From pills to fentanyl
As of 2018, the U.S. opioid epidemic has claimed more than 400,000 lives. Yet the faces of some victims remain hidden.
‘It only took one pill’
How opioid addiction starts: Five people describe the moments that led them down a trail of dependency.
‘Sell Baby Sell!’
New details about the marketing campaigns used to persuade the medical community that addiction was rare and patients were suffering needlessly.
Her son died of an overdose. Now she sends hundreds of cards to parents like her, hoping to ease the stigma.
MaryBeth Moore Zocco used to send her son, Ryan Moore, care packages. Last December, days before Moore, 25, died from an overdose, his mom mailed him a box with fun winter-themed items: hot chocolate ingredients, an ornament and a red plush blanket. Moore, who struggled with addiction on and off for at least seven years, …
The pharmacy, the pills and the crisis
Walgreens dominated the nation’s retail opioid market from 2006 through 2012, buying about 13 billion pills — 3 billion more than its closest competitor.
The Opioids Deal
Inside the plaintiffs’ war room, bleary-eyed, caffeinated lawyers worked on what would be one of the most important cases of their careers — the first bellwether trial in the national opioid litigation against the country’s biggest drug companies.
Inside the drug industry’s plan to defeat the DEA
Newly unsealed documents in a landmark civil case in Cleveland provide clues to one of the most enduring mysteries of the opioid epidemic: How were drug companies able to weaken the federal government’s most powerful enforcement weapon at the height of the crisis? The industry enlisted members of Congress to limit the powers of the …
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Trend in health workers falling victim to opioids
It’s been more than a year since Iyisha Keller was found unconscious in a bathroom at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center’s Clements hospital in Dallas, a syringe labeled fentanyl in her arm. Keller, 36, had been working in the neonatal intensive care unit. She was pronounced dead in the emergency room.
Sweeping changes in chronic pain
Carol and Hank Skinner of Alexandria, Va., can talk about pain all day long. Carol, 77, once had so much pain in her right hip and so little satisfaction with medical treatment she vowed to stay in bed until she died. Hank, 79, has had seven shoulder surgeries, lung cancer, open-heart surgery, a blown-out knee …
States take on Big Pharma
Nearly 250,000 people died because of opioid overdoses between 2010 and 2017. IRW and the Washington Post reported in May that the Trump administration has failed to allocate sufficient funds to fight the epidemic and has left crucial drug enforcement posts unfilled, despite declaring opioid addiction a public health emergency in 2017. While the federal …
