‘OPENED THE FLOODGATES’

U.S. Government Sues Rite Aid for Ignoring ‘Red Flags’ in Opioid Crisis

The government is suing the pharmacy giant, alleging it knowingly filled hundreds of thousands of unlawful prescriptions.

The U.S. government on Monday sued Rite Aid, alleging the pharmacy giant knowingly filled hundreds of thousands of illegal prescriptions for controlled substances, aggravating and profiting from the opioid crisis. The complaint is part of a whistleblower lawsuit brought against the company under the False Claims Act and the Controlled Substances Act, according to the Justice Department. It encompasses a period of time when, from May 2014 to June 2019, Rite Aid freely filled prescriptions that were “medically unnecessary, lacked a medically accepted indication, or were not issued in the usual course of professional practice.” In a statement, Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta said, “According to our complaint, Rite Aid’s pharmacists repeatedly filled prescriptions for controlled substances with obvious red flags, and Rite Aid intentionally deleted internal notes about suspicious prescribers. These practices opened the floodgates for millions of opioid pills and other controlled substances to flow illegally out of Rite Aid’s stores.”