Cardinal Health’s announcement Thursday that it will increase its investment in opioid-abuse prevention and treatment programs was welcomed by those who might benefit.
As the Dublin-based company continues to face accusations that it hasn’t done enough to crack down on large shipments of addictive painkillers, it will invest $10 million through the first half of 2018 on efforts that include drug education, grants to health-care organizations and distributing free doses of overdose-reversing drug Narcan.
All parties stress, though, that drug abuse is a complex, deeply rooted problem that won’t be solved overnight.
Jeff Klingler, president of the Central Ohio Hospital Council, said he looks forward to exploring whether grant money offered by Cardinal could be applied to anti-opioid efforts that the area’s hospitals are undertaking as part of the Franklin County Opiate Action Plan. Organizations such as the hospital council often look for ways to cover the cost of projects they already are working on.
“If there was one single thing we could do to solve the opioid crisis, we’d be doing it already,” Klingler said. “It has to be a multi-faceted approach. The action plan for the county takes that same type of approach.”
In addition to grant funding, Cardinal will make available 80,000 doses of Narcan, a drug used to reverse overdoses that’s been in strong demand in recent years. Many municipalities and EMS workers across the country have expressed concern about the rising costs and resources needed to respond to overdose calls.
“The contribution of Narcan can only be positive,” said David Royer, chief executive officer of the Franklin County Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Board. “Throughout Franklin County, overdoses are up, and we’re seeing 100 percent increases in some neighborhoods.”
In Middletown, Ohio, the rising public-health costs of overdoses led one city councilman in the summer to suggest that EMS workers not be required to revive a person if he or she had been treated twice in the past with Narcan (generic name: naloxone). That idea didn’t take hold, but Middletown, like many other Midwestern cities, has been hit hard by opioid abuse.
“I’ve upped my reserves (of Narcan) because of increased volume,” said Capt. David Von Bargen, EMS chief for the Middletown Division of Fire. He said that, depending on the form and brand, a dose of naloxone can cost between $29 and $41. “Anytime a program may be out there for us to take advantage of at no costs, it’s obviously a benefit,” he said, adding that the division has received some Narcan from the state.
In Columbus, Fire Assistant Chief Jim Davis said medics had administered 4,442 doses of Narcan this year as of Nov. 1. Each dose costs $37.
Royer said he hopes that Cardinal’s program marks the beginning of a private-public effort to combat the drug epidemic.
“Ohio corporations need to be part of the solution,” he said. “This is a community issue, and it’s going to take all of us. Cardinal bringing their resources — so it’s free distribution — will help local municipalities whose budgets have been devastated.”
Meanwhile, critics of Cardinal Health and the other major drug distributors — companies that have been accused of stoking the opioid crisis — called Cardinal’s announcement a “good step” but not nearly enough.
“Cardinal Health cannot continue to flood communities with an oversupply of prescription opioids and hope that informational pamphlets will solve the worst public-health crisis of our time. That is like giving out life rafts after you let the dam break,” said Ken Hall, general secretary-treasurer of the Teamsters, in a statement.
Last week, the Teamsters led a group of investors who used Cardinal Health’s annual shareholders meeting in Dublin to protest what they said were the companies’ failures to rein in suspicious shipments of painkillers.
Hall added that “communities need the company to do its part to address systemic failures in opioid-drug distribution, and that means detecting, reporting and not filling suspicious orders, in line with its moral and legal responsibility.”
The Ohio attorney general’s office, the Ohio Department of Mental Health & Addiction Services and the Ohio Department of Health all declined to comment on Cardinal’s announcement. A spokesman for Attorney General Mike DeWine cited an investigation announced by DeWine at the end of October into whether the state should sue drug distributors related to the opioid crisis. DeWine announced a lawsuit against drugmakers earlier this year.
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