McKinsey Fined $600 Million For “turbocharging” Opioid Deaths

BOTTOM LINES KILL PEOPLE –

Feb. 3, 2021 – McKinsey’s extensive work with Purdue included advising it to focus on selling lucrative high-dose pills, the records show, even after the drugmaker pleaded guilty in 2007 to federal criminal charges that it had misled doctors and regulators about OxyContin’s risks. The firm also told Purdue that it could “band together” with other opioid makers to head off “strict treatment” by the Food and Drug Administration. Maura Healey, the Massachusetts attorney general, said the investigation of the firm involved reviewing “thousands and thousands of documents and emails” that, taken together, told “the story of McKinsey’s wrongdoing.”“Its always been about holding accountable those who created and profited off the opioid epidemic,” she said. Ms. Healey was the first state attorney general to investigate McKinsey’s business dealings with Purdue.

The consulting firm will not admit wrongdoing, according to the multistate settlement, but will agree to court-ordered restrictions on its work with some types of addictive narcotics. McKinsey will also retain emails for five years and disclose potential conflicts of interest when bidding for state contracts. And in a move similar to the tobacco industry settlements decades ago, it will put tens of thousands of pages of documents related to its opioid work onto a publicly available database.