August 7, 2023 (Medscape Psychiatry); – The aggressive marketing of OxyContin in the mid-1990s not only exacerbated the opioid crisis, but also the spread of opioid-related infectious diseases A new analysis shows that injecting drug use.
The increase in the incidence of infectious diseases, namely hepatitis and infective endocarditis, came after 2010, when OxyContin’s manufacturer, Purdue Pharmaceuticals, reformulated OxyContin to make it more difficult to crush and inhale. This leads many people already addicted to powerful painkillers to inject heroin or fentanyl, fueling the spread of the infection.
“Our findings suggest that the effects of OxyContin marketing on mortality and morbidity remain significant after 25 years,” wrote Julia Dennett, Ph.D., and Gregg Gonsalves, Ph.D., of the Yale School of Public Health in New Haven, Connecticut. .
Their research was published online July 19 in health affairs .
After reformulation in 2010, these rates diverged, with increases in injecting drug-related infections in states that received more marketing.
Specifically, from 2010 to 2020, there were an average of 0.85 new cases of acute hepatitis B, 0.83 cases of hepatitis C, and 0.62 deaths from infective endocarditis per 100,000 people in high-exposure states.
Synthetic opioid overdose deaths per 100,000 people also increased by 5.3 in high-exposure states.
“Before 2010, there were generally no statistically significant differences in these results among the states. After 2010, large divergences were observed,” Dennett said in a release.
Dennett and Gonsalves say their findings support the idea that the opioid epidemic is creating a shared public health crisis because it fuels an increase in infectious diseases, particularly hepatitis, infection Endocarditis and HIV.
“This study underscores the urgent need for action to address the spread of viral and bacterial infections and overdoses associated with injecting drug use, both in the states where Purdue’s promotion is active and across the United States,” they added.
Medscape reached out to Purdue Pharma for comment but had not heard back by press time.
Funding for the study was provided by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.Dennett and Gonsalves Disclosure
Long-term effects are already visible
So far, the long-term impact of OxyContin’s widespread marketing on complications from injecting drug use has been unclear.
Dennett and Gonsalves assessed the impact of OxyContin’s marketing on the long-term trajectories of various outcomes related to injectable drug use. Using a difference-in-differences analysis, they compared states with high and low marketing exposure before and after OxyContin reformulation in 2010.
They found that rates of injecting drug use-related infections and overdose deaths were similar in high-market and low-market states before 2010.