Ex-Pharma Chief Charged with Flooding Appalachian Towns with Opioids

"Ex-pharma chief charged with flooding Appalachian towns with opioids." The Guardian, July 19, 19. Anthony Rattini accused of ignoring evidence of opioids’ harm. Charges mark shift in effort to hold drug firms to account.

Federal prosecutors have charged a former president of a major pharmaceutical distributor with flooding parts of Appalachia with millions of opioid pills while ignoring evidence they were driving addiction and death. The arrest of Anthony Rattini, the ex-head of Miami-Luken, on criminal charges marks a significant shift in legal action to hold the drug industry to account for the US opioid epidemic as hundreds of civil actions against manufacturers and distributors head to court.

Rattini is accused of distributing powerful narcotic painkillers for other than medical reasons to more than 200 pharmacies across West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana and Tennessee. Rattini was charged alongside Miami-Luken’s former compliance officer, James Barclay, and two West Virginia pharmacists who ordered large amounts of the drugs from the company.

Prosecutors accuse the Miami-Luken executives of shipping huge quantities of opioid pills to pharmacies in rural towns over several years despite warnings from the Drug Enforcement Administration. They are alleged to have deliberately ignored evidence that the opioids were not being dispensed with legitimate prescriptions.

The company has previously acknowledged delivering 5.7m opioid pills between 2005 and 2011 to the small town of Kermit, West Virginia with a population of just 380 people. In 2008 alone, it shipped 5,264 pills for every man woman and child in Kermit. Most of them went to two Save-Rite pharmacies whose owner was later jailed for working with a doctor running a “pill mill”, which prescribed narcotics in large quantities to anyone prepared to pay cash and drew people from hundreds of miles away...

More, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/19/opioids-crisis-appalachia-painkillers-drugs



- Federal authorities accused Miami-Luken of shipping huge quantities opioid pills to pharmacies in rural towns over several years despite warnings.