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In this Aug. 5, 2010 file photo, a pharmacy tech poses for a picture with hydrocodone bitartrate and acetaminophen tablets, the generic version of Vicodin in Edmond, Okla.
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Congress seeks answers on massive painkiller shipments to West Virginia

AP

Congress seeks answers on massive painkiller shipments to West Virginia

WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers are stepping up an investigation concerning an Ohio wholesaler’s massive opioid shipments to drug-ravaged West Virginia.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee wants answers and records from Miami-Luken, which also distributes prescription drugs in Western Pennsylvania.

The committee began looking into the Dayton-based distributor after news reports surfaced on high levels of opioids shipped to small towns in West Virginia, where Miami-Luken does most of its business.

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The Charleston Gazette-Mail reported that the company distributed 14.7 million doses of hydrocodone over six years in Mingo County, which has a population of just 27,000. That amounts to an average of 90 doses per year for every adult and child.

“The possible oversupply described in this reporting suggest that such practices may have exacerbated the opioid addiction problem currently facing the state,” according to the letter signed by five committee leaders including U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Upper St. Clair, who leads the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee.

The letter asks Miami-Luken for records of drug shipments to West Virginia pharmacies, copies of written protocol for identification of suspicious orders, reports the company filed to the Drug Enforcement Administration regarding suspicious orders and personnel records related to terminations over drug compliance issues.

“The idea as we go into this is: Where were all those drugs going?” Mr. Murphy said Tuesday after a private briefing on the ongoing investigation.

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When most people think about drug distribution, “they’re looking for drug sellers on the streets or in back alleys or out of a drug house in the neighborhood,” Mr. Murphy said. They don’t think about “the links between distributors and pharmacies getting an oversupply that could not possibly be legitimately consumed, and that’s the area we want to investigate.”

His committee particularly wants Miami-Luken to detail its shipments to four West Virginia pharmacies, including Sav-Rite in Kermit, a town of 400 where it sold $3 million worth of drugs in six years.

“This distributor stands out as having distributed a massive amount of drugs that appears questionable in terms of: how could anybody with even a cursory review of this possibly think that any small town could consume that amount of the drugs?” Mr. Murphy said. “We have a lot of questions and we’re hitting this from all angles.”

The committee is expected to broaden the scope of its investigation.

“It’s critical we get to the bottom of how such large quantities of opioids were readily available in such small towns,” wrote committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., and Ranking member Frank Pallone, Jr., D-N.J., in a statement Monday.

Mr. Murphy declined to say whether the investigation could expand to include pharmacies in Western Pennsylvania or whether the targeted pharmacies in West Virginia, all independently owned, will be asked to provide prescription records.

Tug Valley Pharmacy in Williamson, W. Va. Was sold 258,000 doses of hydrocodone in just a month, more than 10 time what a typical pharmacy in rural West Virginia receives each month, according to the committee. A Miami-Luken sales representative reported concerns about that to superiors, who failed to investigate, the committee said.

A call to Miami-Luken’s corporate office was not returned.

According to its website, the company also distributes to Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Southern Michigan and Tennessee. Those regions are the areas hit hardest by opioid deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

“These are the areas where the [opioid-related] death rate is so high that some of the funeral homes have to have refrigerator trucks to store bodies in waiting for funerals,” Mr. Murphy said.

The Drug Enforcement Administration is conducting a separate investigation into allegations Miami-Luken failed to maintain controls against diversion of oxycodone, failed to report suspicious pharmacy orders, failed to obtain drug utilization reports or names of prescribers. The drug wholesaler is fighting the DEA’s effort to revoke its license.

West Virginia has the highest drug overdose death rate in the nation.

Washington Bureau Chief Tracie Mauriello: tmauriello@post-gazette.com; 703-996-9292 or on Twitter @pgPoliTweets.

First Published: September 26, 2017, 11:50 p.m.

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In this Aug. 5, 2010 file photo, a pharmacy tech poses for a picture with hydrocodone bitartrate and acetaminophen tablets, the generic version of Vicodin in Edmond, Okla.  (AP)
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