Health John Oliver hammers Big Pharma for opioid epidemic

It’s tempting to note that it’s quite a coincidence that John Oliver’s focus last night on Last Week Tonight was the opioid epidemic, coming as it did on a weekend in which authorities announced that two people are dead — so far — in a wave of nine overdoses of opioids in the Twin Cities.

But that’s the nature of epidemics. There are no coincidences. These headlines have been a constant for more than a year.

“No one is safe from it,” Oliver noted.

It mostly stems from addiction to prescribed painkillers, he notes accurately.

“Alternative pain treatments should be at least as easy to find as Waffle Houses, which, like heroin, are both hazardous to your health and dangerously addictive,” Oliver said.