Drugs

Tiny WV Town Sues Drug Firms for Opioid ‘Devastation’

The pharmacist in tiny Kermit, WV (pop. 392) was making $500,000 a month selling opioids and the five drug wholesalers, including the nation’s three largest, supplying him knew it ꟷ yet they illegally looked away and kept shipping more and more, “motivated by profit and greed.” So alleges a lawsuit filed 1/31 in Mingo County circuit court by mayor Charles Sparks on behalf of the town. The case has drawn the attention of Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), who blamed FDA in a 2/2 CNN interview for “allow[ing] these new products to keep coming onto the market without taking anything off the market.” He also blamed DEA for allowing the distribution and supply of so many opioids in his state, which is the worst-affected in the nation by the opioid abuse epidemic.

Kermit’s 14-page lawsuit names McKesson Corp., AmerisourceBergen Drug Co., Cardinal Health 110 LLC, Miami-Luken Inc., H.D. Smith Wholesale Drug Co. and Cameron Justice, former owner-operator of a medical clinic in Kermit. It charges that all the defendants illegally and knowingly caused “devastation” that “has wrecked the local economy, over-burdened the budget of Kerm

it, and destroyed the lives of many residents who call Kermit home.”

Reporting on the case, the Charleston Gazette-Mail, citing DEA data, said the five wholesalers shipped nearly 9 million “highly addictive pain pills” to a single pharmacy in Kermit between 2007 and 2008, earning the unnamed pharmacist (who went to jail) $500,000 a month from prescriptions written at Justice’s clinic. “Despite the drugstore’s huge profits, Sav-Rite’s owner paid only about $2,500 a month in business and occupational taxes, Kermit town records show,” wrote investigative reporter Eric Eyre.

At its height, the Justice pill mill and the pharmacy drew traffic that “constantly clogged” the town with traffic from surrounding communities in Mingo and Wayne counties, he reported. “’I was afraid to get out of my automobile,’ said Anna Mae Wellman, a council member.”

Seeking both temporary and permanent restraining orders, the lawsuit asks the court, among other things, to make the defendants provide “all assistance necessary to address the addiction and the resulting destruction left by defendants’ actions,” as well as restitution and disgorgement, punitive damages, attorneys’ fees and costs.

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Gupta Raises Concerns About Overton’s Independence, Ideology

Overton Confirmation Remains Uncertain After Senate Hearing

FDA Classifies Boston Scientific Imager II Catheter Recall as Class I

FDA Approves Gazyva for Childhood-Onset Idiopathic Nephrotic Syndrome