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Opioid Daily Media Report 8/24
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County to take on drug companies
Aug 24, 2017 | Observer Today (NY)
By Jimmy McCarthy
Chautauqua County is preparing to file a lawsuit against major drug manufacturers for their supposed role in the opioid epidemic. -
Boone, Kenton Counties Sue Opioid Companies; First Responders Get Reversal Medication Donation
Aug 24, 2017 | WVXU (OH)
By Tana Weingartner
Boone and Kenton counties plan to sue three of the country's largest wholesale drug distributors. Fiscal courts in both counties say AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, and McKesson Corporation are a big reason for Northern Kentucky's opioid epidemic. -
Gerri Willis: Who caused the opioid epidemic? (OPINION)
Aug 24, 2017 | Fox News
By Gerri Willis
The opioid overdose epidemic is estimated by the Centers for Disease Control to kill an astonishing 91 Americans every single day. And the problem continues to intensify. Since 1999, the number of overdose deaths involving opioids (including both prescription opioids and heroin) have quadrupled. The proportion of Americans exposed to these addictive drugs is staggering. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, more than a third of us – nearly 92 million people – used prescription opioids in a single year, 2015.
Traditional Media Coverage
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County to take on drug companies
Aug 24, 2017 | Observer Today (NY)
By Jimmy McCarthy
Chautauqua County is preparing to file a lawsuit against major drug manufacturers for their supposed role in the opioid epidemic.
County legislators unanimously approved a resolution authorizing litigation against drug companies to recover damages during Wednesday’s meeting in Mayville. Chautauqua County joins a list of other counties that have filed similar lawsuits against pharmaceutical manufacturers, including Purdue, Endo and Cephalon, for their supposed role in misleading doctors and people that certain prescription painkillers weren’t addictive.
Damages are being sought amid increased costs incurred by counties and municipalities for social and health services and policing as a result of the opioid epidemic.
“We know what the opioid crisis has done,” said County Executive Vince Horrigan following the meeting. “We know in so many ways prescription drugs are where it started. The cost of this opiate drug epidemic is hitting everyone from municipalities and families to hospitals and doctors.”
The county is choosing to go with a law firm from Suffolk County that’s handling similiar lawsuits. Erie, Niagara, Nassau, Suffolk, Orange and Broome counties have filed litigation.
The county won’t need to supply any money upfront, but they will need to supply data to back their claim. If a settlement is reached, the county would need to pay a percentage to the firm.
Horrigan said he sees the lawsuit playing out similar to litigation against tobacco companies that ultimately led to a settlement. The state Attorney General’s Office joined in after a number of counties filed lawsuits.
“There was a massive settlement,” Horrigan said. “We built the new jail with some of the proceeds. I believe firmly down the road when more comes out on this that there will be some kind of settlement. I wanted to try to recoup some of those costs that the county is experiencing, that families are experiencing along with hospitals and law enforcement.”
Data found within a resolution before legislators depicted 63 opioid overdose emergency department visits and 21 confirmed overdose deaths in 2016 in Chautauqua County.
Christine Schuyler, county public health director, told legislators last week that there’s widespread belief that certain pharmaceutical companies knowingly marketed products as being nonaddictive when they knew compounds within the drugs could lead to abuse.
According to excerpts from the Buffalo Law Journal, counties are alleging that pharmaceutical manufacturers misled doctors and patients into believing that opioid painkillers were not addictive and that “manufacturers aggressively marketed opioid pain relievers despite growing addiction rates.”
In other matters, the legislature approved a public hearing for Sept. 27 at 6:45 p.m. regarding proposed changes to phase one of the North Chautauqua County Water District. Changes are due to the village of Fredonia’s unwillingness to move forward with an interconnect of their water system with the city of Dunkirk’s water system.
As a result, the interconnect is coming out of phase one. A few projects found in phase two are being moved into phase one. They include installation of water main line to the village of Silver Creek; extension of water main line from the town of Dunkirk to Harrington Road; extension of transmission line in Brocton; installation of water master meters for water supplied by the city of Dunkirk; and a new storage tank in Dunkirk. Projects costs aren’t expected to change.
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Boone, Kenton Counties Sue Opioid Companies; First Responders Get Reversal Medication Donation
Aug 24, 2017 | WVXU (OH)
By Tana Weingartner
Boone and Kenton counties plan to sue three of the country's largest wholesale drug distributors. Fiscal courts in both counties say AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, and McKesson Corporation are a big reason for Northern Kentucky's opioid epidemic.
The votes by both courts to file suit come just as first responders in Northern Kentucky are getting more than 700 doses of Narcan (naloxone), the overdose reversal drug, from Aetna.
"We've been told that the opiate distributors are guilty of ignoring the laws that they were supposed to subscribe to ending opiates," said Boone County Judge Executive Gary Moore at the news conference formally announcing the donation of 720 Narcan kits.
"When they were given licenses to distribute opiates they were to track any spikes or increases in dosages and report that to various agencies including the DEA," says Moore. "Since their inception, they have not done it."
Moore says attorneys the county is working with say the county could have "a very good case" against the distributors. He adds any money the county might win in court would go back into fighting the epidemic.
Ashel Kruetzkamp says St. Elizabeth Healthcare recorded more than 1,300 known heroin overdoses from January to July, 2017. When you factor in overdoses from other opiates and drugs like fentanyl, Kruetzkamp says the number swells to more than 1,700 just for the first half of 2017.
Based on those numbers, Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin says the 720 doses of Narcan from Aetna should last the region about four months. Of course, first responders are reporting more frequently they need several doses to revive a single patient.
Earlier this year, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine announced a lawsuit against five major drug companies for helping "unleash a health care crisis that has had far-reaching financial, social, and deadly consequences in the State of Ohio."
Clermont County and the City of Cincinnati followed suit several months later.
Gov. Bevin says the commonwealth averages three overdoses per day. "It is increasingly as likely that you will interact with somebody who needs Narcan - in certain parts of our state and country - as you will somebody who needs CPR."
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Gerri Willis: Who caused the opioid epidemic? (OPINION)
Aug 24, 2017 | Fox News
By Gerri Willis
The opioid overdose epidemic is estimated by the Centers for Disease Control to kill an astonishing 91 Americans every single day. And the problem continues to intensify. Since 1999, the number of overdose deaths involving opioids (including both prescription opioids and heroin) have quadrupled. The proportion of Americans exposed to these addictive drugs is staggering. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, more than a third of us – nearly 92 million people – used prescription opioids in a single year, 2015.
With the costs both in human terms and economic ones mounting, people want answers. Who or what is to blame for the deaths? How did we get to a point that half a million Americans have died of this scourge since 1999? The truth is the answer is tricky and not necessarily politically correct.
Opioids are a class of drugs that include heroin, synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, and pain relievers available legally by prescription, such as oxycodone (brand name OxyContin), hydrocodone (Vicodin), codeine, morphine and many others. Most people who are prescribed painkillers don’t become addicted. But some do. Because the legal version of these drugs is often the entry point to addiction, state and local governments are looking to the deep pockets of the $13 billion-a-year opioid industry to foot their costs for treatment. Over the past 12 months, at least 25 states, cities and counties have filed civil cases against manufacturers of opioids, the distributors and large drugstore chains. Attorneys general in Ohio, Missouri and Oklahoma have joined in and more are expected.
The Affordable Care Act expanded Medicaid eligibility to include adults under 65 with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level. The expansion took effect on Jan. 1, 2014. And, in the years since, drug overdose deaths have risen at an alarming rate.
The blame game has turned up other offenders. Some fault the medical community. In late July, the U.S. Justice Department announced a crackdown that in large part focused on fraudulent opioid prescribing. Attorney General Jeff Sessions at a press conference described the effort as the largest of its kind in U.S. history, charging 412 people, including 56 physicians, with defrauding the federal government of $1.3 billion in illegal Medicare and Medicaid payments.
“We will use every tool we have to stop criminals from exploiting vulnerable people and stealing our hard-earned tax dollars,” Sessions said.
But there is more here than meets the eye. The government has been an unwitting accomplice as some use federal programs like Medicaid to gain access to the drugs and sometimes even deal them. A bottle of oxycodone can be purchased with a Medicaid card for a tiny copay and resold for $4,000 on the street, according to one police official. This became easier after the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. The ACA expanded Medicaid eligibility to include adults under 65 with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level. The expansion took effect on Jan. 1, 2014. And, in the years since, drug overdose deaths have risen at an alarming rate. According to data compiled by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, drug overdose deaths rose twice as fast per one million people in expansion states compared to non-expansion states.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., had this to say in a letter to the Inspector General at HHS requesting a full-blown investigation: “While not indicative of causation, the information suggests a correlation between Medicaid expansion and opioid overdoses. By 2015, the latest CDC data shows, the five states with the highest rate of overdose deaths were all Medicaid expansion states, West Virginia, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Ohio and Rhode Island.”
So the answer to the question, who caused the opioid epidemic has many answers, possibly including the medical and pharmaceutical communities themselves, and, tragically increased government spending via the expansion of Medicaid under the ACA. Yes, government is in for some blame.
“Because opioids are so available and inexpensive through Medicaid, it appears the program has created a perverse incentive for people to use opioids, sell them for large profits and stay hooked,” wrote Johnson.
How very sad that an unintentional consequence of the effort to improve Americans’ health under the ACA was this tragic epidemic.
Traditional Media Coverage
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