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Opioids OC 4/11/17
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DA Hoovler: Orange County should sue drug companies over opioids
Apr 10, 2017 | Times Herald Record
By Heather Yakin
District Attorney David Hoovler wants Orange County to sue drug manufacturers over marketing techniques that critics say caused overprescribing of opioid pain medications and - by extension - the current opiate addiction crisis. The county is on board. -
Orange DA wants county to study feasibility of suing opiate pain med manufacturers
Apr 11, 2017 | MidHudson News
Orange County District Attorney David Hoovler has asked County Executive Steven Neuhaus and the county legislature to study the fesibility of filing a lawsuit against several manufacturers of opiate pain medication. The lawsuit would allege that those companies used deceptive practices in marketing opiate painkillers, resulting in significant over-prescription of opiates, and leading to the addictionl of several county residents, a number of overdose deaths, and significant costs to the county to combat the consequences of those over-prescriptions. -
News 12 Westchester
Apr 10, 2017 | N12WC New York
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News 12 Westchester
Apr 10, 2017 | N12WC New York
View clip here: https://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/26842852?token=9894a30a-d072-4d64-a8f2-bdcb894bd1a5
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DA Hoovler: Orange County should sue drug companies over opioids
Apr 10, 2017 | Times Herald Record
By Heather Yakin
District Attorney David Hoovler wants Orange County to sue drug manufacturers over marketing techniques that critics say caused overprescribing of opioid pain medications and - by extension - the current opiate addiction crisis.
The county is on board.
“It’s the volume of deaths, it’s the volume of overdoses,” Hoovler said Monday.
“In Orange County, about 80 percent of the people that are dying, they were first addicted to prescription painkillers.”
Orange County Executive Steven Neuhaus said the county is moving forward with the litigation, and will likely join with another county’s suit against the pharmaceutical companies.
Erie County, which includes Buffalo, is a good contender, he said.
“It’s not a silver bullet for fighting heroin, but it’s another tool,” Neuhaus said.
At least 65 people in Orange County died from accidental opioid overdoses in 2016, Hoovler said. Final toxicology tests are still out on 10 more.
Other counties - including Nassau, Broome, Erie and Suffolk in New York; counties in West Virginia; Orange County, Calif.; and the cities of Chicago and Everett, Wash. - have sued Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, and other drug manufacturers.
The suits claim that manufacturers sought to create the perception among doctors and the public that the drugs are safe and effective to use for more conditions and longer periods, while underplaying the risk of addiction.
Hoovler said state efforts in the past few years to stem abuse of prescription drugs by prescribing restrictions and registries haven’t curbed addiction - just pushed people to cheaper, easily obtainable heroin.
Just last week, Hoovler said, four people overdosed on opiates in the Port Jervis area, and a fifth over the weekend, with two fatalities.
Hoovler and Neuhaus said a lawsuit win or settlement could be used the same way as the settlements against tobacco companies have been: to fund education, prevention and treatment.
The opioid epidemic is costing too much, Hoovler said, “not only in enforcement, but in
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Orange DA wants county to study feasibility of suing opiate pain med manufacturers
Apr 11, 2017 | MidHudson News
Orange County District Attorney David Hoovler has asked County Executive Steven Neuhaus and the county legislature to study the fesibility of filing a lawsuit against several manufacturers of opiate pain medication.
The lawsuit would allege that those companies used deceptive practices in marketing opiate painkillers, resulting in significant over-prescription of opiates, and leading to the addictionl of several county residents, a number of overdose deaths, and significant costs to the county to combat the consequences of those over-prescriptions.Hoover said 65 county residents had died of opiate-related overdoses in 2016 with an additional 10 cases from last year awaiting toxicology results. The Port Jervis area alone saw four overdose cases in the last week.
In 2014, Orange County had a rate of overdose deaths three times that of several other upstate counties, Hoovler said.
So far in New York State, Nassau, Suffolk, Erie and Broome counties have filed similar lawsuits and Schenectady County is considering filing one.
Counties in West Virginia; Orange County, California; Chicago, Illinois; and Everett, Washington also filed lawsuits.
“It is no secret that the county and most of the United States are in the midst of an opiate ‘epidemic’ involving thousands of people being addicted to prescription opiates and often, as a later result, to heroin,” Hoovler said. “Many sources suggest that the opiate crisis is a result of aggressive and misleading advertising and marketing that the opiate manufacturers use in order to create a large market for their products.”
Hoovler said the conduct of those manufacturers “rivals that of the tobacco companies, which resulted in past decades in large recoveries in lawsuits, brought by individuals and government entities against those companies.”
He told the county officials “we owe it to our citizens to join in this litigation, in an effort to protect against future cases of addiction and to recoup some of the significant funds that the county has expended in combating the opioid epidemic.” -
Apr 10, 2017 | N12WC New York
View clip here: https://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/26842845?token=9894a30a-d072-4d64-a8f2-bdcb894bd1a5
Rough transcript: in the past we've gone after drug users, but maybe it's time to go after drug makers. that's what orange county da, david hoovler wants the county executive to do. he wants to sue drug companies, claiming they use deceptive practices when marketing opiate painkillers, which can then lead to addiction. in 2016, there were 65 opioid related deaths in orange county alone. similar lawsuits have been filed on long island and upstate as well.
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Apr 10, 2017 | N12WC New York
View clip here: https://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/26842852?token=9894a30a-d072-4d64-a8f2-bdcb894bd1a5
Rough transcript: a local leader in orange county wants to prevent drug addiction by going after the manufacturers. district attorney david hoovler is urging the county executive to sue several drug companies. he believes they use deceptive practices to get orange county residents hooked on powerful painkillers. hoovler says that led to over prescribing of opioids, overdose deaths and significant county costs to help combat drug abuse.
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