Unsealed Exhibits Offer A Glimpse Into The Heart Of An Epidemic: ‘Do They Really Want 2520 Bottles Of Oxycodone … 100 Count Each??’
Documents and other evidence in a court case over what role drugmakers played in the opioid crisis paint a grim picture of how the companies operated as the epidemic was brewing. Meanwhile, California wants to suspend the wholesale license from one of the drug distributors over concerns the company didn't recognize unusual sales patterns for painkillers.
The Washington Post:
Newly Unsealed Exhibits In Opioid Case Reveal Inner Workings Of The Drug Industry
Newly unsealed documents in a landmark lawsuit Tuesday in Cleveland show the pressure within drug companies to sell opioids in the face of numerous red flags during the height of the epidemic. The release of the exhibits — sworn depositions of executives, internal corporate emails and experts’ reports — also reveals the ignored concerns of some employees about the huge volume of pain pills streaming across the nation. In one exhibit, emails show that a Purdue Pharma executive received an order from a distributor for 115,200 oxycodone pills, which was nearly twice as large as that distributor’s average order over the previous three months. (Horwitz, Higham, Davis and Rich, 7/23)
The Washington Post:
Internal Documents Show What Drug Companies Knew About The Spread Of Opioids In America
A cache of previously undisclosed internal drug company documents and other records are being released as the result of the largest civil action in U.S. history. About two dozen drug companies are being sued in federal court by nearly 2,000 cities, towns and counties, alleging they conspired to flood the nation with opioids. Below are portions of some of the documents in the case, entered by the plaintiffs as exhibits and selected by The Post. (7/23)
Stat:
California Cites AmerisourceBergen For Not Flagging Big Opioid Sales
The state of California wants to revoke or suspend the wholesale license for a facility run by AmerisourceBergen (ABC), one of the nation’s largest pharmaceutical distributors, for failing to note patterns of unusual sales of opioid painkillers and other controlled substances shipped to different pharmacies over a number of years. Between 2008 and 2014, the facility based in Sacramento, Calif., sold large quantities of such medicines as Norco, which is a mixture of acetaminophen and hydrocodone; oxycodone; and promethazine with codeine syrup to four different pharmacies, according to a May 30 complaint filed by the state Board of Pharmacy. The complaint was made public on the agency website last week. (Silverman, 7/23)
New Hampshire Public Radio:
DEA: N.H. Received 280 Million Opioid Pills Over Six Years
The Washington Post has released data obtained by the Drug Enforcement Administration that is painting a clearer picture of the prevalence of opioid drug use in New Hampshire. According to the data, 280 million oxycodone and hydrocodone pills were supplied to the state between 2006 and 2012. That’s about 36 pills per person, per year. (Haime, 7/24)
And in other news —
Stateline:
Overdose Prevention Efforts Reach Bars And Clubs
“Just Say No” — the 1980s anti-drug slogan — doesn’t cut it here at the Brooklyn cabaret House of Yes. Starting this month, House of Yes and dozens of other bars and nightclubs in the vibrant Williamsburg and Bushwick neighborhoods are handing out coasters and pinning up posters to warn people that the deadly opioid fentanyl might be mixed with their cocaine, and if it is, they could overdose and die. (Vestal, 7/23)
