Data expert testifies at landmark West Virginia opioid trial

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A data expert testifying at a landmark opioid trial in West Virginia said Tuesday that the potency of prescription drugs sent to local communities increased over time, but the three large drug distributors being sued tried to discredit his analysis.

Cabell County and the city of Huntington argue that AmerisourceBergen Drug Co., Cardinal Health Inc. and McKesson Corp. created a “public nuisance” by flooding their areas with prescription pain pills and ignored the signs that the community was being ravaged by addiction.

While consultant Craig McCann of Washington, D.C., focused his Monday testimony on how many doses of hydrocodone and oxycodone were shipped to the area overall, The Herald Dispatch reported that he zeroed in Tuesday on specific pharmacies.

He compared the number of opiates sent to single pharmacies and three family pharmacies — Fruth, CVS and Rite Aid — at four stores each.

Charts showed that these pharmacies received opiates at a disproportionate rate compared to the U.S. average between 2006 and 2014. The single pharmacies received the drugs at an even higher rate.

More powerful opioids were sent to Cabell County as time went on, McCann said.

Morphine milligram equivalent, a doctors’ tool to compare different drugs, was used to make the comparison. Oxycodone’s potency is about 1.5 times that of morphine, for example, but they’re on the same level based on the morphine milligram equivalent.

AmerisourceBergen attorney Joe Mahady said McCann wasn’t an expert on medical needs or a doctor who could determine how many prescriptions should have been sent out across the country. He said McCann made his own calculations based on an equation he found online, not with information from the Drug Enforcement Administration’s pill data.

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