PROFITS BEFORE PEOPLE –
May 14, 2021 – Zimmerman’s testimony was part of a trial in which the municipalities accuse AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health Inc. and McKesson Corp. of fueling the opioid epidemic by sending 127.9 million opiate doses into Cabell County from 2006 to 2014. A reduction in the amount shipped after 2011 led users to turn to illicit opiate drugs, like heroin, they said.
The defendants said it is the Drug Enforcement Administration that sets opiate shipment quotas, and while they reported suspicious orders to the federal regulator, they never received feedback on their next step. The high shipping rates could also be due to higher numbers of prescriptions written by doctors of a population with poor health, they said. The first email brought up in court contained lyrics, sung to the “Beverly Hillbillies” TV sitcom theme song, about “pillbillies” traveling to find opiate prescriptions as they shopped for doctors. Zimmerman sent the lyrics twice with the subject line “I sent you this a month or so ago. Nice to see it recirculated =)” and “Saw this and had to share.” It wasn’t just Zimmerman who joked. A corporate investigator forwarded an email titled “Oxycontin for kids” paired with a cereal box altered to read “SMACK.” A co-worker responded “You’re just a barrel of laughs today.” Zimmerman said it had been shared for educational purposes and he did not endorse it. Another email he forwarded contained an Associated Press article regarding increased shipment trucks among distributors. “There is a whole lot of pain in the Appalachian area,” he had written.
