Author: tearj3rker
Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2011 12:41 am
WOW. Reckitt have started a smear campaign against their own medication?
This is enough to make anyone really cynical. I remember reading over a year ago a post on suboxdoc’s blog where he claimed to have heard that RB was preparing to undertake a campaign of undermining their own medication. I’m an incredibly cynical person as it is, but I even had doubts about this. And to find out it’s actually going on?
What are Reckitt’s arguments as to the pills’ hazards?
It’s stupid. Addicts can inject ..anything.. I’ve met some guys who even managed to inject magic mushrooms – I’m not talking about chemical extractions, but actual magic mushrooms. A little dissolvable film would be a walk in the park. Hell, even the relatively safe injectors would find it preferable over pills as you likely wouldn’t need wheel filters to filter out all the junk.
You’re possibly right about naloxone being useless. When I injected Suboxone, I was also using heroin. However, I hadn’t used for a number of days, and was coming out the back-end of withdrawals. When I injected it, I got a foul taste in my mouth and the definite painful stimulant-like feeling of precipitated withdrawal for 15 mins. When the buprenorphine started to work it felt like jumping from an ice-cold frozen lake to a nice jacuzzi. Maybe I still had some heroin sitting on my receptors? God, I don’t know. All I know what was once a big market for Subutex on the street – some preferred it over their DOC, is nowhere near the same level as with Suboxone, at least in the areas where heroin is plentiful. There still is a market though, and people definitely still inject it.
In my experiences, the better doctors are smart enough and politically aware enough to see the facts behind the marketing. That line gets a bit blurred though when companies hand out free stuff to docs and send them to expenses-paid conferences. Even the most reasonable of doctors feels somehow "obliged" to return the favour, even if they don’t recognise it consciously. It’s so ingrained in western culture to feel obliged to return favors, unlike Asia where a gift is genuinely considered a gift.
Medication is expensive as hell down here too, only the gov’t / taxpayer covers the majority of $ for low income card holders / students etc, and a fair whack for everyone else too. The only real difference is that it’s in our govt’s interests for generic brands to come through, as they are heaps cheaper and thus cost the PBS / taxpayers much less to cover. So come the time for generic Suboxone pills, I guarantee pharmacies get tax breaks to dispense these because of the savings to the govt / taxpayer. Pharma companies naturally don’t like this.
It’s hard to see America in the state it is now, esp your healthcare. The rest of the Western world has for ages, and still does, look to you guys as an example of how it’s done. It’s said down here that Australia is generally a decade behind of America in terms of business and politics. So I hear your story with a sense of sadness and foreboding.
