized on these false claims, launching aggressive marketing campaigns that downplayed addiction risks while promoting opioids for chronic pain management. The FDA’s oversight failures compounded the problem, as the agency approved OxyContin based…
