Posted on 12/20/2018 12:47:45 PM PST by Responsibility2nd
In just 10 months, the sixth-largest company in America shipped more than 3 million prescription opioids — nearly 10,000 pills a day on average — to a single pharmacy in a Southern West Virginia town with only 400 residents, according to a congressional report released Wednesday.
McKesson Corp. supplied “massive quantities” of the painkiller hydrocodone to the now-shuttered Sav-Rite Pharmacy in Kermit, even after an employee at the company’s Ohio drug warehouse flagged the suspect pill orders in 2007, the report found. That year, McKesson — ranked 6th in the Fortune 500 — reviewed its customers, including Sav-Rite, and reported to the Drug Enforcement Administration that the purchases were “reasonable,” according to the report.
McKesson’s shipments to Kermit — and to other small towns in West Virginia’s southern coalfields — were among more than a dozen “case studies” cited in a scathing report released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, after an 18-month investigation into pill dumping in West Virginia.
In addition to McKesson, the report sharply criticizes drug distributors Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen — along with regional suppliers Miami-Luken and H.D. Smith — for systemic “failures that contributed to the worsening of the opioid epidemic” by sending an “inordinate” number of prescription painkillers to the state.
McKesson, AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal Health alone combined to ship more than 900 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills between 2005 and 2016. Thousands of West Virginians fatally overdosed after taking those prescription opioids during that time.
The report also blasts the DEA for turning a blind eye to the problem.
“Our bipartisan investigation revealed a number of alarming failures by the DEA and drug distributors to address the opioid epidemic,” said Rep. Greg Walden, R-Oregon, the committee’s chairman. “In instances identified by the report, [the] DEA and the drug distributors did not meet their obligations, and played a part in contributing to our nation’s opioid crisis.”
The report includes a transcribed interview with Dr. Joseph Mastandrea, board chairman of Miami-Luken, which also shipped millions of pain pills to Kermit. Mastandrea called the shipments by his company and its competitors to the small coal town an “abomination.”
“Clearly, this was drug diversion,” Mastandrea said. “No one was paying attention.”
Makes me want to watch my DVD of “The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia” again.
10,000 Hydrocodones a day. 400 residents.
The DEA is MIA.
Hey, the pills are legal and not Cannabis so that makes it okay, right? >:(
[ 900 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills between 2005 and 2016. Thousands of West Virginians fatally overdosed after taking those prescription opioids during that time. ]
Holy cow
I think I saw this on “Justified” several year ago. Theirs was a trailer in the middle of a pasture.
Why is everyone blaming the manufacturers?
If there were not legitimate orders from legitimate pharmacies they would not have shipped them. They CANNOT ship without an order number.
If the pharmacy did not have legitimate prescriptions they would not have ordered the medicine. They CANNOT dispense without a valid prescription.
The problem here starts in the doctors office. If there is blame start with the abuser and the doctor.
Holy Cow indeed.
Marijuana overdoses kill what? Maybe 2 people per year?
Meanwhile legal Opioids kill 50,000.
Well the distributors could take a feather from the American Tobacco Association's plumage and describe their activities as a public service as their product permanently removed many individuals from running up lifetimes of various welfare and social service costs as well as removing many degenerates from the gene pool in West Virginia.
Legal drinking is even worse: “Drinking too much can harm your health. Excessive alcohol use led to approximately 88,000 deaths and 2.5 million years of potential life lost (YPLL) each year in the United States from 2006 – 2010, shortening the lives of those who died by an average of 30 years.” Also: “Every day, 29 people in the United States die in motor vehicle crashes that involve an alcohol-impaired driver. This is one death every 50 minutes. The annual cost of alcohol-related crashes totals more than $44 billion.”
Don’t forget, alcohol is fun, legal, and causes no problems.
Just like Heaven, well maybe not:
Economy in Kermit, West Virginia
Kermit has an unemployment rate of 12.8%. The US average is 5.2%.
Kermit has seen the job market decrease by -7.2% over the last year. Future job growth over the next ten years is predicted to be 12.8%, which is lower than the US average of 38.0%.
Tax Rates for Kermit
- The Sales Tax Rate for Kermit is 6.0%. The US average is 6.0%.
- The Income Tax Rate for Kermit is 6.0%. The US average is 4.6%.
Income and Salaries for Kermit
- The average income of a Kermit resident is $22,924 a year. The US average is $28,555 a year.
- The Median household income of a Kermit resident is $40,500 a year. The US average is $53,482 a year.
These are not “legitimate” pharmacies. These are not “valid” prescriptions.
The manufacturers are shipping millions to distributers with no need except to fatten their profit margin.
While killing tens of thousands of Americans.
Legalized Dope Pushers. This is the bottom line.
but I've grown cold to opioid OD's...its just what happens when you're inundated with it...
but what I really get angry about is our ever increasing sloth, drug eating, overeating, lazy and shiftless culture....
this is not the robust and hardy population that Teddy Roosevelt talked about..
no way does America survive the way this is going....
Khrushchev was right....they didn't need bombs to destroy America...
“Marijuana overdoses kill what? Maybe 2 people per year?”
The number is zero as a direct result of overdose.
For all years.
Your number might be correct for indirect result of overdoses, like freaking out and jumping out of a moving car etc.
There is an old Supreme Court case from the 1940s, which I remember from law school, called Direct Sales Co., in which a mail order pharmaceutical company sold tens of thousands of doses of morphine every month to a single doctor in a small town. The company was convicted of illegal distribution of narcotics, and the Court held that the quantity ordered was so obviously beyond anything a legitimate doctor could use that the company had to have known the pills were being diverted to illegal uses.
Reminds me of this small town I was in back in September in Colorado.
780 population.
No bank. No grocery store. No pharmacy. No nothing. A couple of crappy places to eat and a dollar store.
But, oh. They did have three marijuana dispensaries.
?but what I really get angry about is our ever increasing sloth, drug eating, overeating, lazy and shiftless culture....
this is not the robust and hardy population that Teddy Roosevelt talked about..
no way does America survive the way this is going....
Khrushchev was right....they didn’t need bombs to destroy America...”
We’ve gone soft. Something really, really, REALLY bad needs to happen to mend this country. Think 9/11 on steroids. Maybe Civil War 2.
It is a war vs Opiates but is full court press for legalized pot here in NJ. It is very bizarre.
The biggest drug dealers are the ‘legitimate’ drug companies. Imagine making say cocaine legal. Marijuana will ruin many lives.
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