The fictionalized limited series chronicles one of the greatest tragedies in American history.
The Big Picture The latest Netflix hit limited series is Painkiller, a disturbing six-part drama about the impact that the opioid epidemic had on the world when highly addictive medications became widely available and overprescribed by doctors. The series shows how Richard Sackler used the pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma to turn the painkiller Oxycontin into a “blockbuster drug,” with little concern for the medication’s increasing availability on the black market.
Characters like the opioid addict Glen Kryger , his wife Lily , and their son Tyler were created for the series in order to show the effects that opioid abuse has. Each episode of Painkiller begins with the disclosure that the program is “based on real events” and that some characters, situations, and story elements were fictionalized for dramatic purposes. In order to emphasize parallels to reality, interviews with real victims are incorporated.
Richard focused his research on OxyContin, which purely contained the active ingredient of oxycodone; this was a more extreme version of Purdue Pharma’s previously existing drug MS Contin. While there were concerns about OxyContin’s addictive qualities, Purdue Pharma sales representatives referred to a study that suggested that addiction occurred in only a minority of patients.
The Investigation and Subsequent Legal Case Uzo Aduba’s character Edie Flowers may be fictitious, but she serves as an amalgamation of various federal investigators from Louisville, Kentucky that prosecuted Purdue Pharma for misrepresenting the dangers of OxyContin. The Sackler family settled the case for $24 million but were subsequently hit with additional lawsuits linking them directly to the increase in opioid-related deaths since the birth of OxyContin.
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