Internal drug company emails show indifference to opioid epidemic

In May 2008, as the opioid epidemic was raging in America, a representative of the nation’s largest manufacturer of opioid pain pills sent an email to a client at a wholesale drug distributor in Ohio.

Victor Borelli, a national account manager for Mallinckrodt, told Steve Cochrane, the vice president of sales for KeySource Medical, to check his inventories and “[i]f you are low, order more. If you are okay, order a little more, Capesce?”

Then Borelli joked, “destroy this email. . .Is that really possible? Oh Well. . .”

Previously, Borelli used the phrase “ship, ship, ship” to describe his job.

Follow The Post’s investigation of the opioid epidemic

Since 2016, The Washington Post has been investigating the opioid epidemic that has ravaged communities and claimed the lives of more than 200,000 people nationwide since 1996.

This week, a previously unreleased Drug Enforcement Administration database that tracks the path of every single pain pill sold in the United States — from manufacturers and distributors to pharmacies in every town and city — was made public. It was disclosed as part a civil action brought by nearly 2,000 cities, towns and counties alleging nearly two dozen drug companies conspired to saturate the nation with opioids. The database is a virtual road map to the epidemic.
Drilling into the DEA’s pain pill database


For the first time, a database maintained by the Drug Enforcement Administration that tracks the path of every single pain pill sold in the United States — by manufacturers and distributors to pharmacies in every town and city — has been made public.

The Washington Post sifted through nearly 380 million transactions from 2006 through 2012 that are detailed in the DEA’s database and analyzed shipments of oxycodone and hydrocodone pills, which account for three-quarters of the total opioid pill shipments to pharmacies. The Post is making this data available at the county and state levels in order to help the public understand the impact of years of prescription pill shipments on their communities.