The same is even true of things such as the FAA and the aviation industry where there were analogous issues. All of this is emphasizing that these organizations, which can be quite the burden on 'good players', are ultimately ineffective at restraining bad players which (I suppose depending on your philosophical view) should be their primary purview.
Making wide sweeping statements based on very specific issues simply demonstrates ignorance of how these organizations actually interact with the systems they regulate.
PS: As to FDA ‘rubber stamping’ the drug, using opioids for treatment of end of life cancer pain is perfectly reasonable. OxyContin is just one of a huge list of similar drugs that have been in use long before this outbreak. It’s not the chemical that’s the problem is the other actions by the company.
And this story repeats over and over since our entire regulatory system is, when it comes to the big and influential players from Purdue to Boeing, mostly just glorified self regulation. And that leads to a worst of both worlds scenario. We get the lack of oversight inherent in self regulation, yet it's paired with an undue faith in our regulatory systems as many people don't understand the actual regulatory processes, or lack thereof.
[1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/fda-d...
