How Purdue Pharma was allowed to push OxyContin in Canada; seminar by Dr. Joel Lexchin
May 17, 2018, 3:00 pm to 4:30 pm
The W. Maurice Young Centre for Applied Ethics presents:
“How Purdue was allowed to push OxyContin in Canada”
Thursday, May 17, 2018
3:00 - 4:30 p.m.
SPPH B104
Speaker: Joel Lexchin, York University
Opioid overdoses are expected to cause 4,000 deaths this year in Canada. One of the major reasons for this epidemic of deaths is the way that OxyContin was promoted by Purdue in Canada, leading to a massive increase in prescriptions for the drug. This talk will explore the tactics that Purdue used in its promotion and the weakness in regulatory standards in Canada that allowed the promotion.
Joel Lexchin received his MD from the University of Toronto in 1977. He is a Professor Emeritus in the School of Health Policy and Management at York University in Toronto, Canada, where he taught health policy until 2016. In addition, he has worked in the emergency department at the University Health Network, also in Toronto, for 30 years. He has published two books since 2016: Private Profits vs Public Policy: The Pharmaceutical Industry and the Canadian State was published by University of Toronto Press in 2016 and Doctors in Denial: Why Big Pharma and the Canadian Medical Profession Are Too Close for Comfort was published by Lorimer in 2017.
