Posted on Jan 3, 2021
Former Walmart Pharmacists Say Company Ignored Red Flags As Opioid Sales Boomed
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When Ashwani Sheoran showed up for early morning shifts at pharmacies in rural Michigan wearing his white Walmart smock, he often found customers waiting, desperate for bottles of pain pills.
"I see my patients, 15 to 20, already lined up to get prescriptions filled for morphine sulfate, oxycodone and other straight narcotics," he said.
This was in 2012 when the prescription opioid epidemic was exploding, killing tens of thousands of Americans every year.
Sheoran, now 41, told NPR he kept seeing what the Drug Enforcement Administration considers "red flags." Patients were driving long distances to buy their pills from Walmart. They couldn't explain why they needed such powerful opioid doses.
He started raising alarms, sending emails to his bosses in Michigan and to Walmart headquarters in Arkansas. He warned that their pharmacies were feeding a black market for opioids like Oxycontin.
What happened next made him angry. "They start putting more pressure on me to just be quiet and not to say anything more," Sheoran said.
"I see my patients, 15 to 20, already lined up to get prescriptions filled for morphine sulfate, oxycodone and other straight narcotics," he said.
This was in 2012 when the prescription opioid epidemic was exploding, killing tens of thousands of Americans every year.
Sheoran, now 41, told NPR he kept seeing what the Drug Enforcement Administration considers "red flags." Patients were driving long distances to buy their pills from Walmart. They couldn't explain why they needed such powerful opioid doses.
He started raising alarms, sending emails to his bosses in Michigan and to Walmart headquarters in Arkansas. He warned that their pharmacies were feeding a black market for opioids like Oxycontin.
What happened next made him angry. "They start putting more pressure on me to just be quiet and not to say anything more," Sheoran said.
Former Walmart Pharmacists Say Company Ignored Red Flags As Opioid Sales Boomed
Posted from npr.org
Walmart
Drugs
Pharmaceuticals
Medical
Health
Posted 4 y ago
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Of course. A doctor doesn't treat for a cure, they treat your pain. Every time I go to the doctor for anything, the first questions out of their mouths have to do with my pain level. Then I'm told they can prescribe me some pain meds if what I have at home doesn't do the trick.
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PO3 Phyllis Maynard
CW3 Michael Bodnar those professional who do not ascribe to an overload of pain medication has a different time in their voices. Listen for it.
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CW3 Michael Bodnar
PO3 Phyllis Maynard - they often prescribe those meds largely because they often get kick backs from the big pharm companies for pushing their products. These are the same doctors that told us years ago that opioids were not addicting even though they did know they were. That I feel led to the current crisis which doesn't get enough attention because (in my opinion), big pharma would have to admit there's actually a problem with their medications.
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PO3 Phyllis Maynard
CW3 Michael Bodnar one, so-called white lie equals all of this. When the truth would have evaded pandamonia. The profits are shadowed by the national castotrophe.
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel we the people are being duped by the sources we patronize and trust. Selfish actions are having consequences.
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