WASHINGTON — The CEO of Cardinal Health told House members he was “deeply sorry” for the company’s poor oversight of some opioid orders. The chairman of Miami-Luken’s board broke ranks with four peers by directly acknowledging his company had contributed to the opioid crisis. And McKesson’s CEO, after minutes of being pressed, said his company had fired employees in light of its previous oversight practices.
But for hours on Tuesday, executives from five drug distributor companies largely parried questions from House members and attempted to shift blame to anyone but them — to the Drug Enforcement Administration, physicians, and pharmacies, among others.
“I just want you to feel shame,” Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.) told the executives at one point, suggesting that financial penalties were insufficient and alluding to jail time. “So what’s the proper accountability? What’s the punishment? It’s just a slap on the wrist? Maybe a hundredth of one percent of the revenue? What’s the punishment that fits this crime?”
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I have terrible chronic pain. The war on drugs ends up being the war in pain patients. I understand that there’s abuse of opioids. I get it. But I NEED adequate and ongoing opioid pain medicine to live my life in a half way decent way. For TRUE pain patients, real addiction ~ not dependence. (Lots of meds make the body dependent on them. Not just opiods) is less then one half of one percent. That’s a fact. The DEA needs to get it together. There needs to be a balance. Safety in one side, and real pain relief for chronic pain sufferers in the other. I get used to medicine. My body flushes them out extremely quickly. I’m the person who tells the dentist to give me more and more novacain shots. So when it comes to pain meds~ I NEED MORE! My doctor is scared to death to treat my pain in a manner that would be acceptable to me to be normal. It’s brutal. Just brutal. 😔So sad for all the addicts out there. As Marilyn Manson sang,” There’s a hole in the soul where the feelings go…” It’s our fake and dangerous Machine Culture that’s messing up all these ppl. They just want to feel better. Their chronic pain is invisible. I’ve lost too many beloved young ppl to overdose. My own son died. I was able to give him CPR and he survived. He’s clean today. I’ve seen both sides of this mess up close and personal. I just want to live a normal, lower pain life. I hurt so bad I don’t leave my chair most of the time. It’s exhausting being in so much pain all the time. It shouldn’t be this way. 😢