Justice Department charges 60 for prescribing 32 million painkillers

The Justice Department charged more than 60 healthcare providers Wednesday with illegally prescribing 32 million painkillers through fraudulent schemes involving patients they knew suffered from addiction.

“We will not stand by and allow the harmful and oftentimes deadly practice of over-prescribing highly addictive drugs to continue unchecked,” FBI Executive Assistant Director Amy Hess said in a statement. “The FBI will pursue medical personnel who misuse their positions of trust to blatantly disregard others’ very lives for their own financial gain.”