Grieving father takes on Purdue Pharma after son dies from OxyContin

As the inspiration behind characters in the award-winning books "Dopesick" and "Raising Lazarus," Ed Bisch shares his journey of turning personal tragedy into a force for powerful change. Following the heart-wrenching loss of his high school son to an OxyContin overdose early in the opioid epidemic, Bisch took on the daunting task of raising awareness about the dangerous drug. More than that, he confronted the influential pharmaceutical company behind OxyContin's production and marketing.

In this episode of Grieving Out Loud, dive into the compelling story of an ordinary man on a mission well before the opioid crisis gained widespread attention. Bisch sheds light on the persistent challenges faced by the nation as it grapples with its deadliest drug epidemic to date.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Ed Bisch: I just couldn't imagine my son's laying dead in his bed. I went out. I said, tell me, what did he do? They said, an oxy. I said, what the hell's an oxy?

[00:00:19] Angela Kennecke: Meet Ed Bish who tragically lost his high school son early on in the opioid epidemic. Instead of being ashamed or embarrassed of his son's oxycontin death, this ordinary person, Much like you and me, felt compelled to take on the powerful pharmaceutical company behind the deadly opioid. 

[00:00:40] Ed Bisch: We're just parents.

We're battling Purdue Pharma, who's literally spent hundreds of millions of dollars hiring PR firms, planting stories in newspapers, buying off politicians. Richard Sackler once bragged that he could get any senator in the country on the phone within 48 hours.

[00:01:13] Angela Kennecke: I'm Angela Kenecke, and this is Grieving Out Loud. Thanks for joining us as we sit down with one of the inspirations behind the award winning book, Dope Sick, which was later adapted into a Hulu series starring big name actors, such as Michael Keaton. Despite all of the attention, Ed says his mission is far from complete.

Well, Ed, I want to welcome you to Grieving Out Loud. It was just a pleasure to meet you in person in Washington, D. C. We'd had some email correspondence with other groups that we belonged to before that, but I was so grateful to be able to meet you when I was out there last fall. And I just think your story is so fascinating.

Everything that you've been through. Involving Purdue Pharma and your son and how long you've been in this fight. I mean, I've been in this fight for five and a half years. You've been in it for 23. 

[00:02:12] Ed Bisch: Hard to believe. Yep. 23 years. President's day 2001 is the very first time I heard the word Oxycontin and my son was laying dead in his bed from it.

[00:02:27] Angela Kennecke: Yeah, let's just dive right into talking about that, Ed, because we'll give people the background of your story and what happened. The year was 2001. If anybody has seen Painkiller or Dopesick or read a book about this issue, they know what was happening. Purdue Pharma was pushing OxyContin out to everybody and just inundating doctors with it who were thinking that it wasn't addictive because that's what they were told.

2001 is just a few years after that, I'll call it a movement, that sales pitch, whatever you want to call it, started, right? 

[00:03:00] Ed Bisch: Yeah, the out and out lies, less than 1 percent get addicted, that was their famous big lie line. But at the time, you know, people really didn't have the info to combat that lie. Eddie died Presidents Day 2001.

I got a call, work from my daughter. She said, Dad, Eddie's not breathing and he's turning blue. I said, call 911. I worked in downtown Philadelphia, only three miles from Center City. I hopped in the cab. Begged the cab to hurry, hurry, praying while I'm in the cab. Cabby let me out on the corner. I see an ambulance in front of my house.

I said, thank you, God. I started running up the block. And as I got closer, I saw that there was two guys sitting in the ambulance. And they looked at me and they said, sorry, sir, nothing we could do. And I just said, don't tell me he's dead. They said, sorry, sir. I ran in the house and my brother was already there.

He stopped me from running up the steps. I just, you know, what, what happened? Next thing I know, some of Eddie's friends were gathering outside. So I went outside. I said, I knew Eddie and his friends had a party the night before because they were all off from school. So, you know, he was a high school senior.

I know he drank a little and he got. Caught smoking pot, got in trouble for that. Well, I just couldn't imagine. My son's laying dead in his bed. I went out and I said, Tell me, what did he do? They said, an oxy. I said, what the hell's an oxy? They said, it's like a strong Percocet. I said, no, no, my son's dead.

There's more to it than this. Anyway, that's the first time I heard the word oxycontin. I went in. And I was crying at the kitchen table, and a police sergeant came in, and he said, Oxycontin kids are dying left to right from this stuff. I popped right up, I said, What? How did I never even hear about this? I watch the news every night, I read the newspaper every day, and My son's dead from a new drug and I didn't hear about it.

First thing that came to my mind, I gotta warn the kids. Cause I knew, just talking to my son's friends, that they thought it was a strong Percocet. I knew it had to be more, more than that. And sure enough, I started doing research that very night. Me and my, uh, family, we started faxing high schools in Philadelphia to warn But before that, we got on the internet, 2001 was no, we got on Yahoo and we typed in Oxycontin and news.

I couldn't believe it. I saw all these stories from West Virginia, Maine, Kentucky, nothing from Philadelphia about this drug Oxycontin causing these 

[00:06:24] Angela Kennecke: deaths. You were completely blindsided. I mean, you were at the beginning of this horrible. epidemic, this horrible opioid epidemic caused by Purdue Pharma.

Totally 

[00:06:37] Ed Bisch: blindsided. Well, anyway, make a long story short, we start faxing. Next, we actually called a press conference at the local police district. We had every TV station. We had five TV stations in Philadelphia at the time. We had news radio. We had NPR. Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, everybody came, and the purpose was because I was told that there was 22 deaths in the previous three months, and I just could not believe that the news wasn't out to warn people and especially teenagers.

So we called a press conference, held a press conference. Yeah, I was on the front cover of the Daily News the next day. No way, you know, and trust me, I did not want to be whatsoever, but I just felt I had to warn kids, you know.

[00:07:41] Angela Kennecke: A few days after the news conference, Ed took another bold step. He agreed to go on a live talk show to tell his son's story. When

[00:07:52] Ed Bisch: I got home, the producer called me. They had three people willing to build me a website, which was a big deal in them days. Cause most people used message boards. Websites were brand new. 

[00:08:06] Angela Kennecke: I remember. I'm old enough to remember, Ed. Yeah. 

[00:08:09] Ed Bisch: Yeah. So I said, well, who's the first person who called? And that's who I went with.

And we got a simple website, uh, and I would go on all these message boards and say, check out the website and warn about Oxy. Also the big thing back then was chain emails. Chain emails usually about jokes. So I started my own chain email and I said, this is not a joke. This is serious. Please pass this on.

So, in no time, my website started to get a lot of traffic.

[00:08:50] Angela Kennecke: About three weeks after the website went live, Ed received an email from none other than Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of OxyContin. What the company said still infuriates Ed today.

[00:09:05] Ed Bisch: They said, we're the maker of OxyContin, and we just want you to know that our drug wasn't properly used. is great for patients. It's only when it's abused that it's a problem. I had no reason to doubt them. I mean, it was FDA approved, right? So I said, yeah, I just want to warn kids not to abuse it. I'm all about that.

So they kept on, they started a email dialogue, make a long story short. They said if you ever want to do something about prescription drug abuse, we're willing to work with you. Well, in the meantime, I started going around and I talked with the Philadelphia Police Department. And they would go around the schools and they would give me five minutes to talk about pills.

And I did that a couple times and they were talking about how bad pot was. and heroin. And we're talking to high school kids. And I'm thinking we need to be concentrating on pills. Cause you know, kids are doing Xanax and now Oxy and Percocet.

[00:10:20] Angela Kennecke: That's when Ed decided to start his own mission. And because Purdue had offered to help before, he decided to give the pharmaceutical giant a call. 

[00:10:31] Ed Bisch: And they said, okay, we'll work with you. So I went up to Purdue Pharma And when I was up there, I met the medical director, J. David Haddox. He says, you know, all these stories, all these, uh, exaggerated stories about our drug is really hurting patients from getting the drug that they need.

So I said to him, I said, so sales are down? And he looked at me, he said, yes, a lot. I said, okay. And I said, the only thing that's bothering me is half the emails I get from my website are from patients who either got addicted or who are now dead and their families email me. He says, Oh, they must be doing something wrong because less than 1 percent of patients get addicted.

He said that to my face. Again, I felt uneasy. Well, like I went away thinking so. They gave me a small donation, which I bought a laptop and a projector and software at the time. And I started going around talking at schools. Well, three months later, I'm reading the newspaper and the headline is, Oxycontin sales increased 43 percent in the last year.

I read that. I almost fell off my chair. I knew they were lying to me. I suspected it, but now reading that. So I got on my computer. I shot them a couple nasty emails and that was my end with me and Purdue. 

[00:12:15] Angela Kennecke: Well, and they really tried to shut you down just by paying you off, right? And telling you a lie.

[00:12:21] Ed Bisch: Right. They did lie to me. They co opted me and it worked for a little while. It worked for three 

[00:12:27] Angela Kennecke: months. And then you just continued to fight. You continued and you've continued up to this day. I mean, this is what I think I admire most about you is your perseverance and your dedication to this cause.

Because not once have you ever just said, I'm done. 

[00:12:44] WFXR News: We're 

[00:12:44] Ed Bisch: still 

[00:12:45] WFXR News: calling 

[00:12:45] Ed Bisch: for justice. 

[00:12:46] WFXR News: Ed Bish's 18 year old son died from an Oxycontin overdose in 2001. And more than two decades later, Ed is still fighting. In 

[00:12:55] Angela Kennecke: addition to sharing his heartbreaking story across the U. S., like in that report from Washington, the grieving father found himself at the forefront of a parent led nationwide pushback against Purdue Pharma.

He helped organize protests against the OxyContin manufacturer. And not just anywhere, but in places where he knew his message would get attention. 

[00:13:19] Ed Bisch: We got a tip that Purdue Pharma was going to do one of their lavish sales seminars in Orlando, Florida. A couple of moms I hooked up with, they lived in Florida.

So we got together and they said, well, we got to call ourselves something. So we came up with Rack. Relatives against Purdue Pharma. So we held the second protest against Purdue Pharma in Orlando, Florida.

[00:13:54] Angela Kennecke: That was in 2003. Then a few years later in 2007, Bish and his fellow RAP members got the break they were hoping for. At least that's what they thought at the time. Purdue Pharma pled guilty to felony charges of misbranding OxyContin. 20 

[00:14:11] Ed Bisch: some victims got to give a short statement. Most of the people who gave a statement that day were from RAC.

I was there. I was able to give a statement. We were hopeful. We begged the judge to give them jail time. The judge was apologetic to us. I'm paraphrasing, but he said he wished he could give them jail time, but he had to go by the sentencing guideline. So at the time, They were fined a record $600 million, and that was a record at the time.

The three executives who pled guilty, they paid 34 million, so the total was 634 million. Purdue Frederick pled it guilty to two felonies. We were very disappointed, but we looked at it as a moral victory because it was a record fine, and we thought for sure Purdue would stop. Doing what they were doing, which was lying.

and pushing it for minor pain.

[00:15:24] Angela Kennecke: Unfortunately, that's not what happened. 

[00:15:27] CBS News: Now only on CBS This Morning, a former Purdue sales rep claims the drug maker downplayed the dangers of opioids even after pleading guilty to a felony charge of misbranding. According to this CBS This Morning 

[00:15:39] Angela Kennecke: report, Purdue Pharma used deceptive sale tactics for OxyContin even after the 2007 settlement.

[00:15:50] Ed Bisch: They took that as a slap on the wrist because That year, OxyContin sales were 2 billion for one year. After that, Purdue hired a hundred more sales reps, and OxyContin sales went from 2 billion a year to 3 billion a year. 

[00:16:11] Angela Kennecke: And what's fascinating to me, Ed, is like you were actually there and taking part, not only witnessing everything that was happening, But actually being a part of it, you know, and now you can look back over these two decades and we all can see from everything that's happened and from what the courts ultimately decided and what they're still looking into what the truth is, but at the time it must have just felt so unbelievably frustrating.

[00:16:38] Ed Bisch: Well, like you said, we looked at it as a moral victory, but then as it became apparent, And, you know, I'm following in the news that Purdue's hiring, their sales are increasing as, as the sales went up, the deaths went up. Purdue could deny everything, but they couldn't deny that. As the sales went up, the deaths went up.

So, what happened was, Purdue in 2002 said that they were working on an abuse resistant oxy. Well, they probably could have put it out in 2002. When did they put it out? They put it out in 2010. Why? Cause their original patent on Oxycontin was running out. So they put out this abuse resistant Oxy, which totally wasn't total abuse resistant, but it was harder than the original version.

But what happened was, Purdue testified at an FDA hearing. Generics wanted to sell their original Oxy. Purdue testified under oath that the original oxy was too dangerous to let generics put it 

[00:17:53] Angela Kennecke: on the market. I don't know if I've ever heard that part of it, Ed. I mean, I've done my research and I've read a lot of things.

I don't know if I've ever heard that part of the story. That's incredible. It's 

[00:18:04] Ed Bisch: totally outrageous. I mean, I couldn't believe that. And some people mentioned it in news stories, but it wasn't like It's totally like major, it's like, oh my God, you know, after 10 years of battling parents like me, battling the government, trashing anybody who spoke out against them, they were saying the exact same thing I said for 10 years.

So, When the abuse resistant came out, I was so burnt out. I mean, I just had to get away with it. I stopped watching the news, stopped reading the newspaper.

[00:18:47] Angela Kennecke: But when New York Times bestselling author Beth Macy reached out to Ed about a new book she was writing on the opioid crisis, Ed agreed to share his story again. That book, Dope Sick, has now been adapted into an award winning Hulu series. 

[00:19:05] Ed Bisch: So I was able to tell her my story and chapter three is all about me and rat for the most part, but even after that, I didn't really get involved.

It wasn't until I saw the Massachusetts put out the lawsuit and they were suing the Sacklers, not just Purdue Pharma, but it was online and they put their evidence online. And And when I read that, I said, Oh my God, they got them. They finally got them. So I called up some rap members, original rap members, and I told them, look, we got to get involved again.

Next thing I know. Headline in the paper, Purdue Farm is going out of business. I said, finally, finally, some justice. I started reading the article and the third paragraph in, I read that the Sacklers are demanding civil immunity. Otherwise, they're not going to donate a dime to this bankruptcy. When I read that, I said, this is a scam.

A bankruptcy scam. This is what it's all about.

[00:20:26] Angela Kennecke: US Supreme Court Justices are expected to make a decision this year on Purdue's $6 billion bankruptcy settlement if approved. Not only will the Sacklers have civil immunity, but very little money will go to the families of Oxycontin victims.

[00:20:46] Ed Bisch: So it's estimated going to be a $10 billion deal, only 750 million. which is 7. 5 percent of the settlement is going to victims. The highest payout's going to be 48, 000. Average payout's going to be 3, 500. Not enough to pay for your funeral or your rehabs. And then it gets worse. If you don't have records, if you can't prove that your family member was actually prescribed Oxycontin or a Purdue product.

You're not going to get nothing. So guess what? Eddie Benesch, who took an Oxy at a party, is going to get nothing. 

[00:21:38] Angela Kennecke: Because he wasn't prescribed. He wasn't prescribed Oxycontin. 

[00:21:41] Ed Bisch: Even though when they did the autopsy and I had the paperwork to prove it, They found chunks of oxy in his stomach because he chewed up the oxy.

He wasn't prescribed it, so I'm not going to get nothing, but it was never about the money for me. To find out, so people hear about these releases. What people don't realize, it's not just the Sacklers getting released. They asked for releases for about a thousand, I call them accomplices, a thousand other people and companies.

Anybody who ever had anything to do with OxyContin is going to get civilly 

[00:22:25] Angela Kennecke: released. Let's talk about the Supreme Court because you were there. So now this case, the civil settlement, went before the Supreme Court in December because of that immunity given to the family members, the Sackler family. The justices seemed to be divided.

What was your impression after listening to what they had to say, and I should note for our listeners that they will not make a decision on whether or not the Sacklers themselves personally can be sued until June. 

[00:22:57] Ed Bisch: Until June, they're going to announce it. Yeah, definitely. It was hard to get a feel. I mean, it went both ways, but I think when they look at all the facts, and like I said, this decision is so much bigger than Perdue.

Yeah. Cause if they let the Sacklers get away with this, then like I said, who knows what's going to happen in five years. Company X is going to do this and they're going to go into bankruptcy.

[00:23:30] Angela Kennecke: If the deal passes, the Sacklers can't be civilly held accountable, but they could still be criminally charged. That's what Ed is advocating for. When I first met him, he was protesting outside the department of justice with other grieving parents. You were protesting outside of the DOJ because you want to see criminal charges pursued against the Sacklers.

Do you think that can ever happen? 

[00:23:56] Ed Bisch: Well, it can happen. Will it? Will it? I think it's likely no, but I, last year I got in contact with someone inside the DOJ, pretty high up. He said, keep on doing what you're doing. So him telling me that tells me that this is still a possibility. Our first DOJ meeting.

During that hearing, our lawyer got a text. We were trying to get a meeting with the DOJ for a couple years. And because we held that first protest, we got a meeting with the DOJ. And in that Zoom, they say what they always say. We can't comment. When any, uh, 

[00:24:43] Angela Kennecke: ongoing investigation, they can never comment. And as a journalist, I dealt with officials for years and they'll never comment on any ongoing investigation.

Yes. 

[00:24:51] Ed Bisch: If they weren't still considering it, would they have given us a zoom meeting now? So they're still looking at it. It's still being looked at. So, so almost two years went by and we haven't gotten no update. The rumor's been out there forever that the DOJ criminal's waiting for this lawsuit. I have no idea if that's true.

I hope it is. I pray it is. So we did another protest. That's where I met you, just last September. We were outside the DOJ again, and DOJ, do your job. 

[00:25:30] Angela Kennecke: Yeah. Ed, what do you think it is? Like, I was thinking about this with you, and me, and others like us. Some people really Go inward when something like this happens when they have the worst shock of their life.

They lose a child They don't want to talk about the reason or they don't want public to know and other people have to speak out We just I felt so compelled and so driven to have to talk about it to try to save others, right? I didn't want this horrible feeling to happen to anybody else 

[00:26:00] Ed Bisch: No, right. And you know, everybody deals in grief in their own way.

And particularly with my case, there was a brand new drug that no one in Philadelphia knew about. So that's what really got me involved. And then staying with it, it definitely helped me with my healing, which, as you know, it's a lifelong process because it never leaves you. I know you've been like five and a half years, I'm going on year 23, and the best thing I ever saw about grief, and no one knows who wrote it, it's called grief waves, and basically what they compared about it, when a death first happens, it's like you're drowning, and the waves do not stop.

But eventually the waves lessen up. So after maybe a couple weeks, the waves hit you every minute instead of every second. After a couple years, maybe every five minutes. And I don't know if you experienced this, I couldn't even tell you at what point. You know when it first happens, you're thinking 24 7 about your kid.

and life and what I should have done, what I could have done, if this, if that, and you can't turn it off. Then it slowly, instead of every second, you know, maybe you get a few minutes in between where you can concentrate on something. I remember the first time that I maybe went an hour without thinking about Eddie, I actually felt some guilt that I got that hour of mental rest because you, you know, where's about, by the way, so the grief waves and eventually it happens eventually the waves hit you every hour and then every couple hours and then a couple times a day.

I'm at that point, 23 years, I still, once or twice a day, had the pops in my head, and that's a grief weave, but, you know, for all the parents, especially with the fentanyl, there's so many parents that are new to this, so I met you at the Lost Voices of Fentanyl rally. And April Bagcott, the founder, she told me when we were chatting one day, she said, Ed, so many of the fentanyl parents are going through what you went through.

The first time you heard the word oxy, your son was dead. A lot of the parents in this group, the first time they heard fentanyl, their kids were dead. I said, Oh my god, you're right. And you know, getting out the warnings, I'll tell you, because what you're doing, and what I've done over the years, and I'm sure you've received emails that you've saved someone's life or whatever, but we truly don't know how many people we have saved.

With our warnings. 

[00:29:23] Angela Kennecke: Have you lost a loved one to overdose or fentanyl poisoning? I'd like to invite you to share their story on our new Emily's Hope memorial website called More Than Just a Number. They were our children, siblings, cousins, husbands, wives, aunts, uncles. And friends so much more than just a number.

You can submit a memorial today on more than just a number.org.

When you look back and you reflect on all of this, you know this has been your life's work for the last. couple of decades. When you look back and you reflect on it, how do you feel about it or 

[00:30:02] Ed Bisch: what goes through your mind? It's truly unbelievable. I'll tell you what, more has happened to the Sacklers. Just the fact, because I would try to explain this to people and I would get overwhelmed, but now all these books came out and these TV shows and documentaries.

So now people are starting to believe me and I can verbalize it better. Yeah, I 

[00:30:29] Angela Kennecke: bet that you got a lot of backlash for a while, like they just thought you were a nut or whatever, right? I did. Oh, 

[00:30:35] Ed Bisch: the FDA approved it. It can't be bad. Well, a lot of people have opened their eyes to what the FDA is all about.

Not to mention, which is also well documented, how OxyContin got improved. 

[00:30:49] Angela Kennecke: Yeah, that's a story in itself, isn't it? So, yeah, it is unbelievable what power and money can do in this country at the cost of human life, and how much suffering that can cause for so many ordinary families all across the country.

It's an overwhelming problem, and we don't have the right systems in place. to stop it at this point in our society. And hopefully we will see some changes, but I just appreciate everything that you've been doing over the last couple of decades. And the fact that you're still in the fight, it's because of people like you that inspire people like me and I hate to see anyone else lose a child to be put in this position.

But once we are, I can look to people like you and to see how you've hung in there. And there has been a movement toward the right direction, right? It's not perfect and it's certainly not where you want things to be, but people are a heck of a lot more informed now than they were when Eddie died. 

[00:31:50] Ed Bisch: Yeah.

So, so we have small victories over the years. Like I said, we don't know how many people we helped, but we know we have helped people. So, going back to Purdue Pharma, years ago, they wanted to come out with a time released oxymorphone called Paladone. And right, we did everything, we wrote letters, we went to hearings, but we felt Paladone was not allowed.

If it was allowed because it was more powerful than Oxycontin, it would have been a disaster. So that was a win. And how many lives were saved by Paladone not hitting the market? No one will ever know. And it's a little piece of history. That I got to remind ourselves. Those 

[00:32:41] Angela Kennecke: are the victories you have to hold on to to keep going, right?

I mean, you have to look at those and say it has made a difference. Our efforts, our grassroots efforts, you know, just the little guy out here, you know, the parent out here fighting have made a difference. Well, that's 

[00:32:55] Ed Bisch: why it is. We're just parents. We're battling Purdue Pharma, who's literally spent hundreds of millions of dollars hiring PR firms, planting stories in newspapers.

Buying off politicians, Richard Sackler once bragged that he could get any senator in the country on the phone within 48 hours. And when they say get him on the phone, It ain't just to say, hi, let's go golfing. You know what I mean? That's what we've been batting all these years. And DOJ has a chance to do their job.

Like I said, this DOJ has recently came out with a press conference saying how they're going to start prosecuting white collar criminals. Well, myself and a few thousand other people have emailed the DOJ and we got a good suggestion where to start. I'm hopeful. I pray for it. No matter what happens in June.

In June, I'm calling it right now. It's going to be five to four against Purdue. They are not going to get away with these third party releases. And if they do, this country will come to regret it. But I really think the Supreme Court, when they look at the big picture, and the big picture is bigger than Purdue format, they're They're going to do the right thing.

[00:34:23] Angela Kennecke: Well, we will check back with you in June after that decision comes out and let's hope you're right. Thank you so much, Ed, for joining me on the podcast and for talking a little bit about Eddie and, and your grief. And I think that helps other parents as well. And it's just so fascinating, this twisted and horrible story of Purdue Pharma and OxyContin and the public is a lot more educated on what happened.

what this really did to this country, but hopefully moving forward, it'll be people like you. that will have made the biggest difference of all. So thank you so much. 

[00:35:00] Ed Bisch: Thank you very much. And like I said, I am just thrilled that the story finally got out.

[00:35:13] Angela Kennecke: Thank you for taking the time to learn about our nation's deadly opioid crisis. For more information on this topic, along with news and information surrounding substance use disorder, grief, and fentanyl, Just head over to our website, emilieshope. charity. There, you can read my blog and check out other Grieving Out Loud episodes.

Thanks again for listening. Until next time, wishing you faith, hope, and courage. This podcast is produced by Kacen Wannenberg King and Anna Fye.