Over the past year we have heard much about the opioid epidemic gripping the U.S., as Big Pharma rakes in billions from people getting hooked on prescription painkillers such as OxyContin and Vicodin.
Nowhere is the problem more pervasive than in West Virginia, which has the highest drug overdose rate in the nation and one of the highest prescription rates of opioids. A disproportionate number of manual labor jobs like coal mining, combined with a high rate of unemployment, has made the state ripe for the picking by Big Pharma.
Newly unsealed court documents reveal the extent to which prescription drug wholesalers have knowingly contributed to the opioid addiction problem, by colluding with sham “pain clinics” to push their products on the small towns of West Virginia.