龙门镖局

俄罗斯总统普京周日更换了国防部长，提名此前担任第一副总理的安德烈·别洛乌索夫为俄国防部长。    Global consulting giant McKinsey & Company advised several painkillers producers for 15 years on how to "turbocharge" prescription drug sales largely to blame for starting the opioid epidemic in the US, The New York Times has revealed citing over 100,000 documents.,The docs emerged as a part of a settlement deal that McKinsey signed with several state attorneys that sued the company.,Apart from working with Endo, Purdue, and Mallinckrodt, the company also provided "in-depth experience in narcotics" for Johnson & Johnson subsidiaries producing controlled substances. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of US citizens died from overdose, often linked to these very drugs.,How It All Started,According to the disclosed documents, McKinsey helped both Endo and Purdue, the creators of two of the most widespread opioid-based drugs for severe chronic pain, to launch their products Opana and OxyContin in 2006-2008. The firm even advised one of the companies on how to overcome a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) block which it had encountered in 2008.,The FDA blocked Purdue's attempt to release an upgraded version of its OxyContin, which was more difficult to snort or dilute and inject in bloodstream – two methods of the prescription drug's abuse that already had been devised by some of its recipients. In order to help Purdue get the license, McKinsey interviewed an ex-drug dealer on the medication's abuse, prepared docs and even coached the drug firm's officials for meetings with the FDA as the pharmaceutical company knew its drug had been widely abused, the docs suggest.,Crack Pipes: Biden Administration's Handling of US Opioid Crisis Raising Questions, Journo Says15 February, 13:00 GMT,Purdue's main competitor, Endo, also released a new version of its painkiller and tried to get it marked as resistant to crushing (for snorting) and diluting (for injections), but the FDA did not allow the latter citing lack of such properties. Nonetheless, the drug's release was a success and coincided with a drop in abuse-resistant OxyContin's sales.,This came, however, at a cost of local epidemics of previously unseen blood disorders in several US states in 2012 – patients were found to be anemic and suffered from kidney failure. Many of them admitted to abusing updated Opana – the new formulae indeed discouraged from snorting it, but still allowed injection abuse. However, the same component that prevented crushing took a great toll on those who tried to inject the drug to get a better high, leading to red blood cells' destruction and organ damage.,Going on the 'Offensive',The consulting company's involvement in the opioid crisis did not stop at helping the companies to launch their products – it also helped them to boost the sales.,While the pills like the ones produced by Endo, Purdue and Mallinckrodt were originally advertised as not causing additions, US doctors were not always prone to prescribing them, especially when a patient's pain was neither severe nor chronic. According to the revealed documents, McKinsey's consultants helped Purdue, and several other companies, including two J&J subsidiaries, to overcome this "problem".,Starting in 2009, McKinsey developed a "segmentation" strategy for Purdue: its analysts divided the company's customers into groups based on their potential thoughts of the product and then formed distinct messages for each group. The customers in this case were doctors prescribing painkillers and the product was opioid drugs. The strategy targeted even doctors who resorted to opioids only in most extreme cases, ensuring them of OxyContin's safety and trying to convince them that there was no point in making their patients suffer.,The consulting company proposed to achieve this by "[raising] physician comfort levels through appropriate education and support". Purdue tried to convince these doctors that their colleagues had no issues prescribing OxyContin.,By 2014, the US government started to realize a nascent opioid drug problem was underway and introduced new labeling requirements for such drugs as well as instructions to use them only in cases of severe of chronic pain. Around the same time, OxyContin sales started to decline, prompting Purdue to ask for McKinsey's help once again – this time to overcome the government's policy and precautions.,The consultants identified the problem as the company promoting its drug as a less potent opioid amid rampant drug abuse and advised to shift to the "offense" instead, the documents show. They namely advised focusing the salesmen efforts on doctors, who were likely to prescribe OxyContin to a new client not previously taking opioid drugs.,"Physicians with higher OxyContin NBRx to Rx ratio may be more likely to initiate a patient on OxyContin", an extract from a McKinsey presentation for Purdue from January 2014 said.,Around the same time and amid the 2015 HIV concentrated outbreaks in several states linked to the opioid drugs abuse via injections, McKinsey consulted Endo on promoting its Opana. The company was not concerned about what the CDC named "explosive transmission" of HIV and the Opana's role in it, according to the documents. On the contrary, in summer 2015, it helped Endo rededicate most of its salesmen from other products into a "Sales Force Blitz" – the company almost solely dedicated to selling Opana to around 3,000 physicians in the US.,One of McKinsey's consultants was excited over the creation of the "Force", claiming in correspondence with the head of Endo’s painkiller unit that the "fun [begins] on Monday!" with the latter responding "agreed, the fun is just beginning".,Playing Both Sides,One of the strangest revelations in the documents uncovered by the New York Times is that McKinsey managed to play both sides of the opioid crisis tragedy – helping pharmaceutical companies sell more of "not-so-addiction-resistant" drugs, while also assisting the FDA, other government agencies and state governments, in the fight against the epidemic.,In 2017, the FDA finally decided to pull one of the drugs, the more potent Opana, from the market, but not until it made $844 million in revenue with help from McKinsey and played a role in the deaths of thousands of Americans, considered to be the victims of the opioid epidemic. Paradoxically, the same year, McKinsey Senior Partner Tom Latkovic lamented about doctors prescribing opioid painkillers left and right at a health care conference.,"Why do we continue to prescribe, dispense, pay for opioid prescriptions to people that we know, or at least we could know, have an incredibly high propensity to abuse them?" Latkovic wondered.,The bizarre divergence between what McKinsey was advising to the pharmaceutical companies and Latkovic's rhetoric is explained by the fact that he was not a member of the consulting company's pharmaceutical practice, which worked with pharma.,Instead, he and his team worked with state governments and health systems to pin down the ways of tackling the opioid crisis, The New York Times said citing two local officials, who used to work on the issue. Their work, however, was partly complicated by McKinsey's pharmaceutical wing, which wanted to greenlight their draft publications in case they could damage their clients.,North Carolina Rep. Claims Opioid Crisis 'Affects Every Community' in US Amid Drug Trafficking Surge19 December 2021, 01:36 GMT,Eventually in 2019, McKinsey finally stopped advising its top client, Perdue, but not until their ties became public during one of the litigations related to the opioid epidemic and initiated by US authorities. One such litigation eventually had McKinsey pay $600 million in settlement without admitting guilt, as well as release the documents related to its work with the pharmaceutical companies.。

前国防部长谢尔盖·绍伊古被任命为俄罗斯联邦安全会议秘书。

二 |

现年65 岁的别洛乌索夫（上图右者，左为绍伊古），于 1959 年 3 月 17 日出生于莫斯科。

1981年至1986年，别洛乌索夫在苏联中央经济数学研究所人机系统模拟实验室担任见习研究员，后升任初级研究员。

三 |

1991年至2006年，他担任俄罗斯科学院经济预测研究所实验室主任。

2000 年，别洛乌索夫被任命为俄罗斯总理的“编外顾问”。6年后，他加入俄罗斯经济部并担任副部长。

四 |

2012 年，他被任命为经济部长。2013 年至 2020 年，他是俄罗斯总统普京的顾问。

2020 年起，他担任内阁第一副总理。2020 年，在总理米舒斯京感染新冠肺炎期间，别洛乌索夫短暂代理总理职务。

俄罗斯媒体 RBC报道称，别洛乌索夫是说服普京相信数字经济和区块链对未来至关重要的官员之一。报道还称，他没有在军队服过役，但和普京总统一样，别洛乌索夫也是一名武术爱好者，年轻时曾练习空手道和俄罗斯格斗运动“桑搏”。

克里姆林宫发言人佩斯科夫周日表示，普京决定让一名文职人员担任国防部长，是认为国防部应该“对创新和前沿思想持开放态度”。

六 | 他说，俄罗斯现在越来越像上世纪 80 年代中期的苏联，当时的 GDP 很大一部分都用于军费开支。

七 | 因此，有必要确保军费开支更好地与俄罗斯整体经济相融合，此前担任第一副总理的别洛乌索夫正是这一职位的合适人选。佩斯科夫补充道：“谁对创新更加开放，谁就能在战场上取得胜利。”

媒体同样关注到，这是普京开始第五个任期的内阁改组，而绍伊古是名单上唯一被替换的部长。

媒体普遍认为，这与绍伊古的副手蒂穆尔·伊万诺夫上个月因受贿罪被捕有关。伊万诺夫被勒令继续拘留，等待官方调查。

还有一件被媒体广泛提及的事是，2023 年，绍伊古与当时的瓦格纳集团首领普里戈任曾公开发生争执，后者不满绍伊古在指挥战事上的表现。

英国广播公司（BBC）报道说，其实绍伊古也不是军人出身。他是一名土木工程师，20 世纪 90 年代因出任紧急救灾部部长声名鹊起。

八 | 尽管他本身没有军队服役经历，但因为救灾队吸收了军事化的民防部队，在这份工作上的成功表现使他获得了将军头衔。

绍伊古与普京总统关系一度非常密切，他曾经带普京到家乡西伯利亚钓鱼。（如下图）

佩斯科夫周日表示，此次改组不会影响俄罗斯在乌克兰的军事行动，“这一直是总参谋长的职责”，目前担任俄军总参谋长的格拉西莫夫将军将继续留任。

普京周日免去了尼古拉·帕特鲁舍夫的安全会议秘书职务，表示另有任用。据塔斯社报道，佩斯科夫表示，除了领导安全会议之外，绍伊古还将代表普京参加负责监督该国军事工业综合体的军事工业委员会。

九 | 佩斯科夫介绍称，绍伊古经常访问这些军工企业，并且非常了解每个企业的生产进度。