Althea Legaspi April 20, 2021, 11:34 PM·1 min read
HBO has released a trailer for the upcoming two-part documentary, The Crime of the Century, which examines Big Pharma and the opioid crisis. Part One of the Alex Gibney-directed film premieres via HBO Max on May 10th, with Part Two airing the following night. The HBO original documentary is presented in association with The Washington Post.
The new clip features patients, medical professionals, journalists, authors, whistleblowers, investigators, insiders and others. Together they detail how Big Pharma used its considerable money, marketing might and political influence to keep their prescription opioids over-produced, overprescribed and circulating via unethical tactics in distribution, manipulation of government regulations and more, which perpetuated the opioid epidemic. Meanwhile, opioid addictions grew exponentially, and many lost their lives.
Drug giants go on trial today at 'ground zero of the opioid epidemic'
“The wholesale distributors have wholly ignored their legal obligations."
Three major drug distributors are set to stand trial on Monday. The distributors are charged with pushing opioid painkillers in Cabell County and Huntington, W.V.
Cabell County has been referred to as “ground zero of the opioid epidemic sweeping the nation.”
Three of the largest U.S. drug distributors are set to stand trial on Monday after being charged with illegally supplying West Virginia with millions of prescription opioids, resulting in the country’s highest overdose rate.
McKesson, AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal Health are being sued in a series of federal cases by Cabell County and Huntington, W.Va., for pushing opioid painkillers, leading to the rise of the opioid epidemic — the worst in U.S. history.
Cabell County has been referred to as “ground zero of the opioid epidemic sweeping the nation,” where close to 100 million opioids were prescribed in the county with a population of approximately 90,000.
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The three major distributors are accused of working with doctors and pharmacists to overprescribe opioids to anyone willing to pay, despite laws that require these distributors to flag and pause suspicious sales.
“The wholesale distributors have wholly ignored their legal obligations,” Cabell County’s lawyers said. “Instead of implementing controls to stop opioid abuse and alerting authorities to suspicious orders, the distributors have chosen to abuse their privileged position, lining their pockets by shipping massive quantities of drugs to distributors, pharmacies, and dispensaries without performing any checks – with devastating consequences to Americans.”
In response, the distributors have stated they only provided drugs legally to licensed pharmacists who received prescriptions from doctors.
The trial is set to be the first in a series of federal cases trying to establish if opioid suppliers, distributors and pharmacies are liable for billions of dollars to cities, counties and tribes that have suffered from the opioid crisis, which has led to more than 500,000 deaths since 1999.
In October 2019, McKesson and AmerisourceBergen, alongside two other companies, paid a $260 million settlement in October 2019 in a similar case in Ohio mere hours before the trial was set to start.
More than 1.1 billion opioid pills were prescribed in West Virginia between 2006 and 2014, despite the state’s overdose rate rising to the highest in the United States. Close to 9 million opioid pills were supplied to one pharmacy in Kermit, which has a population of 350, in only two years.
The leaders of three major drug distributors went before a congressional hearing in 2018, where Democrats and Republicans condemned them for denying they and their companies played a role in the opioid crisis.
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