By comparison, Purdue and its affiliate Rhodes Pharmaceuticals supplied opioids to 2,967 people who died in the state. In Massachusetts, Mallinckrodt’s pain pills were supplied to more than half of those who died of opioid-related overdoses during the past 12 years: 9,673 people, according to an analysis of prescription and overdose death data by the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office. The baby-blue-colored pills, the equivalent to a hit of heroin, became so ubiquitous that the smuggling route from Florida to Appalachia became known as the “Blue Highway.” Their drugs had become the most popular on the street and they jumped in with both feet.”īetween 20, more than 270,000 people died of prescription opioid overdoses in the United States.Īs the opioid epidemic took hold of the nation, Mallinckrodt’s 30 mg oxycodone tablet became the preferred drug on the street, according to the DEA. “They were up to their eyeballs in oxycodone, and they knew exactly what they were doing. “Everybody thinks of Purdue when they think about the opioid epidemic, but Mallinckrodt was far worse,” said Jim Geldhof, a DEA supervisor who investigated Mallinckrodt before retiring in 2016 after four decades with the agency and now works as a consultant to cities suing the opioid industry. While the Sackler family, which owned Purdue, attracted intense national attention and became a cynosure of criticism after the company’s introduction of its blockbuster pill Ox圜ontin, the Mallinckrodt brand slipped under the radar. Between 20, Mallinckrodt accounted for 27 percent of the opioid market compared with 18 percent for Purdue Pharma, measured by the potency of the pills they produced, according to an analysis by The Post. While most Americans may have never heard of Mallinckrodt, the Drug Enforcement Administration called the company in 2010 “the kingpin within the drug cartel” of legitimate companies driving the opioid epidemic. Several state officials with claims against the company, led by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey (D), urged that the documents be made public. The Mallinckrodt documents are part of a cache of 1.4 million records, emails, audio recordings, videotaped depositions and other materials the company turned over as part of its $1.7 billion bankruptcy settlement in 2020. The documents, made public after years of litigation and bankruptcy proceedings, shed new light on how aggressively Mallinckrodt sought to increase its market share as the epidemic was raging. Between April and September of that year, Mallinckrodt’s sales representatives contacted those 239 prescribers more than 7,000 times. More than a quarter of those prescribers - 65 - were later convicted of crimes related to their medical practices, had their medical licenses suspended or revoked, or paid state or federal fines after being accused of wrongdoing, according to a Washington Post analysis of previously confidential Mallinckrodt documents and emails, along with criminal and civil background checks of the doctors. That year, more than 14,000 Americans died of prescription opioid overdoses. These doctors were among 239 medical professionals ranked by Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals as its top prescribers of opioids during the height of the pain pill epidemic, in 2013. He was arrested and sent to prison for eight years. Another tried to leave the country in the face of charges that he was operating illegal pill dispensing operations, or pill mills, in two states. Another was barred from practicing medicine after several of his patients died of drug overdoses. The largest manufacturer of opioids in the United States once cultivated a reliable stable of hundreds of doctors it could count on to write a steady stream of prescriptions for pain pills.īut one left the United States for Pakistan months before he was indicted on federal drug conspiracy and money laundering charges.
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