Tales Of Corporate Painkiller Pushing: 'The Death Rates Just Soared'

Higham says one sales director at the pharmaceutical manufacturer Mallinckrodt was jokingly called "ship, ship, ship" by colleagues because of the amount of oxycodone and hydrocodone he sold: "His bonus structure was tied to the amount of sales that he made," Higham notes. "And that was a time when there was no secret about how many people were dying in places across the country, and the opioid epidemic was raging."