The Slaughter of the Americans  

Over 500,000 Drug Overdose Deaths Equal to COVID Losses

March 3, 2021 – Despite 500,000 Americans dying from opioid painkiller overdoses in the last 25 years, prescriptions continue being written aggressively while the federal government fails to regulate it, a leading medical expert on the issue told the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields Sunday.

Dr. Andrew Kolodny, medical director of Opioid Policy Research at Brandeis University in Massachusetts, said the chief contributor to the crisis is the federal Food and Drug Administration, who approved the drugs and continues to fail to regulate them.

“Opioid makers and distributors, in their greed, lead to massive losses of life,” Kolodny said. “Had the FDA been doing its job from the beginning; we would not have an opioid crisis today.”

Kolodny and families of overdose victims are calling for President Joe Biden to not appoint interim FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock as the permanent director. Woodcock’s division failed to police opioid makers and approved the powerful painkillers to be more easily used, Kolodny said.

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Listen to the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields at: http://www.retailpoliticspodcast or on Apple or Spotify.