Michigan Senate Race Heats Up Over Opioid Crisis Origins
Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has placed the blame for the opioid crisis squarely on his Republican opponent, former U.S. Representative Mike Rogers. During a recent interview on CNN, El-Sayed claimed that Rogers played a fundamental role in crafting the laws that sparked the national epidemic.
The two politicians are currently locked in a competitive battle for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat, a crucial contest that could tip the balance of power in Washington this November. Rogers previously served in the House from 2001 to 2015 and narrowly lost a Senate bid in 2024 to Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin.
When asked to substantiate the claim, El-Sayed’s campaign highlighted a legislative push led by Rogers during his time in Congress to prioritize chronic pain management—provisions that were eventually incorporated into the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA).
El-Sayed’s team argued that Rogers served as a key congressional advocate for increasing opioid prescriptions. However, public health data exposes a chronological flaw in this narrative. The surge in opioid prescriptions and overdose fatalities actually began in the late 1990s, years before Rogers introduced his first pain-care proposals in 2003, and long before they became law in 2010. Consequently, his legislation could not have triggered the addiction crisis.
Medical historians and policy experts generally trace the roots of the U.S. opioid epidemic back to 1996, when Purdue Pharma launched OxyContin. The manufacturer aggressively and deceptively marketed the painkiller for long-term use while minimizing its highly addictive nature.
Brandeis University opioid policy researcher Andrew Kolodny explained that the pharmaceutical industry spearheaded a massive campaign to convince the medical establishment that chronic pain had been dangerously undertreated. By the 2010s, the crisis evolved further as individuals transitioned from prescription painkillers to illicit street drugs like heroin and fentanyl.
Rogers’ Legislative Push on Pain Management
Beginning in 2003, Rogers introduced or cosponsored multiple iterations of the National Pain Care Policy Act. The bills aimed to elevate chronic pain as a public health issue, expand access to treatment, and increase physician education regarding the “medically appropriate use of controlled substances.”
At the time, Rogers stated his goal was to improve pain research and broaden care access for Americans suffering from chronic pain. According to Kolodny and internal industry records, opioid manufacturers actively backed and promoted these legislative efforts to boost sales and fend off restrictive prescribing regulations.
Documents show that groups like the American Pain Foundation—funded heavily by opioid makers—collaborated closely with Rogers on strategic planning and pain-treatment forums.
Representatives for Rogers defended his legislative record, noting that his focus on the issue stemmed from personal experience, including his battle with bladder cancer and watching his brother suffer from severe chronic pain. His spokesperson emphasized that Rogers sought to establish standardized clinical training and proper systems for treating debilitating pain so that everyday residents could live normal lives.
Additionally, Rogers’ campaign noted his support for the 2005 National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Act, a bipartisan measure designed to curb abuse by establishing a national interstate monitoring network for controlled substances.
While the National Pain Care Policy Act stalled in the Senate after passing the House in 2008, core elements were ultimately wrapped into the 2010 Affordable Care Act. These provisions mandated a federal Conference on Pain, directed the National Institutes of Health to expand research, and funded educational grants for healthcare providers.
Impact of the Legislation
Health experts note that Rogers’ legislation did not cause a spike in prescription rates. In fact, prescribing rates peaked between 2010 and 2012 before steadily declining as awareness of addiction dangers grew. The American Pain Foundation eventually folded in 2012 following a Senate investigation into drug companies and deceptive marketing practices.
While overdose deaths continued to climb over the following decade, the surge was driven primarily by illicit substances like heroin and fentanyl rather than prescription pills. Deaths tied strictly to prescription opioids saw a minor bump between 2010 and 2017 before dropping.
Experts remain divided on the exact weight of Rogers’ policy influence. Kolodny argued that while the legislation didn’t ignite the epidemic, it aligned with industry efforts to resist prescribing regulations and complicated the national response. Conversely, health industry attorney Harry Nelson called it “absurd” to blame Rogers for the crisis, reiterating that the epidemic’s true catalyst was the deceptive pharmaceutical marketing campaign of the late 1990s.
El-Sayed’s campaign also pointed to a 1995 Michigan law—passed when Rogers served as a state senator—that offered broad liability protections to pharmaceutical companies, making it more difficult for the state and its citizens to hold drug makers accountable for the opioid epidemic.
Conclusion
El-Sayed’s assertion that Rogers helped architect the legislation that kicked off the opioid epidemic is inaccurate. Public health authorities attribute the start of the crisis to aggressive pharmaceutical marketing of OxyContin in the mid-1990s.
Rogers did author and advocate for pain-management legislation backed by drug manufacturers, but he did so years after the epidemic had already begun, and the measures were not enacted until 2010, near the peak of the prescription wave.
While there is a minor grain of truth to the claim—Rogers certainly pushed for legislation to expand pain research and treatment access—he did not launch the national crisis. Independent fact-checkers rate the claim as Mostly False.