Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

powersurge t1_j29uez2 wrote

AmerisourceBergen is the largest company by revenue (not including government, university or hospitals) in Pennsylvania and one of the big three of the pharmaceutical distributors. It will be interesting to see why the DoJ is singling out this company from the other two larger distributors.

I project that just like AmerisourceBergen is accused of here, all three of the big distributors have just been refusing to take any responsibility for what they do: drug distribution. They think that all they need to do is report some of their data to the government when the government requests it. Never do these corporations wonder, "why do we need a distributor between the pharmaceutical and the pharmacy/hospital" at all. Unless they are forced by the government to take some responsibility, they just won't, even in the face of tens of thousands of dead Americans every year.

32

ForkBombGoBoom t1_j2arobm wrote

Without distributors, patients who are prescribed medicine can't get it. They vet pharmacies and report suspicious transactions to the DEA, and severed relationships with 4 of the 5 pharmacies the DEA cited. This is accordance with federal law. What more should they have done?

34

powersurge t1_j2b6o52 wrote

AmerisourceBergen surely has a role to play here. They distributed to pharmacies and towns enough at times to give each resident of the town like a 100 pills. I expect a corporation that distributes drugs that everyone knew could be deadly to be monitoring that distribution. They didn't. They seem to have only responded to government mandated requests for information.

9

GreenAnder t1_j2blq04 wrote

“If we stop the money people from making money we all die” is a statement that hopefully isn’t true one day

2

ForkBombGoBoom t1_j2buo2n wrote

People need the pain meds. Do you want them to get them or just suffer? Or is there some magical fairy that will deliver the meds to the pharmacy and make sure they aren't doing something shady?

4

Live_For_Love t1_j2dl5jf wrote

Unfortunately, pain patients are already being left to suffer. As a pain patient with severe pain from valid and diagnosed diseases, I still don’t get adequate pain medication because doctors are terrified to prescribe.

4

ForkBombGoBoom t1_j2dmso7 wrote

My stepfather needed opiates for pain for a long time, and getting them prescribed and approved by insurance was often a struggle.

2

Glystopher t1_j2ewy9q wrote

Makes me hate the DEA, but I already have a problem with law enforcement, have hated cops since I was a teen.

1

VorAbaddon t1_j2b77d7 wrote

Could be because of the records they kept. Thats what threw me for a loop about the Sackler lawsuits. There were emails with exchanges like (paraphrasing):

"Hey... this is gonna kill a metric fuckload of people annually..."

"Yeah, and? You want to make quarterly goal or not?"

Like even putting the dripping lack of morality and ethics asode, who the fuck is dumb enough to commit that shit to writing?

8

Glad_Nefariousness_6 t1_j2dmpe1 wrote

This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever read. I’d much rather see the govt make that self assessment than private industry. AB has already been investigated. Where is the liability for the Obama admin that threatened the reimbursements to doctors based on patient feedback? Addicts demanding scripts and doctors saying no could result in lower reimbursements - many doctors say that also played a major role. And considering how pharma lobbyists essentially wrote the ACA, it’s a wonder how Obama gets no blame here. He’s at least as to blame as AB.

1

OprahtheHutt t1_j2ajwqh wrote

Opioid overdose deaths are overwhelmingly caused by illegal opioids. ABC doesn’t distribute illegal drugs so they are not complicit in any deaths.

−21

towerninja t1_j2c96i9 wrote

The addictions that caused those overdoses started with prescription pills

0