In response to questioning by lawmakers, five drug company executives claim that their companies played no role in the growing epidemic of prescription painkillers addiction around the country.

Earlier this month, Republican House Representative Gregg Harper, of Mississippi, asked five executives from major drug companies if they believed that their companies had played a role in the country’s growing opioid epidemic.

Executives at Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen, McKesson Corporation, and H.D. Smith LLC (recently acquired by AmerisourceBergen) firmly stated that they believed that their companies were not responsible for the prescription painkillers addiction epidemic, even in part.

In contrast, Miami-Lukin’s board chairman, Dr. Joseph Mastrandrea responded that he did believe that his company had played a role in the epidemic of prescription painkillers addiction.

These statements were made in front of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, according to Law360. The subcommittee held the hearing to discuss the rise in prescription painkillers addiction across the country.

The subcommittee is currently investigating unusually large shipments of opioids to small pharmacies in West Virginia, and the drug executives were questioned on their policies and drug distribution in that area.

The house subcommittee reported that over 780 million hydrocodone and oxycodone polls were sent to West Virginia between 2007 and 2012, which would be enough for each West Virginian to take 433 doses of the drugs.

The subcommittee states that together, AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson delivered over 50% of these pills during the five-year period.

Further stressing the magnitude of drugs delivered the not largely populated area, the subcommittee noted that one pharmacy in Mount Gay-Shamrock, a West Virginia community of under 1,900 residents, was shipped over 16.5 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills between 2006 and 2016.

The subcommittee questioned the drug executives on their policies regarding drug shipment around the country, especially to West Virginia. The lawmakers alleged that the drug companies were shipping unnecessarily large orders to certain areas and failing to report these orders to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.

For Cardinal Health’s part, executive chairman George Barrett apologized for the shipments to West Virginia, while still maintaining that his position that the company is blameless in the growing problem of prescription painkillers addiction nationwide.

According to Law360, he stated that “to the people of West Virginia, I want to express my personal regret for judgements that we’d make differently today with regard to two pharmacies… With the benefit of hindsight, I wish we had moved faster and asked a different set of questions.”

In contrast, H.D. Smith’s former head, James Smith, defended his company’s reporting processes in regards to the West Virginia opioid shipments.

He claims that the company made its reporting processes less stringent in 2009 to respond to a DEA criticism that the company was “over-reporting,” flagging orders as suspicious, when the DEA would not consider them to be suspicious.

A number of lawmakers on the subcommittee expressed extreme displeasure of the companies’ conduct, stating that they feel they should feel culpable for the epidemic of prescription painkillers addiction. However, the lawmakers have yet to determine if the companies should be punished for their alleged involvement in the opioid crisis and for the alleged over-shipment of drugs to West Virginia.

In general, opioid overdose death lawsuits are filed individually by each plaintiff and are not class actions.

If your loved died from an opioid overdose in the last three years from an addiction that began as a legal opioid prescription from his or her doctor, you may have a legal claim. Get help now by filling out the form on this page for a FREE case evaluation.

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