releases: https://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/must-read/drug-maker-thwarted-plan-to-limit-oxycontin-prescriptions-at-dawn-of-opioid-epidemic
Data license: MIT · Data source: dwillis/congress-press
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| url | title | date | year | month | party | chamber | state | member_name | bioguide_id | domain | scraper | source | date_source | text | has_text | collected_at | updated_at |
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| https://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/must-read/drug-maker-thwarted-plan-to-limit-oxycontin-prescriptions-at-dawn-of-opioid-epidemic | Drug maker thwarted plan to limit OxyContin prescriptions at dawn of opioid epidemic | 2016-10-26 | 2016 | 2016-10 | Independent | House | VT | Bernard Sanders | S000033 | www.sanders.senate.gov | legacy | Drug maker thwarted plan to limit OxyContin prescriptions at dawn of opioid epidemic Wednesday, October 26, 2016 WELCH, W.Va. — The warning signs of what would become a deadly opioid epidemic emerged in early 2001. That’s when officials of the state employee health plan in West Virginia noticed a surge in deaths attributed to oxycodone, the active ingredient in the painkiller OxyContin. They quickly decided to do something about it: OxyContin prescriptions would require prior authorization. It was a way to ensure that only people who genuinely needed the painkiller could get it and that people abusing opioids could not. But an investigation by STAT has found that Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of OxyContin, thwarted the state’s plan by paying a middleman, known as a pharmacy benefits manager, to prevent insurers from limiting prescriptions of the drug. The financial quid pro quo between the painkiller maker and the pharmacy benefits manager, Merck Medco, came to light in West Virginia court records unsealed by a state judge at the request of STAT, and in interviews with people familiar with the arrangement. “We were screaming at the wall,” said Tom Susman, who headed the state’s public employee insurance agency in the early 2000s and led the push to limit OxyContin prescribing in West Virginia. “We saw it coming,” he said of the opioid epidemic, which today causes 28,000 overdose deaths a year in the United States. “Now to see the aftermath is the most frustrating thing I have ever seen.” Continue reading here. | 1 | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z |