Critics have long argued that the AMA uses its white-coated prestige as a veneer to advocate on behalf of the medical industry—whose interests are, at times, diametrically opposed to those of the public’s health. Since the initial development and release of its opioids, Purdue Pharma paid patient advocacy groups, medical societies, and academic experts in an unprecedented marketing blitz for OxyContin, laying the foundation for the rampant opioid prescribing of the 2000s and 2010s and for today’s profusion of illicit opioids, like heroin and fentanyl. The AMA Foundation, received more than $3 million from Purdue Pharma—ranking them among Purdue’s top-paid third-party groups. Purdue’s relationship with the AMA Foundation was particularly cozy and far from clean, as they might want you to believe. Read about the twisted and convoluted relationship in this excellent article in Mother Jones.
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