Executives at one of the US’ largest drug distributors circulated rhymes and e-mails mocking “hillbillies” who became addicted to opioid painkillers even as the company poured hundreds of millions of pills into parts of Appalachia at the heart of the US’ opioid epidemic.
The trial of pharmaceutical firms accused of illegally flooding West Virginia with opioids was told earlier this month that senior staff at AmerisourceBergen, the 10th-largest company in the US by revenue, routinely disparaged communities blighted by the worst drug epidemic in the country’s history.
One e-mail in 2011 included a rhyme built around “a poor mountaineer” named Jed who