CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - Eric Eyre had been reporting on the state’s opioid addiction crisis for more than a year before he unearthed previously confidential federal records showing drug wholesalers shipped 780 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills to West Virginia in just six years, a period when 1,728 people fatally overdosed on the painkillers.
On Monday Eyre of the Charleston Gazette-Mail won a Pulitzer for investigative reporting.
Eyre obtained previously confidential records sent by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to the office of West Virginia’s Attorney General. They disclosed pills sold to every pharmacy and drug shipments to all 55 counties in West Virginia between 2007 and 2012.
Eyre reported that for more than a decade, the same distributors disregarded rules to report suspicious orders for controlled substances in West Virginia to the state Board of Pharmacy.
The records - which leading drug wholesalers had fought in court to keep secret - show the wholesalers shipped ever-higher doses of the pills even as the death toll climbed.
The Pulitzer board cited “courageous reporting, performed in the face of powerful opposition.”
Meanwhile, 12 companies have settled longstanding cases with the attorney general’s office for $47 million while denying wrongdoing. Since the articles appeared, 11 municipalities in West Virginia have filed or announced lawsuits against opioid distributors.
Eyre had been working on the story and reporting on the state’s opioid addiction crisis for more than a year before the main investigative article (https://bit.ly/2hfEa9l) cited by the board appeared in December.
Gazette-Mail Editor Robert Byers said Monday he likes to think of the award as the culmination of all the reporting done by many of staff on prescription drug abuse over the past 17 years. He also cited attorneys Pat McGinley and Tim Conaway who worked pro bono to help the newspaper get the needed documents to complete the investigation.
“Thanks to Eric for bringing it home,” Byers said.
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