Broome County expands effort to fight Opiod Addiction
Broome County has named it's point man in it's effort to reduce the number of prescriptions of Opiod painkillers.
Tom Morellino will head a program called OPRAD which the county hopes will fight addiction. Morellino spent 29 years as an executive sales representative for Eli Lilly, a global pharmaceutical company. But now instead of selling prescription drugs to doctors he will work with them to avoid over-prescription.
"I've always said, I'm not a doctor, I've never diagnosed anything, I've never written a prescription for anything. However, if the CDC comes out with certain guidelines, I'm just passing along some information. The doctor can make up his own mind." said Tom Morellino, the new program educator for OPRAD
Morellino will visit 98 practices in the county. Morellino will be paid $35,000, which comes from a grant by the Community Foundation of South Central New York.