US sues Rite Aid for allegedly missing ‘red flags’ in unlawful prescriptions

theguardian.com:

The US government has sued Rite Aid, one of the nation’s largest pharmacy chains, for allegedly missing “red flags” when it knowingly filled unlawful drug prescriptions – including opioids and fentanyl – and ignored internal controls on its practices.

In a complaint filed on Monday, the federal justice department asserted that Rite Aid “filled at least hundreds of thousands of unlawful prescriptions for controlled substances that were medically unnecessary, lacked a medically accepted indication, or were not issued in the usual course of professional practice” between 2014 and 2019.

Rite Aid pharmacists are accused of ignoring obvious signs of misuse, including filling prescriptions for “trinities” – a combination of opioids, benzodiazepine and muscle relaxants.

So-called drug trinities are considered particularly euphoric for substance abusers – but also especially dangerous. Opioids such as oxycodone slow breathing, benzodiazepines like Xanax slow the heart, and muscle relaxants compound both effects, leading to fatal overdoses.

The justice department’s complaint said that Rite Aid had “early fills” of fentanyl and oxycodone prescriptions before a prior prescription for the same drug had run out, which is “a clear sign of over-utilization”.

In a statement, the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, said: “The justice department is using every tool at our disposal to confront the opioid epidemic that is killing Americans and shattering communities across the country.”

Associate attorney general Vanita Gupta said that the pharmacy chain’s prescribing practices had “opened the floodgates for millions of opioid pills and other controlled substances to flow illegally out of Rite Aid’s stores”.

The justice department also accused