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Thursday, December 21, 2023

Season's Greetings! 2023 in Review

As 2023 comes to a close, we’d like to say a big THANK YOU to all of our researchers for your continuing support and connection to the Industry Documents Library.

We’re grateful for your interest in industry documents and for your participation in the IDL community, whether that’s through documents research, workshops and trainings, project partnerships, or strategic planning and guidance.

Here are some of the achievements you helped us reach in 2023:

18,387,011 documents now available through IDL!

  • In collaboration with Johns Hopkins University, we continued to acquire and make available millions of documents created by Insys Therapeutics disclosed in opioid litigation as well as a new collection of DEA materials for the UCSF-JHU Opioid Industry Documents Archive. This brings the total number of OIDA documents to 3.1M.

  • The UCSF-JHU Opioid Industry Documents Archive team was honored to be the 2023 recipient of the Archival Innovator Award given by the Society of American Archivists. The Archival Innovator Award recognizes an archivist, a group of archivists, a repository, or an organization that demonstrates the greatest overall current impact on the profession or their communities.

  • With the support of the UCSF Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment (PHRE), IDL added the new Talc Litigation Collection to the Chemical Industry Documents Archive. This initial set of 3,500 documents was obtained through investigations and lawsuits against Johnson & Johnson, which alleged that the company knew its talc products contained asbestos, a known toxin linked to ovarian cancer and mesothelioma.

  • At the closing of the MN Tobacco Depository in 2021, we identified a number of tobacco industry files and videos that were missing from our holdings. The Minnesota Historical Society conducted a search and a major digitization project on our behalf and we are so grateful for their efforts! This year we began adding these missing files to TTID and will continue to do so through 2024.

  • We welcomed J.A. Nelson to the IDL Team this year. J.A. is our Sr Front-end Web Developer helping to build an updated version of the IDL website. More details about this rebuild will be coming in 2024!

  • This summer, we hosted one Senior Data Science Fellow, Noel Salmeron, and two Junior Data Science Fellows, Adam Silva and Bryce Quintos, in collaboration with the UCSF Data Science and Open Scholarship team. As senior fellow, Noel utilized our audiovisual materials on IDL to evaluate the transcription accuracy of digital archives and the impact on documentation along with the creation of subject words and descriptions. Read more about this project on the Archives & Special Collections Brought to Light blog.

  • UCSF Magazine wrote a wonderful piece, Corporate Strategy, National Tragedy: UCSF’s industry archives expose the marketing tactics that fueled the opioid epidemic, featuring Professor Dorie Apollonio and her work with UCSF pharmacy students using the opioid industry documents.

  • We added 18 new publications which cite industry documents to our Bibliography, bringing the total number of citations to 1,174!
2023 was a busy year for workshops and webinars!
  • In May, we delivered our Annual Tobacco and Industry Documents Workshop.
  • Also in May, we had the pleasure of participating in the joint UCSF-JHU OIDA webinar "Exploring the Opioid Industry Documents: Research Communities, Educational Opportunities, and Community Data" (recording available)
  • In August, we assisted with a workshop on Breast Cancer and Industry Documents where advocates learned about a 1-year research project uncovering what industry knew about breast cancer risk and their products as well as new methodologies for research, advocacy and journalism collaborations.

From all of us at the IDL, we wish you a safe and festive holiday season, and a healthy and hopeful New Year ahead.

Kate, Rachel, Rebecca, Sven, Melissa and J.A.
Thursday, November 30, 2023

New Talc Litigation Collection Added to CIDA

Collections Updates


Chemical Industry Documents Archive

We are pleased to announce the addition of the Talc Litigation Collection, a new Chemical Industry Documents Archive collection.

This initial set of 3,500 documents was obtained through investigations and lawsuits against Johnson & Johnson, which alleged that the company knew its talc products contained asbestos, a known toxin linked to ovarian cancer and mesothelioma.

Please check out the UCSF Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment's blog post announcing this new collection. We are thankful for PRHE's continued support of the IDL and the crucial work they do disseminating research on industry strategies that harm public health.


UCSF-JHU Opioid Industry Documents Archive
Insys Therapeutics
The UCSF-JHU Opioid Industry Documents Archive (OIDA) added 3,600 documents to the Insys Litigation Documents collection. This set contains emails, reports and documents from 2014 discussing the many aspects of Insys's business activities, ranging from insurance pre-authorization to speakers bureau training.

The Insys collection ultimately will contain several million documents that are currently being processed chronologically. Processed documents are being made public on a rolling basis.


Bibliography Updates

Alfred-John (A.J.) Roderos, Anthony Wong, James Chhen, Clever Chiu, Dorie E. Apollonio. Retail Chain Pharmacy Opioid Dispensing Practices from 1997 to 2020: A Content Analysis of Internal Industry Documents. Drug and Alcohol Dependence Reports, 2023.


Monday, July 03, 2023

June 2023 Updates - New Opioid Industry Documents!

Collection Updates:

Opioid Industry Documents
The UCSF-JHU Opioid Industry Documents Archive (OIDA) added more than 11,500 documents to the Insys Litigation Documents collection. This set contains emails, reports and documents from 2013 & 2014 discussing the many aspects of Insys's business activities, ranging from sales to speakers bureau training. The Insys collection ultimately will contain several million documents that are currently being processed chronologically. Processed documents are being made public on a rolling basis with monthly releases expected in 2023–2024.

New Collection - West Virginia DEA Investigation Collection
The 418 records in this new collection were obtained as a result of the West Virginia Attorney General’s Office multi-year investigation into the US Drug Enforcement Agency’s process of setting aggregate production quotas (APQs) for controlled substances.

The West Virginia Attorney General alleged that the DEA’s quota setting process was flawed and resulted in an overproduction of opioids which contributed to the drug crisis in West Virginia and elsewhere. The AGO submitted multiple FOIA requests to the DEA and received several batches of responsive documents.

35 additional transcripts of video declarations have been added to the SF Walgreen Litigation Collection.



Bibliography updates:

Five new papers and publications were added to the IDL Bibliography this month including:
Gaber, Nadia; Bero, Lisa; Woodruff, Tracey J. The Devil they Knew: Chemical Documents Analysis of Industry Influence on PFAS Science. Annals of Global Health 2023 June 01.

Robert Fife, Steven Chase & Bill Curry. McKinsey pitched Purdue Pharma Canada on plan to boost opioid sales in 2014, memo reveals. The Globe and Mail, 2023 June 19.

Thursday, January 19, 2023

130,000 New Industry Documents Posted & New Fellowship Opportunities for 2023


OIDA Updates


Opioid Industry Documents Archive
We added 127,511 documents to the UCSF-JHU Opioid Industry Documents Archive's Insys Litigation Documents collection. These documents, which arise from Insys’s early years bringing the fentanyl spray Subsys to market (2012–2013), shed new light on the genesis of the company’s speaker program and reimbursement center (See the Insys At a Glance page for more information), both of which have featured prominently in litigation against Insys.

This release is the fourth batch of Insys documents to be added to OIDA; the Insys collection ultimately will contain several million documents that are currently being processed chronologically. Processed documents will be made public on a rolling basis with monthly releases expected in 2023–2024. Information arising from a December 2022 release (UCSF News, Johns Hopkins University News) served as the basis for reporting from USA Today.

Opioid Industry Documents Archive National Advisory Committee Update
We are pleased to welcome four new members to our National Advisory Committee, a group that supports the Archive through expert recommendations on the project’s development and sustainability pertaining to use, transparency, accessibility, impact, and other measures: Sandy Alexander (former Massachusetts Assistant Attorney General), Michelle Muffett-Lipinski (recovery advocate and Founding Principal, Northshore Recovery High School), Melina Sherman (communications scholar, Knology), and Anthony Ryan Hatch (Professor of the Science in Society Program, Wesleyan University). Many thanks to our outgoing NAC member Beth Macy (author of Raising Lazarus and Dopesick) for her remarkable service.


Food Industry Documents Updates

3,600+ New USRTK Food Industry Documents Added
The 3,634 new documents posted today were donated by USRTK and acquired in their ongoing investigations into the influence of large food and beverage companies on academic partnerships and government regulatory processes around sugary beverages and obesity, among other topics.

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2023 Postdoctoral Fellowship Opportunities for Industry Documents Research - Apply Now!
We are pleased to share two 2023 postdoctoral fellowship opportunities at UCSF that will work with our collections.


Postdoctoral Fellowship in Opioid Industry Documents Research and Community Data Engagement - The UCSF OIDA Postdoctoral Fellow will pursue original, publishable research using materials housed in OIDA and work closely with the archive research team to enhance the accessibility and usability of archival materials for a diverse array of communities, with a particular focus on racial and health equity. Fellows will work on a multidisciplinary team including faculty, other postdoctoral fellows and research assistants and will be mentored by and work closely with researchers and information specialists at UCSF. Fellows will be based at the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education (https://tobacco.ucsf.edu/) and participate fully in the fellowship program. Fellows will also be affiliated with the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the UCSF School of Medicine (https://humsci.ucsf.edu/).

Postdoctoral Fellowship in Tobacco Control Research -
The CTCRE Postdoctoral Fellowship offers diverse educational and research opportunities, including a grant writing seminar, graduate research positions, advocacy training, and individualized documents training. Work spans policy and historical research, economics, and science. Fellows are recruited from a variety of fields including the basic sciences, social sciences, public health practitioners, clinical fields, political science, history, economics, law, and marketing. Fellowship stipends range from $55,500 - $66,600, depending on years of postdoctoral experience.

More about the fellowships and application submission

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UCSF Digital Health Humanities Pilot


The Digital Health Humanities Pilot (DHHP) will facilitate new insights into historical health data. Participants from all disciplines (including faculty, staff, and other learners) will learn how to evaluate and integrate digital methods and “archives as data” into their research through a range of offerings and trainings utilizing datasets from holdings within the UCSF Archives and Special Collections (including the AIDS History Project and Industry Documents Library, among others.)

Check out the workshops and sign up!

UC Love Data Week (February 13-17)

Want more information on working with data?
The UC-wide Love Data Week offers free sessions on topics such as data access, management, security, sharing, and preservation.

Friday, December 16, 2022

Our Year in Review... Goodbye 2022!

As 2022 comes to a close, we’d like to say a big THANK YOU to all of you for your continuing support and connection to the Industry Documents Library.

We’re grateful for your interest in industry documents and for your participation in the IDL community, whether that’s through documents research, workshops and trainings, project partnerships, or strategic planning and guidance.

This year we celebrated 20 years (!!!) of making industry documents available online and we appreciate all the ways you’ve worked with us to make the IDL stronger.

Here are some of the achievements you helped us reach in 2022:

17,508,831 documents now available through IDL!
We added 2.3 million new documents to the collections in 2022 -

  • 156 in Tobacco,
  • 20,924 in Food,
  • 2,293,591 in Opioids

  • In collaboration with Johns Hopkins University, we continued to acquire and make available millions of documents created by Insys Therapeutics, Mallinckrodt, McKinsey & Co, Walgreens and Purdue Pharma disclosed in Opioid Litigation for the Opioid Industry Documents Archive.

  • We welcomed two new additions to the IDL Team this year and are very grateful for their needed presence and contributions:
    Melissa Ignacio, IDL Program Coordinator
    Erik-Paul Gibson, IDL User Experience Designer

  • We delivered our Annual Tobacco and Industry Documents Workshop in May, and a follow up webinar to last year's Food Industry Documents Archive Training Institute to help global health advocates learn how to search and use industry documents in their work

  • We hosted three incredible summer interns: 2 SFUSD students as Junior Data Science Fellows and a graduate student as a Senior Fellow in a program cohosted by IDL and UCSF Library's Data Science Initiative.

  • In November, we participated in the first Everlaw Summit and were featured in a fireside chat titled “Seeking Truth & Healing in Our Nation’s Deadly Opioid Crisis.”

  • We added 27 new publications which cite industry documents to our Bibliography, bringing the total citations to 1,145!


  • If you’re able, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to the Industry Documents Library to help us preserve and provide access to the collections for years to come.


    From all of us at the IDL, we wish you a safe and festive holiday season, and a healthy and hopeful New Year ahead.

    Kate, Rachel, Rebecca, Sven, Melissa and Erik
    Thursday, December 16, 2021

    Season’s Greetings from the UCSF Industry Documents Library

    At the end of another challenging year, we’d like to say a big THANK YOU to all of our researchers for your continuing support and connection to the Industry Documents Library.

    Here are some of the achievements we reached in 2021:
    15,194,052 documents now available through IDL!

    From all of us at the IDL, we wish you a safe and festive holiday season, and a healthy and hopeful New Year ahead.
    Kate, Rachel, Rebecca and Sven
    Wednesday, March 24, 2021

    UCSF and Johns Hopkins University Launch Opioid Industry Documents Archive

    The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and Johns Hopkins University announced the launch of the Opioid Industry Documents Archive, a digital repository of publicly disclosed documents from recent judgments, settlements, and ongoing lawsuits concerning the opioid crisis. The documents come from government litigation against pharmaceutical companies, including opioid manufacturers and distributors related to their contributions to the deadly epidemic, as well as litigation taking place in federal court on behalf of thousands of cities and counties in the United States. The documents in the archive include emails, memos, presentations, sales reports, budgets, audit reports, Drug Enforcement Administration briefings, meeting agendas and minutes, expert witness reports, and depositions of drug company executives.  

    The Opioid Industry Documents Archive leverages extraordinary expertise within UCSF and Johns Hopkins University in library science, information technology, and digital archiving. It also relies on scholarship focused on many dimensions of the opioid epidemic, ranging from the history of medicine to pharmaceutical policy to clinical care. Key organizations at UCSF involved include the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies; Department of Clinical Pharmacy; Department of Humanities and Social Sciences; Department of Family and Community Medicine; and Library. From Johns Hopkins University, the project involves the Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for Drug Safety and Effectiveness; Welch Medical Library; Institute of the History of Medicine; and Sheridan Libraries’ Digital Research and Curation Center.  

    The new archive will provide free public access to anyone who is interested in investigating the activities that have led to the devastating epidemic, which has now contributed to the deaths of nearly 500,000 people. The archive will promptly include new documents as they become available through resolution of legal action against companies that contributed to the deadly opioid crisis. The launch coincides with the universities’ efforts to house more than 250,000 documents produced by opioid manufacturer Insys in the course of its bankruptcy proceedings following opioid litigation.  

    The archive is similar to the groundbreaking Truth Tobacco Industry Documents archive at UCSF, which has fostered scientific and public health discoveries shaping tobacco policy in the U.S. and around the world. This new archive from two top research universities will deliver a wealth of information that experts can analyze to help policymakers prevent another disaster like this from happening again.

    To learn more, read the full press release or contact us.
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