2024/01/01 by Antoine Lentacker, Kelly Pham, Jason M. Chernesky · 1 voice
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Medicine · #Opioid Use Disorder Treatment #Pharmaceutical Economics and Policy #Pharmaceutical Quality and Counterfeiting
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/jme.2024.60
openalex publication_date 2024/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/14
U.S. law imposes strict recording and reporting requirements on all entities that manufacture and distribute controlled substances. As a result, the prescription opioid crisis has unfolded in a data-saturated environment. This article asks why the systematic documentation of opioid transactions failed to prevent or mitigate the crisis. Drawing on a recently disclosed trove of 1.4 million internal records from Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals, a leading manufacturer of prescription opioids, we highlight a phenomenon we propose to call data diversion, whereby data ostensibly generated or collected for the purpose of regulating the distribution of controlled substances were repurposed by the industry for the opposite aim of increasing sales at all costs. Systematic data diversion, we argue, contributed substantially to the scale of drug diversion seen with opioids and should become a focus of policy intervention.