The federal government's war on opioids has caused its target, pharmaceutical companies, to become even less trusted than the federal government.
Of course, Big Pharma is not the problem, generic companies like Mylan and Purdue are what has made all companies look bad, and even then it is only a matter of relativity. Almost all opioid deaths are illegal fentanyl mixed with benzos, meth, and other drugs, not prescription pain patients, but that is why the federal government has targeted.
And it has worked. Purdue is going to lose a fortune in settlements (their marketing was skeevy but claiming that led to creation of an opioid epidemic is ridiculous) and Gallup poll results show that the government has succeeded in not being the number one most hated industry in the U.S. And it is an industry, with management and 401K plans and unions and labor agreements, except an industry with a customer base that has no choice on where to shop.
I'd rather light a candle for companies than just curse their darkness, of course, so I will note that the top most trusted industries are computers (which includes Microsoft, once the Source Of All Evil when Bill Gates ran it, and Facebook and Amazon and Google, where Jeff Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos and everyone at Google are currently the Source of All Evil) and restaurants, where even Chipotle lying about being non-GMO while poisoning its customers has not brought the whole group down the way generic companies Teva and Mylan and Heritage Pharmaceuticals have killed the reputation of drug companies.
