Faced with prescriber fears of OxyContin misuse, Purdue sales reps misleadingly played up drug’s safety, documents show

A year and a half after the opioid painkiller OxyContin went on the market, a Purdue Pharma sales representative documented a physician’s concern about the burgeoning drug that would come up again and again.

“Dr worried re addiction w/ Oxy,” the sales rep wrote in a memo summarizing a visit with a Kentucky physician on Aug. 12, 1997.