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‘60 Minutes’ takes aim at the pharmaceutical industry in opioid epidemic

Oct. 15 episode interviews “whistleblower” Joe Rannazzisi, former DEA Deputy Assistant Administrator, who accuses distributors of “fueling the opioid epidemic by turning a blind eye to pain pills being diverted for illicit use.”

Oct. 15 episode interviews “whistleblower” Joe Rannazisi, former DEA Deputy Assistant Administrator, who accuses distributors of “fueling the opioid epidemic by turning a blind eye to pain pills being diverted for illicit use.”
Oct. 15 episode interviews “whistleblower” Joe Rannazisi, former DEA Deputy Assistant Administrator, who accuses distributors of “fueling the opioid epidemic by turning a blind eye to pain pills being diverted for illicit use.”

“Opioids could kill nearly 500,000 Americans in the next decade,” screamed the headline in a June 27, 2017 StatNews story.

The New York Times said recently, “The first government account of nationwide drug deaths shows roughly 64,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2016. The death count is the latest consequence of an escalating public health crisis: opioid addition, now made more deadly by an influx of illicitly manufactured fentanyl and similar drugs.”

The epidemic was the subject of a scathing report and investigation by the TV show and the Washington Post on the pharmaceutical industry—and in particular pharma distributors—on CBS News’ “60 Minutes” Oct. 15 report, “Ex-DEA Agent: Opioid Crisis Fueled By Drug Industry And Congress.”

The television/online story said, “In the midst of the worst drug epidemic in American history, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's ability to keep addictive opioids off U.S. streets was derailed—that according to Joe Rannazzisi, one of the most important whistleblowers ever interviewed by 60 Minutes. Rannazzisi ran the DEA's Office of Diversion Control, the division that regulates and investigates the pharmaceutical industry. Now in a joint investigation by 60 Minutes and The Washington Post, Rannazzisi tells the inside story of how, he says, the opioid crisis was allowed to spread—aided by Congress, lobbyists, and a drug distribution industry that shipped, almost unchecked, hundreds of millions of pills to rogue pharmacies and pain clinics providing the rocket fuel for a crisis that, over the last two decades, has claimed 200,000 lives.”

HDA calls for communication

The Healthcare Distribution Alliance (HDA), which represents primary pharmaceutical distributors, issued the following statement from its President and CEO John M. Gray in response to the 60 Minutes/Washington Post coverage:

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