# 62

West Virginia and DEA release previously "secret" data regarding wholesale shipments of legally produced opioids: "That amounts to 433 of the frequently abused opioid pills for every man, woman and child in the state of 1.84 million people."

Article and excerpt, below, indicate that pharmaceutical wholesalers had successfully gone to court and succeeded in blocking the release of their sales volumes in West Virginia to the public.

Data released as a result of West Virginia Attorney General law suit and DEA and Charleston Gazette-Mail and also indicates that shipments increased as opioid deaths increased.

["These numbers will shake even the most cynical observer," former Delegate Don Perdue, D-Wayne, a retired pharmacist who finished his term earlier this month, told the newspaper. "Distributors have fed their greed on human frailties and to criminal effect. There is no excuse and should be no forgiveness."

McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen Drug Co. together control about 85 percent of the U.S. drug distribution market by revenue and provided more pills to West Virginia than other wholesalers.]

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2016/12/20/agency-records-reportedly-show-west-virginia-flooded-with-painkillers.html?refresh=true