Report: Feds Launch Investigation Into Prescription Drug Abuse In NFL
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on July 13th, 2014 11:08 pm by HL
Report: Feds Launch Investigation Into Prescription Drug Abuse In NFL
Investigators “want to find out who provided and distributed the drugs to football players,” according to the New York Daily News.
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Former Bears quarterback Jim McMahon during a game in 1985; McMahon is one of eight plaintiffs in a new lawsuit against the NFL.
CREDIT: Associated Press/John Swart
After former NFL players filed a class action lawsuit in May alleging that the league and its teams illegally supplied them with prescription painkillers and other drugs, the Drug Enforcement Agency launched an investigation into the NFL’s drug practices, according to a report from the New York Daily News.
The nine former players, headlined by former Chicago Bears quarterback Jim McMahon, alleged that the NFL “intentionally, recklessly and negligently created and maintained a culture of drug misuse, substituting players’ health for profit” in the lawsuit, and that the league and its teams did so without warning players of the dangers of the drugs or properly informing them of the injuries they suffered. The league “fraudulently concealed these dangers from its players to keep them on the field when they shouldn’t have been,” the suit alleged.
In response, the DEA’s New York division began talking to former players about the culture of drug use in the NFL and how doctors were able to get non-steroidal anti-inflammatories and other painkillers mentioned in the lawsuit, according to the Daily News. One source told the paper that the investigators “want to find out who provided and distributed the drugs to football players.”
The lawsuit from McMahon et al. is the second major legal claim involving prescription drugs against the NFL. In 2011, a dozen former players alleged in a lawsuit that the league illegally provided them with Toradol, a powerful and controversial anti-inflammatory. As in this suit, the players claimed that team trainers and doctors did not warn them of the drug’s side effects. A 2013 Washington Post survey found that more than half of NFL players had used Toradol; another survey of former players found that 52 percent said they had used prescription painkillers during their careers and that 71 percent of those who used the drugs had abused them.
A DEA spokesperson told the Daily News that she was not aware of an investigation into the league’s practices but that the agency is involved in widespread efforts to combat prescription drug abuse.
A federal judge last week granted preliminary approval to a settlement between the NFL and more than 4,500 former players who sued the league over its handling and treatment of concussions. But if this suit and possible investigation are any indication, the league is about to face even more scrutiny over how it has treated its players.
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Emails Reveal Extensive Failures In Michigan Prison Food Privatization Scheme
Newly revealed emails between Aramark employees and Michigan officials illustrate why the state is considering revoking the company’s prison food contract.
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CREDIT: Spirit of America / Shutterstock
A quarter of the workers who are supposed to supply food to Michigan prisons under a privatization deal struck in December are banned from the facilities for misconduct, and prison staff feel the company that now runs the kitchens has focused on its own profits over inmate safety and nutrition, emails obtained by the Detroit Free Press reveal.
Lawmakers turned over Michigan’s prison kitchens to Aramark Corrections in December after the company convinced the state that it could save taxpayers $12 million. But since then, the state has fined the company nearly $100,000 for various violations including unauthorized menu changes, insufficient nutrition for inmates, and staff misconduct that endangers both guards and prisoners. Last month, the state warned Aramark that it would begin enforcing nutritional rules more strictly, and hinted that it could rescind the contract entirely if the company didn’t shape up.
Now, far more details of the company’s shortcomings and Department of Corrections officials’ frustration with Aramark are public thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Free Press. The paper received more than 3,000 emails from state and Aramark officials. The messages paint a grim picture:
–74 of the roughly 300 Aramark employees who are supposed to work on the contract have been banned from Michigan prison facilities for violations including showing up drunk to work, having sexual contact with inmates, and attempting to smuggle drugs into the prisons.
–”Aramark officials were upset” that a prison employee told inmates to report problems with the food to staff to ensure that the company was held accountable to the standards in the contract.
–Prison officials and Aramark workers were concerned that a batch of meatballs smelled rotten after the freezer where they were stored broke down for a few days, but the company served the meat anyway after a supervisor reportedly told them “it only smelled funny because part of it was turkey, and they should serve it.” About 100 inmates at another facility fell ill with “an as-yet-undetermined bug,” according to the newspaper.
–Despite publicly downplaying problems with menu substitutions and meals that fall short of nutritional requirements, Aramark emails show the company was far more distressed in private. A January email from an Aramark Vice President to subordinates indicated that the nutritional problems were occurring daily despite repeated warnings to tighten up the company’s operation, and warned the recipients that “Enough is enough.”
–A prison official said Aramark’s top priority was counting the number of meals served, which is the basis for what the company gets paid, and as a result guards were left to cover other tasks that should be part of the food service operation, such as monitoring the food line to make sure inmates weren’t stealing food.
“I’m at my wit’s end,” the Department of Corrections official in charge of monitoring the contract emailed to a colleague in March. “Bottom line is lay down with dogs, get up with fleas,” the colleague replied.
From Aramark’s perspective, though, prisons operations are a bright spot on the accounting sheet. Its most recent quarterly report praised corrections contracts as a primary growth area in the multinational company’s portfolio.
The profit stream may be good news for shareholders and executives, but the company’s track record in the prison food business is not so great for incarcerated people, guards, and taxpayers. The company’s poor handling of a food contract was blamed for causing riots in a Kentucky prison in 2009, and issues similar to the ones Michigan officials report have cropped up in Aramark-run prison kitchens in Florida, Ohio, and Indiana.
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