First Major Pharmaceutical Company, Former Executives, Charged Criminally For Opioid Scandal

New York City indicted Rochester Drug Co-Operative, Laurence Doud III, and William Pietruszewski, on Tuesday. Doud is the retired CEO of the Rochester Drug Co-Operative. William Pietruszewski is the company’s former chief of compliance. NPR reports they are being charged with conspiracy to distribute controlled narcotics — oxycodone and fentanyl — for non-medical reasons and conspiracy to defraud the United States.

The Rochester company and Pietruszewski are also charged failing to file suspicious order reports to the DEA.

Though Rochester Drug Co-Operative Inc. is one of the nation’s 10 largest pharmaceutical distributors in the U.S. But the company is small compared to the big players in the opioid scandal like Purdue Pharma, Endo Health Solutions, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, and Johnson & Johnson.

Laurence Doud III was the CEO of the company and retired in 2017. Doud is being accused of encouraging his sales staff to bring in new customers with no questions asked, supplying pharmacies that the company knew were “illegally dispensing narcotics.”

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When Rochester’s largest customer went from buying 70,000 units of oxycodone per month in October 2012 to more than 200,000 units per month a year later, Doud had its back — overruling his own compliance officers and ordering that the pills keep flowing because it was a ‘big account,’ the indictment said.”

Fox 8 Cleveland

Doud is awaiting arraignment on two counts of conspiracy related to drug trafficking. His lawyer says Doud will be fighting the charges. Doud sued Rochester Drug Co-Operative last year claiming that the company was attempting to use him as a scapegoat for the regulatory tissues.

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Between May 2012 and November 2016, the company received and filled over 1.5 million orders for controlled substances from its pharmacy customers. However, it reported only four suspicious orders to the DEA. According to the complaint, the company failed to report at least 2,000 suspicious orders.”

NPR

This prosecution is the first of its kind: executives of a pharmaceutical distributor and the distributor itself have been charged with drug trafficking, trafficking the same drugs that are fueling the opioid epidemic that is ravaging this country. Our Office will do everything in its power to combat this epidemic, from street-level dealers to the executives who illegally distribute drugs from their boardrooms.”

U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman

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Americans Are More Likely To Die From Opioid Overdoses Than Car Accidents

Americans are most likely to die of heart disease. It’s listed as the number one cause of death in America said to kill 635,260 people a year. Car accidents kill about 40,000 people a year. Car accident deaths are on the decline but opioid deaths are increasing. In fact, opioid deaths just passed car accidents. This should put opioid deaths at the bottom of this list of 12 Leading Causes of Deaths in the U.S.

This is a first.  Americans are now more likely to die from an opioid overdose than from a car wreck, according to the National Safety Council.

Vox did some statistics:

Based on 2017 data, people in the US have a 1 in 103 chance of dying in a motor vehicle crash over their lifetime, but a 1 in 96 chance of dying of an opioid overdose.

In comparison, a person has a 1 in 6 chance of dying of heart disease, a 1 in 7 chance of dying of cancer, a 1 in 285 chance of dying of a gun assault, a 1 in 1,117 chance of dying by drowning, a 1 in 188,364 chance of dying in a plane crash, and a 1 in 218,106 chance of getting killed by lightning.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the age-adjusted motor vehicle death rate hit 11.5 per 100,000 people in 2017, down from a recent peak of 15.2 in 2002.

By contrast, opioid overdose deaths — now largely driven by illicit fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid that’s spread in black markets for drugs — hit an age-adjusted rate of 14.9 per 100,000 in 2017, up from 2.9 in 1999.

Click to read more on Vox

Related: Colbert Calls Out Big Pharma For New Plans To Profit On Opioid Addiction
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Despite Addiction Concerns, FDA Approves Potent New Opioid Painkiller 1,000x Stronger Than Morphine

The Food and Drug Administration has approved a new opioid medication that’s up to 10 times more powerful than fentanyl. Critics say the drug will contribute to the opioid crisis.

The new drug is called Dsuvia. It’s produced by a company called AcelRx Pharmaceuticals Inc. The company says that their opioid is a 3-millimeter-wide tablet of sufentanil designed to be administered under the tongue where it will dissolve. The effects happen fast. The company sees use for acute physical pain in hospitals, surgical centers, emergency rooms, and in battlefield situations.

There are very tight restrictions being placed on the distribution and use of this product. We’ve learned much from the harmful impact that other oral opioid products can have in the context of the opioid crisis. We’ve applied those hard lessons as part of the steps we’re taking to address safety concerns for Dsuvia.” – FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb

Opioid addiction is often considered to be the biggest crisis in the U.S. More people die from opioid overdoses than breast cancer.

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The company says that DSUVIA will not be sold in retail pharmacies or available for outpatient use. The FDA says that it cannot be used for more than 72 hours at a time. This same drug with the chemical name sufentanil is already available as IV medication and is administered to patients with acute pain who cannot swallow a pill, but this new drug can be used for people who cannot swallow or take an IV. The company

Projected annual sales for the drug are said to be at 1.1 billion dollars. DSUVIA is expected to be available in the first quarter of next year.

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Colbert Calls Out Big Pharma For New Plans To Profit On Opioid Addiction (Video)

Purdue Pharma, creators of Oxycontin, developed and patented a new drug earlier this year aimed to help those addicted to opioids to stop top taking them. This new drug is a fast-acting form of buprenorphine. It’s a mild opioid intended to ease withdrawal symptoms.

Previously, the drug was prescribed in tablet or as fast-dissolving strips. This new prescription is a “wafer” that dissolves in the mouth within a few seconds.

Many have blamed Purdue Pharma for the epidemic of opioid painkiller addictions and deaths. Many are expressing outrage that the Sacklers, the family that owns Purdue, has profited from opioid addictions, and now plans to profit from the antidote.

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https://www.facebook.com/colbertlateshow/videos/2100395890224014



Puget Sound Mussels Contain Opioids, Antidepressants, and Chemotherapy Drugs

The biannual Puget Sound mussel monitoring study found that three of eighteen samples of native bay mussels contained trace amounts of oxycodone, the chemotherapy drug Melphalan, and antidepressants. Scientists from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) transplant uncontaminated mussels to various locations in the Seattle and Bremerton harbors and check them two to three months later. It is not unusual for pharmaceuticals and illegal drugs like cocaine to be found during these surveys, but this is the first time scientists have found opioids. Jennifer Lanksbury is a biologist at the WDWW.

What we eat and what we excrete goes into the Puget Sound…It’s telling me there’s a lot of people taking oxycodone in the Puget Sound area.”

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How Do They Get There?

Opioid use in the U.S. has spiraled out of control, with deaths from pharmaceutical versions, heroin, and fentanyl nearly tripling since 2002. Finding evidence of that crisis in our waterways is a when, not an if. But how does that happen?

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The biggest culprits are wastewater plants discharging into the bay. Opioids enter the waste stream through human excrement and improperly disposed of pharmaceuticals (flushing them). An earlier study in the Great Lakes found that wastewater treatment facilities were only able to remove half of the prescription drugs that enter the plant. A quarter of chemicals had low removal rates, where there was less than 25 percent chance of removing 75 percent or more of the drug. Runoff from agricultural sources is also a contributor to the presence of harmful chemicals in aquatic environments.

What Do the Fish Think?

The bay mussels are not likely to metabolize these opioids, especially in the trace amounts found, but what about other fish? Zebrafish, although not a resident of the Puget Sound, learn how to dose themselves with opioids, and scientists surmise that salmon and other native species will have similar reactions. The effects of these drugs on the aquatic population will likely be more clear as the opioid crisis continues to gain momentum.

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The opioids were found in trace amounts, but the chemotherapy drug Melphalan was found in doses that correspond to a recommended dose in humans. This drug interacts with DNA and is a carcinogen. The National Institutes of Health notes that

…There is sufficient evidence for the carcinogenicity of melphalan from studies in experimental animals. When administered by intraperitoneal injection, melphalan caused cancer of lymphatic tissue (lymphosarcoma) in male mice, lung tumors in mice of both sexes, and cancer of the abdominal cavity (sarcoma of the peritoneum) in rats of both sexes…”

Water At Risk

Water is our most precious resource, and we have not been good stewards of it. The ecosystem that keeps our bodies of water and our very planet healthy is constantly being changed and manipulated without a way to correct for the changes. This is the first evidence of opioids in the water, but other drugs have become commonplace as we see with the Melphalan. There are no procedures in place to keep the same thing from happening with opioids.

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