Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Justice Dept. Report: DEA Let Painkiller Production Surge Even As Opioid Epidemic Alarm Sounded
Los Angeles Times: Justice Department Slams DEA For Allowing Dramatic Oxycodone Production Increase As Opioid Crisis Grew
The White House declared the opioid epidemic a public health emergency in 2017, a year that saw an average of 130 opioid overdose deaths per day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Since 2000, there have been 300,000 opioid-related overdose deaths in the U.S. (Díaz, 10/1)
The New York Times: D.E.A. Let Opioid Production Surge As Crisis Grew, Justice Dept. Says
The report said the D.E.A. did not capture enough timely data on opioid abuse or other drug trends. It also noted that the agency had “recently taken steps to address the opioid epidemic, but more work remains.” A spokeswoman for the D.E.A. said in a statement that the agency “appreciates the O.I.G.’s assessment of the programs involved in the report and the opportunity to discuss improvements made to increase the regulatory and enforcement efforts to control the diversion of opioids.” (Fortin, 10/1)
The Washington Post: DEA Allowed Huge Growth In Painkiller Supply As Overdose Deaths Rose, IG Says
Even as deaths from opioid overdoses grew dramatically, the Drug Enforcement Administration allowed manufacturers to substantially increase the number of painkilling pills they produced each year, the Justice Department’s inspector general said Tuesday in a report that offers a harsh critique of the DEA. Overdose deaths rose by an average of 8 percent from 1999 to 2013 and by a staggering 71 percent from 2013 to 2017. Yet the DEA, which sets annual quotas for narcotic painkillers produced in the United States, authorized a greater than 400 percent increase in oxycodone output between 2002 and 2013, Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz said, and did not begin cutting back until 2017. (Bernstein, 10/1)
The Wall Street Journal: Watchdog Faults DEA Response To Opioid Death
“Unlike past drug crises, in combating the current opioid epidemic DEA failed to develop a comprehensive national strategy that could have focused and directed its regulatory and enforcement efforts,” the Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, wrote in the report, which was released Tuesday. (Gurman, 10/1)
Stat: Report: DEA Did Too Little To Constrain Opioid Supply
The Drug Enforcement Administration fell dramatically short in regulating the prescription opioid supply over the past two decades — even as the country’s addiction and overdose crisis escalated, according to a new report from the Justice Department’s inspector general. As prescription levels and demand for pain drugs rose, the agency continued to raise manufacturing quotas for opioids with little regard to potential oversupply or misuse, according to the report. Prescription opioid oversupply is seen as a major factor in the broader drug crisis, which left 70,000 Americans dead in 2017 — roughly 48,000 from opioid-involved overdoses. (Facher, 10/1)
The Hill: Watchdog: DEA Allowed Increase Of Opioid Production As Overdose Deaths Rose
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) allowed drug makers to increase production of opioids even as overdose deaths were skyrocketing, according to a government watchdog’s scathing report released Tuesday. While opioid overdose deaths grew by 8 percent per year from 1999 through 2013, and by 71 percent per year between 2013 and 2017, the DEA authorized manufacturers to produce “substantially larger amounts of opioids,” reads the report from the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General. (Hellmann, 10/1)
