Legal and PR Nightmare - CVS and Foulkes Are Haunted by Their Roles in Opioid Crisis
Thursday, August 18, 2022
“As soon as we saw what was going on we took action, and I am particularly proud of the work that I led pulling together every drug store across the country -- we worked on legislation to reduce the number of pills as soon as we saw it,” said Helena Foulkes, former President of CVS in an interview with GoLocal News Editor Kate Nagle on July 28.
But for nearly a decade prior to CVS’s action under Foulkes leadership, opioid sales exploded and according to a federal court jury in Ohio, CVS and two other major pharmacy chains helped to fuel the opioid epidemic.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTAlmost all of the action now being litigated took place under Foulkes’ watch at CVS. Today, Foulkes is a Democratic candidate for governor of Rhode Island and has spent millions of ads trumpeting her successes at CVS.
But, Foulkes' claims of missing the signs seem in conflict with her resume.
Foulkes had a storied career at CVS. She joined the company after stints with Goldman Sachs and Tiffany and rocketed up the corporate ladder. After she developed the ExtraCare card, she was a star in a company that was transitioning from a retail-focused company into a healthcare corporation.
Foulkes’ ExtraCare card provided tremendous data to CVS. Off of Foulkes' strategy, the company knew when you bought shampoo and had a good idea how much in ExtraBucks rewards the company needed to award to make the next sale. The strategy helped to drive CVS to be the largest pharmacy chain in the country and one of the top largest companies by sales in the United States.
Data helped fuel the growth.
Impossible to Miss the Signs, Say Attorney Generals
While Foulkes said she took action as soon as "we saw what was going on," states around the country who are suing CVS say that is simply not true.
Attorney Generals around the country say that for the better part of a decade, CVS did nothing to slow the tide but, in fact, helped to drive the growth of sales and thus the suffering and deaths of the opioid addiction health crisis.
The Attorney General of Kentucky is one of many who have filed suit against CVS for the company’s role in the opioid epidemic.
Attorney General Daniel Cameron filed a lawsuit in June 2021 against CVS Health for the company’s role in Kentucky’s opioid epidemic. The lawsuit, filed in Franklin Circuit Court, alleges that CVS engaged in unlawful business practices and failed to guard against the diversion of opioids. CVS is not alone. The suit against CVS is the latest action to hold companies accountable for their role in the Commonwealth’s opioid crisis, said Cameron.
“During the height of the opioid epidemic, CVS allowed millions of dosage units of opioids to flood Kentucky’s borders, fueling the crisis and devastating thousands of families and communities across the Commonwealth,” said Cameron. “As both distributor and pharmacy, CVS was in a unique position to monitor and stop the peddling of these highly-addictive drugs from their stores, yet they ignored their own safeguard systems. By bringing this lawsuit on behalf of the people of Kentucky, we are holding CVS accountable for these decisions and for contributing to a man-made crisis that tragically led to the loss of life of thousands of Kentuckians.”
"CVS maintained over 100 separate license numbers in the Commonwealth as a 'wholesaler,' 'out-of-state pharmacy,' and 'retail pharmacy.' Between 2006 and 2014, CVS pharmacies in Kentucky purchased more than 151 million dosage units of oxycodone and hydrocodone from its own distribution centers and third-party distributors, accounting for nearly 6.1 percent of the total dosage units in the Commonwealth during this time," according to Cameron.
“One CVS store, located in Perry County, purchased over 6.8 million dosage units of oxycodone and hydrocodone from 2006 to 2014, which was enough opioids for every man, woman, and child in the county to have over 26 pills every year during the same period. A CVS in Crittenden County bought over 2.8 million dosage units of the drugs, enough to supply everyone in the county with over 34 pills every year,” according to Cameron.
In the federal lawsuit, Kentucky claims, “CVS played a dual role in creating, fueling, and maintaining the opioid epidemic within Kentucky’s borders — (1) through their retail pharmacies, as dispensers of opioids to the public, and (2) as a wholesale distributor, taking and shipping orders to and from their own pharmacies. Occupying two links in the opioid supply chain, CVS was in a unique and superior position of knowledge with regard to the gross amount of opioids pumped into their stores and poured out onto the streets of Kentucky.”
In July, New Hampshire filed suit.
New Hampshire is among the nation's top five states with the highest rates of opioid-involved deaths. In 2020, the state experienced an opioid overdose death rate of 26.9 per 100,000 in 2020, which was significantly higher than the national average of 21.4 deaths per 100,000.
Hundreds more of New Hampshire's residents were rushed to emergency rooms or revived by EMS and other first responders trained to administer naloxone and other overdose antidotes, claims the state's attorney general, John Formella.
The number of infants diagnosed with neonatal abstinence syndrome increased from 52 to 269 in 2015, accounting for 24.4 per 1,000 live hospital births across the state.
"The law requires pharmacies to be diligent in distributing and dispensing controlled drugs, including highly addictive pain medications. These large pharmacy companies failed to report suspiciously large quantities being shipped into their neighborhood retail pharmacies or suspicious prescriptions to their customers," said Formella.
"For decades now, these companies have watched pain pills that they are distributing and dispensing cause extreme harm and deaths. During the height of the opioid epidemic, these pharmacies allowed millions of dosage units of opioids to flood New Hampshire, devastating thousands of families and communities across the Granite State. As both drug distributors and the operators of chain pharmacy locations, these companies were in a unique position to more closely monitor the flow of these highly addictive drugs from their stores. By bringing this lawsuit, we are attempting to hold them accountable for contributing to a crisis they helped create and that tragically led to the loss of life for thousands of people
Not Answering Questions:
After the announcement by the federal court judge, GoLocal asked the following questions and the Foulkes campaign did not respond.
1) Helena, you are a data expert. Your career was launched by the development of the ExtraCare Card and the ability to understand customer data and provide customers with a deeper relationship with CVS; when you saw the sales of a drug like Oxycontin -- a powerful cancer treatment drug, you had to know something was wrong, did you red flag it at CVS internally? Were your concerns ignored?
2) In retrospect, is the failure to stop this crisis your own biggest professional failure?
3) The jury in Ohio found CVS and the others responsible for "fueling" the crisis, do you agree?
In 2021, the CDC reported that more than 100,000 Americans died of overdoses and the majority of those deaths were the result of opioids.
CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart have all announced they will appeal the court's decision.
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