美国国家公共电台 NPR Majority Of Americans Say Drug Companies Should Be Held Responsible For Opioid Crisis（在线收听）

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A new poll by NPR and Ipsos finds a third of Americans have been touched directly by the deadly opioid epidemic that's still killing more than a hundred people every day. The survey released this morning found a clear majority of Americans want drug companies held accountable for their role marketing highly addictive opioid painkillers. North Country Public Radio's Brian Mann has more.

BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: The new survey by NPR and Ipsos confirms a lot of Americans are feeling the pain of this addiction crisis that's destroyed families and swamped social service and addiction treatment programs. Mallory Newall was lead researcher on the poll.

MALLORY NEWALL: One in 3 have been personally affected in some way, either by knowing someone who has overdosed or knowing somebody with an opioid addiction.

MANN: Newall says the survey found huge support - roughly 60% - for making drug companies pay to help clean up the mess. Unlike many issues in America these days, this is something all kinds of Americans agree on.

NEWALL: That's something that - no matter your age, your gender, where you live, your partisan affiliation - that people believe in large numbers.

MANN: Support is even higher - more than 70% - for making drug companies pay the cost of addiction treatment services and for the distribution of the drug naloxone, used to revive people who've overdosed. These results reflect a perilous moment for drug makers and distributors like Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson and McKesson. They're some of the biggest companies in the U.S., and they were once ranked among the most trusted. But speaking in Atlanta at an addiction conference yesterday, President Trump treated Big Pharma like pariahs.

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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Because we are holding Big Pharma accountable. They should be accountable.

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MANN: President Trump shared the stage with Tom Murphy, a state narcotics investigator from Virginia whose son died in 2017. He started using prescription painkillers after injuring his hand.

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TOM MURPHY: Twelve days before Christmas, he passed away of a heroin and fentanyl overdose. His name was Matthew Jason Murphy.

MANN: The NPR/Ipsos survey found Americans directly affected in this way by the epidemic are even more eager to see drug companies held accountable. Big Pharma has already been flooded with more than 1,600 civil lawsuits stemming from the opioid crisis. This week, the Justice Department arrested executives who worked for a major drug distributor called Rochester Drug Cooperative, one of the companies that ships opioids from manufacturers to local pharmacies.

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JEFF BERMAN: It is the first time executives of a pharmaceutical distributor and the distributor itself have been charged with drug trafficking.

MANN: Jeff Berman is U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He says the company has admitted wrongdoing and agreed to pay a $20 million fine. Executives allegedly funneled prescription opioid pills to pharmacies that then sold them on the black market. At a press conference Tuesday, Berman made it clear this case reflects a shift by federal prosecutors.

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BERMAN: This epidemic has been driven by greed. Our office will do everything in its power to bring to justice anyone responsible for unlawfully fueling this opioid epidemic, and that includes executives who illegally distribute drugs from their boardrooms.

MANN: Company executives with a firm called Insys are already facing federal criminal charges in Boston relating to their marketing of prescription opioids. Jurors are deliberating in that case. Drug companies contacted by NPR in recent weeks maintained they acted responsibly - marketing opioids appropriately and helping respond to the addiction crisis. But the Ipsos/NPR survey found a majority of Americans aren't buying it. Seventy percent said even after companies pay fines and penalties, they should be forced to come clean, publicly disclosing details of the role they played fueling the epidemic.

Brian Mann, NPR News.