Hill panel probing opioids abuse targets distributor firms
Congressional investigators say wholesale pharmaceutical distributors shipped hundreds of millions of prescription opioid pills to West Virginia, a state disproportionately ravaged by deaths caused by the addictive drugs. Now, lawmakers want executives of those companies to explain how that happened. Current and former officials from five distributor companies are set to give sworn testimony on the subject Tuesday to a House subcommittee. Their appearances come during an election-year push by Congress to pass largely modest legislation aimed at curbing a growing epidemic that saw nearly 64,000 people die last year from drug overdoses, with two-thirds of those deaths involving opioids. The House Energy and Commerce Committee began investigating the distribution of prescription opioids last May. The panel has said distributors sent more than 780 million pills of hydrocodone and oxycodone — prescription pain-killers that have caused many overdose deaths — to West Virginia from 2007 to 2012. That’s an average of more than 400 pills per person over that period in the state, where around 1.8 million people live. Investigators said 20.8 million opioid pills were shipped from 2006 to 2016 to Williamson, population 2,900. One pharmacy in Kermit, with around 400 residents, ranked 22nd in the U.S. in the number of hydrocodone pills it received in 2006, according to the investigation. West Virginia had the nation’s highest drug overdose death rate of 52 per 100,000 in 2016, according to federal figures. Other states with high death rates included Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, as well as Washington, D.C. Nearly 12 million people misused opioids in 2016, according to federal figures. Executives slated to testify included top officials from Cardinal Health Inc., AmerisourceBergen Corp. and McKesson Corp., the nation’s three biggest wholesale drug distributors. The executives were appearing before the Energy and Commerce committee’s oversight and investigations subcommittee. The government requires distributors of controlled substances to report suspicious drug orders to the federal Drug Enforcement Administration and to deny questionable transactions. The Trump administration and lawmakers of both parties have been drawing attention to opioids, a range of pain-killing drugs that can be addictive when misused. They include prescription drugs like hydrocodone, oxycodone and codeine, synthetic opioids like fentanyl that can be made illegally, and illegal drugs like heroin. The Energy and Commerce panel has been working on dozens of bills that include encouraging doctors to use non-addictive pain killers, spurring research on such products, broadening access to treatment and giving financial incentives for drug treatment specialists to work in underserved areas. Senate committees are working on their own legislation. The setting was reminiscent of 1994 hearings at which executives of the nation’s tobacco companies testified before the Energy and Commerce panel, then controlled by Democrats. The officials said they didn’t believe cigarettes were addictive, despite evidence to the contrary. Four years later, the industry reached a settlement to pay the states more than $200 billion over 25 years to reimburse them for tobacco-related health care costs. Republished with permission from the Associated Press.
Bradley Byrne: Working to combat opioid addiction
Hundreds of thousands of Americans have lost their lives in recent years due to drug abuse, and the problem only seems to be getting worse. In 2016, more than two million Americans had an addiction to prescription or illicit opioids. An opioid is a type of narcotic derived from the opium poppy, which includes drugs such as morphine, codeine, hydrocodone, and oxycodone. While the drugs are often prescribed in response to injuries and body pains, they are easily abused and addictive. The opioid issue in America has reached the point of a crisis. Since 2000, over 300,000 Americans have died from overdoses involving opioids. That is 300,000 families who lost loved ones. 300,000 parents, children, coworkers, spouses, and friends. We are at the point when approximately 175 deaths each day are attributed to drug overdoses. Drug overdose is now the leading cause of injury death in the United Sates, even greater than both traffic crashes and gun-related deaths. This is also not an abstract issue that does not impact us here in Southwest Alabama. I have spoken to numerous local law enforcement and medical officials about how the opioid drug abuse problem is prevalent in our own backyard. Many of the people who become addicted to opioids first start taking the drugs legally after receiving a prescription from a doctor. For example, a common theme is athletes who suffer a sports-related injury, undergo surgery, and then become addicted to opioids during the recovery process. The personal stories you hear are truly heartbreaking. As First Lady Melania Trump said about opioid abuse during a speech last week, “this can happen to any of us. Drug addiction can take your friends, neighbors, or your family. No state has been spared, and no demographic has been untouched.” To be clear, addiction is not a criminal issue that simply requires putting more people in jail. In fact, that may be counterproductive in many situations. Instead, we need to work to help individuals battle through their addiction with a combination of counseling and other medical strategies. Last week, President Donald Trump acted to help address the opioid crisis by declaring a public health emergency. Through this action, President Trump is mobilizing his entire Administration to address drug addiction and opioid abuse. President Trump has also created the “President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and Opioid Crisis,” which is still actively preparing a report for the President on ways to further help combat the opioid crisis. A big focus is also on increasing public awareness about the issue. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has launched the Prescription Awareness Campaign, which features real-life stories of people who have lost loved ones to prescription opioid overdose. The House has also acted over the last two years to combat the opioid crisis. For example, we passed two important bipartisan bills to direct more resources and improve policies related to opioid abuse. The Comprehensive Recovery and Addiction Act combined multiple bills dealing with a full range of opioid-connected issues, while the 21st Century Cures Act included funding to help states address the opioid prescription drug crisis. Clearly, additional funding is necessary to help save American lives, and this year’s government funding bill directed $781 million to help with addiction prevention, education, and treatment. The additional funding also goes toward helping local law enforcement officials as they tackle this heartbreaking epidemic. We cannot and will not sit back and allow the opioid crisis to take the lives of the people we love and care for. We must fight back and ensure Americans get the help they need. • • • Bradley Byrne is a member of U.S. Congress representing Alabama’s 1st Congressional District.
