Eric Eyre

Eric Eyre

Eric Eyre was born in 1965 and is currently 61 years old. Eyre attended The University of South Florida St. Petersburg where he received a Master's Degree in Mass Communication.

Eric Eyre is a reporter and investigative journalist from the United States who spent decades in Virginia highlighting the state's most important issues.

He has become known across the United States for stories that provide a deep dive into issues such as addiction. He revealed how drug distributors and drug companies flooded Virginia with pain pills worth $780 million between 2007 and 2012, resulting in the opioid crisis.

Eric Eyre’s work launched a legal showdown and caused the release of secret data that busted wide open the unethical practices of the opioid distribution networks. His reporting helped the courts and communities understand how drug giants and pharmacy chains were involved in the emergency.

Outside of his work in the papers, Eric Eyre worked for Mountain State Spotlight, which he cofounded as an investigative reporter. This was a non-profit organization dedicated to watchdog reporting.

In 2016, Eyre got a Parkinson’s disease diagnosis, but never stopped working despite the many challenges he had to deal with because of deteriorating health.

Whether telling stories from coal country or tracking pills, his work is about uncovering hidden truths and stirring people to pay attention to things that matter.

In 2020, Eric Eyre published the work Death in Mud Lick, in which he tells of his investigation of the West Virginia opioid crisis.

At the center of it is a small town pharmacy that sold more than 12 million pain pills in a community of 382 people over just 382 days. The story was sparked by the search for justice by a woman named Debbie Preece, who needed to get to the bottom of her brother’s overdose.

Drawing from court battles, secret whistleblower meetings, and relentless reporting, Eyre combines hope with tragedy to show how ordinary citizens went against corporate greed to fight back against the opioid epidemic.

Eric Eyre: Awards & Accolades

Eyre's book, Death in Mud Lick: A Coal Country Fight against the Drug Companies That Delivered the Opioid Epidemic won the Edgar Award, Best Fact Crime, in 2021.

Related Authors

Fans of Eric Eyre also enjoy these authors:

1. Susan Orlean, author of the Susan Orlean Library Science Books.
2. Tara Conklin, author of: The Last Romantics.
3. Tara Westover, author of: Educated: A Memoir.
4. Kaitlyn Greenidge, author of: We Love You, Charlie Freeman.
5. Ijeoma Oluo, author of: So You Want to Talk About Race.

Eric Eyre: F.A.Q