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Burgess COMMENTARY Peter Burgess | ||
PROJECT
Opioid Abuse: From U.S. Epidemic to Global Pandemic?
As the pharmaceutical company blamed for launching America’s opioid crisis faces mounting lawsuits, its foreign arm is expanding globally, using some of the same dubious practices. Other companies are getting in on the lucrative market, too, and prescription rates are spiking around the world. Public health experts warn that the U.S. epidemic could become a pandemic.
In a series of stories, The Associated Press is examining the on-the-ground impact of Big Pharma’s global ambitions: In Italy, a kickback case has embroiled more than 60 people and 10 companies, including Mundipharma, the international arm of U.S.-based Purdue Pharma. Italy’s most prominent pain doctor is accused of taking bribes to write studies with the message that opioids should be used for chronic pain and addiction risks are “exaggerated.” Mundipharma executives pleaded guilty to criminal charges. Australia is the new ground zero for opioid abuse. In some rural areas, prescription rates have skyrocketed; one town has a rate of 109,000 prescriptions for every 100,000 people. Mundipharma wants China sales to surpass the U.S. by 2025. Online black markets offer opioids, and chat rooms dedicated to addiction have formed. Yet, the Chinese government denies a problem. At the same time, China is piggybacking on Big Pharma, supplying a global black market for pills.
Governments have failed to learn the lessons of the American epidemic. As the U.S. tries to rein the prescription opioid bonanza that launched its crisis, legislatures around the world are moving in the opposite direction: loosening the rules around opioid prescriptions.
AUTHORS
CLAIRE NAPIER GALOFARO
Grantee
Claire Galofaro has been documenting the spiraling opioid epidemic since joining the Associated Press in 2015. Galofaro, a correspondent in Louisville, Kentucky, was awarded the Livingston Award for...
KRISTEN GELINEAU
Grantee
Kristen Gelineau joined The Associated Press in Washington state in 2002. For the next six years, she worked in AP bureaus in Seattle, Olympia, Wash., Cleveland and Richmond, Va., covering politics,...
ERIKA KINETZ
Grantee
Erika Kinetz is an award-winning investigative reporter for the Associated Press in Shanghai. She has lived and worked in China, India, Myanmar, Italy and Cambodia. Her reporting in China has focused...
FRANCES D’EMILIO
Grantee
Six years after joining the AP in San Francisco, Frances D’Emilio was posted in Rome in 1985 as a foreign correspondent. She has reported on everything from the dramatic crisis of trafficked migrants...
RELATED INFORMATION
LAUNCHED:March 25, 2019
REGION:
Asia, Europe, Oceania
COUNTRY:
Australia
TAGS:
Chronic Illnesses and Challenges, Public Health
December 16, 2019 | Associated Press
Sackler-Owned Opioid Maker Pushes Overdose Treatment Abroad
CLAIRE GALOFARO AND KRISTEN GELINEAU
As Purdue Pharma buckles under a mountain of litigation and public protest in the United States, its foreign affiliate, Mundipharma, has expanded abroad.
December 13, 2019 | Associated Press
'Safer Opioid' Has Sparked a Crisis in Vulnerable Countries
EMILY SCHMALL AND CLAIRE GALOFARO
Mass abuse of the opioid tramadol spans continents, creating international havoc some experts blame on a loophole in narcotics regulation and a miscalculation of the drug’s danger.
November 20, 2019 | Associated Press
Fake Doctors, Pilfered Medical Records Drive Oxy China Sales
ERIKA KINETZ
Marketing material in China made claims about OxyContin’s safety and effectiveness based on company-funded studies and outdated data that has been debunked.
September 14, 2019 | Associated Press
How a Clean-Cut Eagle Scout Became a Fentanyl Drug Lord
CLAIRE GALOFARO AND LINDSAY WHITEHURST
Aaron Shamo made himself a millionaire by building a fentanyl trafficking empire with not much more than his computer and the help of a few friends.
Media
September 06, 2019 | Associated Press
An Opioid Addiction, and an Australian’s Battle to Survive
KRISTEN GELINEAU
An Australian man was prescribed opioids after a routine wisdom teeth surgery. Addiction soon followed, including countless overdoses. His mother, who raised him alone, has done everything she can to help him, but he keeps returning to prescription pills, which Australia's weak regulations make easy to get.
September 05, 2019 | Associated Press
Surging Prescriptions, Deaths: Australia Faces Opioid Crisis
KRISTEN GELINEAU
More than 3 million Australians—an eighth of the country’s population—are getting at least one opioid prescription a year.
May 29, 2019 | Associated Press
AP Exclusive: Sackler Foreign Firm Caught Up in Opioid Probe
CLAIRE GALOFARO AND FRANCES D'EMILIO
The police huddled for hours each day, headphones on, eavesdropping on the doctor. They'd tapped his cellphone, bugged his office, planted a camera in a trattoria.
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| The text being discussed is available at | https://pulitzercenter.org/projects/opioid-abuse-us-epidemic-global-pandemic and |