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A Coal Country Fight against the Drug Companies That Delivered the Opioid Epidemic
by Eric Eyre
Book Reviewed by:From a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter from the smallest newspaper ever to win the prize in the investigative reporting category, an urgent, riveting, and heartbreaking investigation into the corporate greed that pumped millions of pain pills into small Appalachian towns, decimating communities.
Death in Mud Lick is the story of a pharmacy in Kermit, West Virginia, that distributed 12 million opioid pain pills in three years to a town with a population of 382 people—and of one woman, desperate for justice, after losing her brother to overdose. Debbie Preece's fight for accountability for her brother's death took her well beyond the Sav-Rite Pharmacy in coal country, ultimately leading to three of the biggest drug wholesalers in the country. She was joined by a crusading lawyer and by local journalist, Eric Eyre, who uncovered a massive opioid pill-dumping scandal that shook the foundation of America's largest drug companies—and won him a Pulitzer Prize.
Part Erin Brockovich, part Spotlight, Death in Mud Lick details the clandestine meetings with whistleblowers; a court fight to unseal filings that the drug distributors tried to keep hidden, a push to secure the DEA pill-shipment data, and the fallout after Eyre's local paper, the Gazette-Mail, the smallest newspaper ever to win a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting, broke the story.
Eyre follows the opioid shipments into individual counties, pharmacies, and homes in West Virginia and explains how thousands of Appalachians got hooked on prescription drugs—resulting in the highest overdose rates in the country. But despite the tragedy, there is also hope as citizens banded together to create positive change—and won. A work of deep reporting and personal conviction, Eric Eyre's intimate portrayal of a national public health crisis illuminates the shocking pattern of corporate greed and its repercussions for the citizens of West Virginia—and the nation—to this day.
Edgar Awards
2021
By looking at the opioid endemic as a multifaceted public health matter, Eyre is successful in bringing visibility to the issue and its many layers. He places it in a national context, sharing not only West Virginia's specific relationship with opioids, but also data about nationwide drug distribution. Thanks to his investigative work, the public has new information showing a side of addiction that is seldom understood, one that looks beyond individuals and into the larger systemic factors that make this a patterned problem...continued
Full Review
(801 words)
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(Reviewed by Jamie Chornoby).
In 1988, Mingo County, West Virginia appeared in headlines across the country, with reports of staggering corruption in the southwest part of the Mountain State. There were allegations that elected officials paid for votes, firefighters set property ablaze for insurance payouts, and mom-and-pop trailer shops peddled pot, LSD and PCP.
The Preece family was at the center of the town, and in turn, the center of the scandals. "Wig" Preece and his wife "Cooney" had 13 children. They were affiliated with folks in the highest offices — the county prosecutor's office, the school board, the fire house, the county commission and the jail. With clout in practically all pockets of Mingo County, they seemed untouchable. According to FBI ...
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Eric Eyre represents the absolute best of newspaper reporting: He's dogged, fair, and as scrappy as the mountains he calls home. His book, Death in Mud Lick, is a riveting, intimate look at the corporate greed, regulatory failure and lobbying shenanigans that led to pill mills complete with "courtesy snacks" and cash registers so full they wouldn't close. In the most opioid-ravaged place in America, Eyre makes you see the opioid crisis anew.
