The Biden administration will use data from EMS first responders to track overdoses. The focus will be on improving response to a public health crisis that kills more than 100,000 Americans annually.
The Sacklers, who own Purdue Pharma, maker of Oxycontin, have maintained they did nothing wrong. People who lost loved ones and years of their lives to opioid addiction believe otherwise.
Researchers say cocaine, meth and other street drugs are increasingly contaminated with deadly synthetic opioids, contributing to a major spike in deaths.
"During the pandemic, basically everything is pointed in the wrong direction," says one federal health official, who calls the convergence of COVID-19 and America's addiction crisis "a nightmare."
