HumblePi
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Tiny West Virginia Town Flooded With 3 Million Opioids During Drug Epidemic
Tiny West Virginia Town Flooded With 3 Million Opioids During Drug Epidemic
A major drug company shipped over 3 million prescription opioids to a single pharmacy in a tiny West Virginia town in the span of just 10 months, according to a congressional report released Wednesday detailing the drug epidemic there. McKesson Corp. supplied almost 10,000 hydrocodone pills daily to one now-closed pharmacy in Kermit, a town with only 400 residents, The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports. The pills were reportedly supplied even after the pharmacy was flagged for “suspect pill orders” in 2007. The report from the House Energy and Commerce Committee also concluded that McKesson and other drug distributors, like Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen, were shipping an “inordinate” number of pills to West Virginia, one of the states hit hardest by the opioid epidemic. The three distributors reportedly sent a total of “900 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills” between 2005 and 2016, a period in which thousands of West Virginians fatally overdosed on prescription opioids. The congressional committee said the shipments were an example of “failures that contributed to the worsening of the opioid epidemic.” The committee also criticized the DEA for failing to prevent the massive shipments.
Report exposes drug distributor: WV town got millions of pills in 10 months | News | herald-dispatch.com
Report exposes drug distributor: WV town got millions of pills in 10 months
CHARLESTON - 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 this week.
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 sixth 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.
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If you think this investigation turned up something unheard of or unusual, you'd be wrong. The exact same bust happened in Florida last year when Dr. Barry Schultz was sentenced to 157 years in prison for running a 'pain clinic' where he handed out oxycodone to 'patients' who stood outside in long lines every morning waiting for his clinic to open the door. dr. Schultz was earning $6,000 a day selling his drugs and Mallinckrodt, the pharmaceutical company that flooded Florida with hundreds of millions of oxycodone pills, paid a relatively small penalty.
Kermit, West Virginia, which is a town with 400 people residents has one main pharmacy and they ordered 3 million doses of the opioid hydrocodone, that averages out to 75,000 pills per resident. They even have a drive-through to collect them. This pharmacy sold them 5 million doses, in two years. The pharmacy does not have to plead guilty to crime or wrong doing because they have the option to to pay a 13 million dollar fine instead, and free to sell more and as much as they want to whoever they want. Then, the same company went under monitoring because of their wrong doing but, the monitoring was done by the company itself so of course they ignored their wrongdoing and got another fine this time 150 million dollar fine, but they gladly paid it again, to clean their record. 150 million dollars was 1/1000 of their profits that same years so they still got away with 999 times 150 million dollars and a clean record, no criminal files.
The DEA inspector was interviewed and said his hands are tied by the government. Companies are allowed to settle for 1/1000 of their profits even taxes are higher than that. Taxes are what 8% at most? The criminal fines are 0.01%. The problem starts and ends, with the government.
Where is the outrage?
Tiny West Virginia Town Flooded With 3 Million Opioids During Drug Epidemic
A major drug company shipped over 3 million prescription opioids to a single pharmacy in a tiny West Virginia town in the span of just 10 months, according to a congressional report released Wednesday detailing the drug epidemic there. McKesson Corp. supplied almost 10,000 hydrocodone pills daily to one now-closed pharmacy in Kermit, a town with only 400 residents, The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports. The pills were reportedly supplied even after the pharmacy was flagged for “suspect pill orders” in 2007. The report from the House Energy and Commerce Committee also concluded that McKesson and other drug distributors, like Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen, were shipping an “inordinate” number of pills to West Virginia, one of the states hit hardest by the opioid epidemic. The three distributors reportedly sent a total of “900 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills” between 2005 and 2016, a period in which thousands of West Virginians fatally overdosed on prescription opioids. The congressional committee said the shipments were an example of “failures that contributed to the worsening of the opioid epidemic.” The committee also criticized the DEA for failing to prevent the massive shipments.
Report exposes drug distributor: WV town got millions of pills in 10 months | News | herald-dispatch.com
Report exposes drug distributor: WV town got millions of pills in 10 months
CHARLESTON - 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 this week.
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 sixth 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.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you think this investigation turned up something unheard of or unusual, you'd be wrong. The exact same bust happened in Florida last year when Dr. Barry Schultz was sentenced to 157 years in prison for running a 'pain clinic' where he handed out oxycodone to 'patients' who stood outside in long lines every morning waiting for his clinic to open the door. dr. Schultz was earning $6,000 a day selling his drugs and Mallinckrodt, the pharmaceutical company that flooded Florida with hundreds of millions of oxycodone pills, paid a relatively small penalty.
Kermit, West Virginia, which is a town with 400 people residents has one main pharmacy and they ordered 3 million doses of the opioid hydrocodone, that averages out to 75,000 pills per resident. They even have a drive-through to collect them. This pharmacy sold them 5 million doses, in two years. The pharmacy does not have to plead guilty to crime or wrong doing because they have the option to to pay a 13 million dollar fine instead, and free to sell more and as much as they want to whoever they want. Then, the same company went under monitoring because of their wrong doing but, the monitoring was done by the company itself so of course they ignored their wrongdoing and got another fine this time 150 million dollar fine, but they gladly paid it again, to clean their record. 150 million dollars was 1/1000 of their profits that same years so they still got away with 999 times 150 million dollars and a clean record, no criminal files.
The DEA inspector was interviewed and said his hands are tied by the government. Companies are allowed to settle for 1/1000 of their profits even taxes are higher than that. Taxes are what 8% at most? The criminal fines are 0.01%. The problem starts and ends, with the government.
Where is the outrage?