Data reveals opioid shipments ballooned as crisis accelerated

CLEVELAND — Newly released federal data shows how drugmakers and distributors increased shipments of opioid painkillers across the U.S. as the nation’s addiction crisis accelerated from 2006 to 2012.

The data, released this week by a federal court in Ohio as part of a far-reaching opioids case, shows that companies distributed 8.4 billion hydrocodone and oxycodone pills to commercial pharmacies in 2006 and 12.6 billion in 2012. That’s an increase of over 50%.

Over that seven-year period, 76 billion pills were distributed in all, according to an analysis by The Washington Post, which had sued along with another outlet, HD Media, to obtain the data. During the same timeframe, prescription opioids contributed to more than 100,000 deaths in the U.S., according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The shipments increased even after one of the companies, Purdue Pharma, was leveled with a $635 million federal fine in 2007 for falsely claiming its drug, OxyContin, was not as addictive as earlier opioids.

While OxyContin is the best-known prescription opioid, the Post analysis shows that Purdue accounted for just 3% of pills sold during that time. Three makers of generic drugs accounted for nearly 90% of the sales.

The data tracks a dozen different opioids, including oxycodone and hydrocodone, according to the Post. They account for most of the pill shipments to pharmacies.

The distribution data, maintained by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, is a key element of lawsuits filed by more than 2,000 state, local and tribal governments seeking to hold drug companies accountable for the crisis.

Drug distribution companies told The Post that the federal data would not exist without their providing accurate reports to the DEA. One company, AmerisourceBergen, said the data “offers a very misleading picture.”

Cleveland-based U.S. District Judge Dan Polster, who is overseeing most of the cases, ruled Monday that the information covering shipments from 2006 to 2012 could be made public. He said in a ruling that there is “clearly no basis” for shielding older data.

His order came a month after a federal appeals court in Cincinnati vacated Polster’s July 2018 decision that local and state governments, which had been granted access to the data, should not make it public.

A three-judge panel for the 6th U.S. Court of Appeals said Polster went too far in blocking the release of data.