Q1) Respond to your classmates who described a different set of steps than yours. Provide additional suggestions and recommendations for further design improvement?

Discussion: Minimizing Product Liability in the Design Process

1. Design to remove unsafe aspects
2. Guard against unsafe use
3. Provide product warnings and instructions

Class,

For this assignment, I will talk about prescription opioids (OxyContin, Percocet, Vicodin, Lortab, Tramadol, Methadone, Nucynta, Morphine, Fentanyl, etc.) which are used for moderate or severe pain relief. According to Hotten (2019), opioid-related overdose deaths in the U.S. were estimated to be around 400,000 between 1999 to 2017. Some of the well-known manufacturers of most prescription opioids are Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson, SpecGx, Actavis Pharma, and Par Pharmaceutical, which along with their distributors (Walgreens, CVS, Wal-Mart, McKesson Corp, Cardinal Health, etc.), have been at the forefront of many lawsuits brought upon by many victims families, cities, towns, and counties (Hotten 2019 & Newman, 2019). In recent years, the opioid epidemic has been a problem in the United States and has also affected other countries such as England.

As for ways these companies could have minimized risks by designing the product to remove unsafe aspects, I dont think any hazards could have been designed out of the drugs due to their nature. However, Purdue Pharma did claim that the effectiveness of their product, OxyContin, could last 12 hours when it didnt. Many clinical trials showed that their products effects didnt last 12 hours, encouraging doctors to increase the prescription and resulting in overdosage and addiction (Lopez, 2018). Even if the dangers of the products could not have been prevented by their design, manufacturers could have done a better job warning about the dangerous hazards of using prescription opioids for pain relief.

In guarding against safe use, I think it would have been difficult to place many guards against safely using these products when doctors (Influenced by fancy meals and other monetary compensation from manufacturers) overprescribe them to patients themselves. However, better training could have been provided to doctors and their staff on the highly addictive effects of the drugs. There were reports that various doctors didnt learn much about the addictive properties until after the fact (Mazumdar, 2018; Mann, 2019, Newman, 2019). Additionally, manufacturers should have recognized warning signs when distributors and pharmacies demanded a high amount of the drugs in such a short period (250 million in 2015 in the U.S. alone).

Warning the user about a product is a final resource when a products hazards cant be excluded from the design (Summers, 2017). When dealing with opioid prescription drugs, many companies were not very active in providing warnings and instructions. Many lawsuits claimed that numerous companies heavily marketed their products while minimizing their addictive effects and overpromising their benefits (Hotten, 2019 & Mann, 2019). All the problems and lawsuits that have transpired and are still ongoing could have been avoided by being more transparent with the public and ensuring that their marketing was straightforward, divulging all the side effects and potential hazards.

Furthermore, recently I watched a CNN Film documentary called American Pain, about some brothers in South Florida that owned many pain clinics and were considered opioid kingpins (Heavily distributed opioid prescriptions) (Karimi, 2023). While watching the film, I wondered why no manufacturers or distributors knew something strange was happening with such high demand in one part of the country? Clearly, the money coming in was too good to sound the alarm then. I recommend you watch it when you can.