Hold those responsible for opioid crisis accountable
Year after year, the opioid crisis continues to devastate Ohio families and communities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently released data featuring a grim statistic: fatal drug overdoses increased by 22% in Ohio in 2020.
It is an astonishing figure. It would be impossible to believe if it weren’t for the intimate familiarity Ohioans have with this crisis.
Nearly all of us know someone who has lost a loved one to drugs. For communities across Ohio, too many residents do not need statistics to understand the depth of this problem — they live with it every day.
That is why our fight against rampant opioid addiction must include measures to hold those who are responsible accountable for their actions.
Recently, I, along with several colleagues, introduced a resolution calling for an investigation into the role consulting firm Mckinsey & Company played in accelerating our nation’s opioid crisis.
This investigation is necessary because what we already know is devastating. Mckinsey has admitted to crafting strategies for its billion-dollar pharmaceutical clients to boost corporate profits by misrepresenting opioid risks, undermining public health regulations and heavily marketing Oxycontin to doctors prone to overprescribing opioids.
They even proposed to Purdue Pharma that it offer a subsidy to pharmacies in connection with each opioid death.
We have only recently learned that Mckinsey also profited from a federal contract to provide consulting services to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, during which it advised the FDA to streamline the approval process for new medications—including opioids.
At the same time, Mckinsey was also under contract with numerous pharmaceutical clients, advising them on how to circumvent the FDA’S review.
This simultaneous arrangement between Mckinsey, the FDA, and the company’s pharmaceutical clients constitutes a significant, undisclosed conflict of interest.
Mckinsey’s tactics have been ruthlessly effective, and fatal. Roughly 90% of all opioid pills sold in the United States of America from 2006-2014 can be traced to the Mckinsey & Company’s consulting advice to its pharmaceutical clients.
According to the Journal of Addiction Medicine, over half a million years of life were lost to fatal opioid overdoses in Ohio between 2010 and 2016.
Based on what we already know, Mckinsey & Company’s role in the opioid crisis is overwhelming.
But it is our obligation to look deeper. Mckinsey represented every opioid manufacturer that agreed to a $26 billion national settlement recently with attorneys general from the State of Ohio and across the country. Mckinsey itself agreed to a $573 million settlement back in February with 49 states for its role in exacerbating the opioid crisis.
And yet, $573 million is equivalent to roughly 6% of Mckinsey’s annual profits. It is not nearly enough, especially while the opioid crisis Mckinsey & Company helped ignite in the name of boosting corporate profits continues to ravage families across Ohio.
While communities fight against opioid addiction, with countless agencies and public resources leading the way in providing support and assistance, we cannot lose sight of holding the bad actors that set us on this path responsible for their actions.
For the sake of everyone who has lost family to this devastating and needless ongoing epidemic, those responsible for worsening the opioid crisis must be held publicly accountable.
Investigating the full extent of Mckinsey & Company’s role in the ongoing opioid addiction crisis — and ensuring it cannot continue these tactics again — is a critical next step.