Sen. Ed Markey discussed what he called a growing movement opposed to the way the medical establishment has opiate pain killers yesterday at a forum in Dorchester.
When it comes to opiates, Markey says he sees a political movement akin to the public health backlash against cigarettes in the 1960s starting to take hold in the United States, and that movement is coming into conflict with the entrenched interests of pharmaceutical and medical companies.
“That day of reckoning for each of these industries is coming very, very fast.”
Markey appeared alongside Gov. Charlie Baker and Middlesex Sheriff Peter Koutoujian at a forum to discuss what needs to be done to stop opiate abuse.
“This is a hidden enemy of just about every family in the country because as the governor said, it’s now in the suburbs, it’s rich, it’s poor, it’s everywhere.”
Markey voiced his support for a White House-sanctioned Surgeon General’s report on the opioid epidemic, which he says could have as great an impact as the 1964 report on the dangers of cigarettes.
