Preview Newsletter
Opioid Litigation Media Report 10/25/17
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Paterson sues drug companies over prescription opioids
Oct 24, 2017 | News12 New Jersey
The City of Paterson is suing some of the country's largest drug companies, saying they misled the public about how the dangers of prescription opioids. -
Paterson sues pharma companies over opioid crisis
Oct 24, 2017 | NJ Biz
By Vince Calio
The city of Paterson has filed a lawsuit against several pharmaceutical companies, including New Brunswick-based Johnson & Johnson and its Janssen Pharmaceuticals unit, over the opioid crisis. -
acksonville City Council approves agenda to sue makers, distributors of prescription painkillers
Oct 25, 2017 | First Coast News ABC (FL)
By Christopher Hong
In response to the opioid epidemic, the City Council unanimously approved the consent agenda Tuesday, which included an ordinance that would investigate and pursue litigation against pharmaceutical manufacturers on behalf of the City. -
City Council authorizes general counsel to pursue lawsuit against opioid manufacturers
Oct 24, 2017 | News4Jax (FL)
The Jacksonville City Council on Tuesday approved a measure that would allow the city's general counsel to investigate and pursue litigation against pharmaceutical companies that manufacture and distribute opioid medications. -
Jacksonville City Council Approves Starting Process Of Suing Opioid Companies
Oct 25, 2017 | WJCT (FL)
By Lindsey Kilbride & Ryan Benk
The Jacksonville City Council approved a measure that would bring the city a step closer to suing pharmaceutical companies for their alleged role in the city’s worsening opioid addiction crisis. -
Toledo joins other cities in lawsuit against opioid manufacturers
Oct 24, 2017 | 24 News
By Marcus Espinoza
The City of Toledo, along with the State of Ohio, the City of Dayton and the City of Parma are joining together in a lawsuit against drug manufacturers and suppliers for what they believe is the proliferation of the opioid epidemic in Ohio. -
St. Lawrence County Services committee supports joining class action lawsuit targeting opioid manufacturers
Oct 24, 2017 | North Country Now (NY)
By Jimmy Lawton
As St. Lawrence County Services Committee voted 10-3 in favor of joining a class action lawsuit that seeks damages from prescription drug companies that produce opioids. -
In battling opioid crisis, Fulton County files lawsuit against drug companies
Oct 24, 2017 | Neighbor News Online (GA)
By Everett Catts
Fulton County Oct. 23 hosted a press conference to announce it is the first Georgia county to file suit against companies that make and distribute opioids, which have been responsible for the addiction and death of hundreds of its residents. Use of these drugs has resulted in the consumption of millions of dollars in public resources. -
Pharma Cos., States Battle Over Opioid Litigation Transfer
Oct 24, 2017 | Law360
By Emily Field
Drugmakers, distributors, retailers and local governments have weighed in with divided responses to a request before the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation to consolidate dozens of suits launched by municipalities over the opioid epidemic. -
Georgia's most populated county files opioid epidemic lawsuit
Oct 24, 2017 | Becker's Hospital Review
By Brian Zimmerman
Fulton County officials filed a lawsuit on Monday against multiple drugmakers, drug distributors and physicians for their alleged role in facilitating high rates of opioid overdoses in the Georgia county, according to a report from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. -
Cayuga County Legislature still considering opioid lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies
Oct 25, 2017 | Auburn Pub (NY)
By Gwendolyn Craig
The Cayuga County Legislature is still on the fence about joining a statewide lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies that produce opioid medications. -
Wednesday Letters: It’s time to sue the opioid industry
Oct 25, 2017 | Floriday Times Union
By Terri Quint
Many years ago, the tobacco industry promenaded a group of “experts” before the American public to tell them that cigarettes and nicotine were not addictive. Meanwhile, the industry was adding more and more nicotine to cigarettes. -
Mitchell County considers joining class-action opioid lawsuit
Oct 25, 2017 | Globe Gazette (IA)
By Crystal Berche
Mitchell County may join a class-action lawsuit targeting opioid manufacturers. -
House committee gives update on efforts to address opioid crisis (VIDEO)
Oct 25, 2017 | PBS
President Donald Trump’s long-awaited declaration that the opioid epidemic is a national emergency finally arrives this week, but some advocates are worried that it won’t be backed with the money and commitment to make much difference. -
Family That Made Billions From Opioids Should Fund Treatment, Lawyer Says
Oct 24, 2017 | WBUR (MA)
An attorney who is representing states in lawsuits against the maker of OxyContin said they’re “looking really hard” at suing Purdue Pharma owners personally — a broadside against not just a faceless corporation, but a family that has made billions from addictive drugs. -
In the Opioid Crisis, Keep Your Eyes on Heroin and Fentanyl
Oct 25, 2017 | National Review
By Jeffrey A. Singer
President Trump is preparing to declare the opioid crisis a “national emergency” next week. Yet policymakers should be careful about the measures they take to address this issue. -
The opioid crackdown is making life untenable for chronic pain patients like me (OP-ED)
Oct 25, 2017 | Los Angeles Times
By Melissa Sanders
President Trump recently said that he intends to declare the opioid crisis a national emergency. If he makes good on that promise, it will be the country’s first official state of emergency for a drug epidemic. That designation would make more federal funding available for curbing the crisis, and likely result in stricter limitations on new and existing opioid prescriptions. -
News 12 New Jersey
Oct 24, 2017 | N12NJ
View clip here: https://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/30259122?token=b3db59be-8134-4d2e-8ea7-b562455b3fe9
Paterson Lawsuit
Potential Jacksonville Lawsuit
Other Litigation Coverage
Other Coverage
Broadcast Media Coverage
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Paterson sues drug companies over prescription opioids
Oct 24, 2017 | News12 New Jersey
The City of Paterson is suing some of the country's largest drug companies, saying they misled the public about how the dangers of prescription opioids.
Scott+Scott, Attorneys at Law, LLP announced Tuesday that it had filed the lawsuit on behalf of Paterson. The drug manufacturers listed as defendants are Purdue Pharma, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Johnson & Johnson, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Endo Pharmaceuticals and Insys Therapeutics.
It also names a number of wholesale distributors, including McKesson Corporation, AmerisourceBergen Corporation and Cardinal Health.
Among its claims, the lawsuit states that the companies worked to deceive doctors and patients about the highly addictive nature of prescription opioids. The suit also claims that the opioid manufacturers targeted groups that the law firm called vulnerable, such as the elderly and war veterans.
The lawsuit accuses the companies of “taking a page out of Big Tobacco’s playbook” to push its prescription opioids in the following ways: Published misleading articles in medical journals, including publications aimed at doctors who commonly treat chronic pain. Created a body of false and unsupported literature that appeared to be independent, peer-tested and objective. Employed distinguished physicians to write, consult on and lend their names to articles that encouraged the use of opioids to treat chronic pain. Sponsored continuing medical education courses that persuaded prescribing doctors that opioids were appropriate for pain relief and posed no serious threat of addiction.
City officials said Paterson was hit especially hard by the industry’s campaign of disinformation. According to the lawsuit, the epidemic has put a severe strain on Paterson’s resources, requiring substantial increases to the city budget for police, fire and other first responders.
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Paterson sues pharma companies over opioid crisis
Oct 24, 2017 | NJ Biz
By Vince Calio
The city of Paterson has filed a lawsuit against several pharmaceutical companies, including New Brunswick-based Johnson & Johnson and its Janssen Pharmaceuticals unit, over the opioid crisis.
The lawsuit seeks compensation for the city to cover the costs of social and human services, as well as the enhanced costs for the additional services of police, fire and first responders to cope with the epidemic.
Other defendants in the suite include Israel-based Teva Pharmaceutical; Endo Pharmaceuticals in Malvern, Pennsylvania; Arizona-based Insys Corp.; McKesson Corp. in San Francisco; and wholesale drug distributors Amerisource Bergen and Cardinal Health.
The lawsuit alleges that the defendants:
Published misleading articles in medical journals, including publications aimed at doctors who commonly treat chronic pain; Created a body of false and unsupported literature that appeared to be independent, peer-tested and objective. Employed distinguished physicians to write, consult on and lend their names to articles that encouraged the use of opioids to treat chronic pain. Sponsored continuing medical education courses that persuaded prescribing doctors that opioids were appropriate for pain relief and posed no serious threat of addiction. Publicized statements that the risk of addiction is “exceedingly low in older patients with no current or past history of substance abuse,” when there was no evidence to support this and, in fact, a study in 2010 found that patients 65 or older were among those with the largest number of serious overdoses.
While no monetary amount is named in the lawsuit, Scott+Scott said in a press release that the current lawsuit is comparable to the one the U.S. government brought against big tobacco companies in during the 1990's for misleading the public about the dangers of cigarette smoking, which resulted in cigarette makers agreeing to pay $365.5 billion; agreeing to follow additional Food and Drug Administration regulations, and placing stronger warning labels and restrictions on its products and in its advertising.
“Like so many other Americans, we have been saddened to see the toll that the opioid epidemic has taken on our communities,” David Scott, managing partner at Scott+Scott, said in a press release. “The pharmaceutical manufacturers and wholesale distributors must be held responsible for their actions, which are the root cause of so much human and financial loss. Our firm is honored that the city of Paterson entrusted us in recovering the financial losses it has suffered and will continue to suffer as a result of having to address the crisis and support its population.”
Domenick Stampone, the city of Paterson’s corporation counsel, said in a prepared statement that the aim of the lawsuit is to hold pharmaceutical companies accountable for the cost of opioid addiction.
“The human cost of the opioid crisis has been devastating to those addicted and their families and friends,” said “This lawsuit seeks to hold responsible those companies whose practices created a crisis that has drained the coffers of cities like Paterson, which operates on meager resources but is relied on to provide critical, life-saving services.”
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acksonville City Council approves agenda to sue makers, distributors of prescription painkillers
Oct 25, 2017 | First Coast News ABC (FL)
By Christopher Hong
In response to the opioid epidemic, the City Council unanimously approved the consent agenda Tuesday, which included an ordinance that would investigate and pursue litigation against pharmaceutical manufacturers on behalf of the City.
It was approved 17-0 with two council members absent.
Cities across the country have struggled in recent years to contain opioid overdoses, which health officials say have reached epidemic levels.
Jacksonville hasn’t been spared from the crisis.
City officials say they’ve responded to 1,000 more drug overdose calls in 2016 than the previous year and expect to administer three times as much of a drug that reverses opioid overdoses in 2017 compared to 2015.
The cost of transporting overdose patients is expected to cost the city $4 million this year. The city has also committed $1.5 million to an experimental addiction treatment program.
Attorneys from a national law firm told council members in August they believe local governments have standing for a lawsuit and were preparing to file a complaint against six drug makers and two distributors. The firm has already been retained by the City of Delray Beach.
The attorneys didn’t elaborate on specific details of their case but said drug companies fraudulently marketed prescription opioids as a safe treatment for a wide variety of pain conditions and underplayed their highly addictive properties.
“The saddest part of the whole thing … these people, so many of them who are addicted, it’s a matter of them following doctors’ directions,” said Councilman Bill Gulliford, who proposed the lawsuit. “Here I am, trusting in both the company and medical professionals, and low and behold before you know it, I’m addicted to an opioid.”
Instead of the city filing the lawsuit itself, city attorneys will search for an outside law firm to file a complaint on its behalf.
The city will choose the firm based on several criteria, which includes the willingness to not charge the city any money upfront and receive payment only if the city wins a settlement.
Gulliford said he expects any potential lawsuit would last years but that he hopes the city will walk away with something.
“What I would hope, whatever we might recover might be utilized for the problem,” Gulliford said. “Part of it to reimburse what we know we’ve spent and will spend in the future, and maybe some money to put forward for better programs to address the problem.”
Read the original story from the Florida Times-Union here.
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City Council authorizes general counsel to pursue lawsuit against opioid manufacturers
Oct 24, 2017 | News4Jax (FL)
The Jacksonville City Council on Tuesday approved a measure that would allow the city's general counsel to investigate and pursue litigation against pharmaceutical companies that manufacture and distribute opioid medications.
In the resolution, the City Council said, "The city has identified significant damages incurred in connection with the opioid epidemic."More Jacksonville HeadlinesCity Council authorizes general counsel to pursue lawsuit against opioid manufacturersSenate bill seeks to rein in prescription painkillersSweeping measure addresses prescription pills$50 million sought to tackle opioid epidemic
The bill passed during Tuesday's City Council meeting comes as overdose deaths in Northeast Florida have doubled.
In August, attorneys with a national firm told the Jacksonville City Council that pharmaceutical companies played a role in the opioid epidemic, and there are enough damages for the city to consider suing.
During an hour-long presentation Aug. 3, two attorneys with Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd said that Jacksonville is the 24th highest city in the country for opioid prescription abuse.
Attorneys Mark Dearman and Aelish Baig said they believe a lawsuit would help reimburse the city some of the money paid for drug overdoses and deaths.
The city of Jacksonville said it responded to over 1,000 more overdose calls last year than the year prior.
The cost of transporting overdose patients is expected to cost the city $4.45 million this year, according to statistics from the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department.
The city has also approved a $1.4 million pilot program, which will attempted to help opioid users recover.
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Jacksonville City Council Approves Starting Process Of Suing Opioid Companies
Oct 25, 2017 | WJCT (FL)
By Lindsey Kilbride & Ryan Benk
The Jacksonville City Council approved a measure that would bring the city a step closer to suing pharmaceutical companies for their alleged role in the city’s worsening opioid addiction crisis.
The unanimous vote of 17-0 happened at Tuesday evening’s City Council meeting. Two council members absent.
The legislation directs the city’s Office of General Counsel to investigate claims against pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors as they relate to damages incurred by the opioid epidemic. General Counsel would then select an outside law firm to represent Jacksonville in court.
In August, the bill’s sponsor Councilman Bill Gulliford set up a presentation for his colleagues by the Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd Law Firm, who is representing Delray Beach in a similar suit.
Firm representatives laid out arguments for legal action, saying Jacksonville could claim manufacturers engaged in deceptive marketing and that they violated the Florida Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act by overselling opioids to doctors and minimizing the threat of addiction.
The Duval Health Department says the city is among the worst in Florida for babies born addicted to opiate drugs and Jacksonville averages about three deaths a day due to opioid overdoses. The medical examiner says there isn’t enough space to store the bodies.
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Toledo joins other cities in lawsuit against opioid manufacturers
Oct 24, 2017 | 24 News
By Marcus Espinoza
The City of Toledo, along with the State of Ohio, the City of Dayton and the City of Parma are joining together in a lawsuit against drug manufacturers and suppliers for what they believe is the proliferation of the opioid epidemic in Ohio.
The suit claims that opioid companies spent millions of dollars in deceptive and negligent marketing, saying in part that they tried to downplay side-effects of the drugs and shift patients to chronic pain management and away from short-term solutions.
The goal of the lawsuit is for local governments, including Toledo, to recover damages the city has had to spend to fight opioid misuse.
The suit says that 70 percent of of the infants in Ohio's foster care systems have parents who misuse drugs such as Hydrocodone, Oxycodone, Oxymorphone and Methadone.
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Oct 24, 2017 | North Country Now (NY)
By Jimmy Lawton
As St. Lawrence County Services Committee voted 10-3 in favor of joining a class action lawsuit that seeks damages from prescription drug companies that produce opioids.
While the services committee agreed to join the suit, another vote from the Board of Legislators is required before the county can move forward. However, the committee and board are made up of the same members.
The county recently met with an attorney from Simmons, Hanly and Conroy following discussions with County Attorney Stephen Button.
Law firm co-founder Paul J. Hanly, Jr. told the board the litigation is premised on a theory that opioid drug manufacturers worked collectively to widely circulate marketing materials declaring opioids safe – despite contrary medical statistics and medical studies and, as such, these manufacturers have played a significant role in the current drug epidemic that is devastating counties across New York State and the rest of the country, according to county attorney Stephen Button.
Cases currently pending and brought by counties seek to recover the costs counties have incurred in fighting the epidemic, from addiction and health treatment costs to criminal justice costs.
The New York counties of Suffolk, Erie, Broome, Orange, Dutchess, Seneca, Sullivan and Schenectady are in pending litigation regarding the same claims.
Simmons, Hanly and Conroy is probably best known as the firm that commenced litigation and ultimately succeeded against Purdue Pharma and Abbott Laboratories for damages suffered by the class as a result of the usage and prescription of Oxycontin, according to Button.
That litigation resulted in a settlement of $75 million. The firm has also been involved with litigation against manufacturers Johnson & Johnson (Fentanyl), Merck and Co. (Vioxx), Xanodyne Pharmaceuticals (Darvocet/Darvon) and Pfizer (Celebrex), and many others.
St. Lawrence County Chairman Kevin Acres opposes the suit.
Acres says the argument is that many of those who are now using heroin became addicted first to prescription painkillers, but transitioned to heroin due to the lower price and accessibility. However he says that theory hasn’t been proven.
Acres said it’s unclear exactly how much money the county would receive in a successful lawsuit, but said the law firm plans to spend $10-$20 million in New York litigation.
St. Lawrence County, like many places in the nation, has seen a massive rise in heroin use with needles found on a near-daily basis in the streets and parks in Ogdensburg in Massena.
St. Lawrence County has the second-highest opioid related-inpatient hospital admissions rate in the state and in the past four years, and drug-related hospital stays have risen more than 60 percent, according to the state Department of Health.
DOH figures also indicate at least 31 people died from opiate or heroin overdoses in St. Lawrence County between 2010 and 2014 and the number appears to be rising.
A massive drug bust June 2 netted 106 arrests, 2,600 bags of heroin, 700 bags of cocaine and 3,005 bags of Fentanyl. The combined street value of the drugs was estimated at $94,575 by police, who also recovered $89,000 in cash
Additionally, investigators seized three handguns, two stun guns, a dagger, a shotgun, and a bullet proof vest stolen from a Tompkins County Sheriff’s Deputy.
Despite the major bust, heroin arrests and overdoses have continued throughout the county.
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In battling opioid crisis, Fulton County files lawsuit against drug companies
Oct 24, 2017 | Neighbor News Online (GA)
By Everett Catts
Fulton County Oct. 23 hosted a press conference to announce it is the first Georgia county to file suit against companies that make and distribute opioids, which have been responsible for the addiction and death of hundreds of its residents. Use of these drugs has resulted in the consumption of millions of dollars in public resources.
The press conference, held at the county’s government complex in downtown Atlanta, included Board of Commissioners Vice Chairman Bob Ellis, District Attorney Paul L. Howard Jr., Fulton County Health Services Director Kathleen Toomey, MD, Fulton County Chief Medical Examiner Jan Gorniak, MD, Fulton County Director of Behavioral Health Latrina Foster, Fulton County Police Maj. William Yates and other county officials.
In the complaint filed in the State Court of Fulton County, the county is suing more than 30 drug companies and individuals it claims continue to flood the market with addictive prescription drugs that have led to Fulton’s opioid epidemic, all in the name of profits. The defendants include some of the largest drug manufacturers in the U.S., such as Johnson & Johnson and McKesson.
“This case is about one thing: corporate greed. Defendants put their desire for profits above the health and well-being of Fulton County consumers at the cost of (the) plaintiff,” the complaint, which seeks damages and a jury trial, states.
According to an Associated Press report, experts speaking at the University of Georgia College of Public Health’s annual State of the Public’s Health conference last week in Athens said the nation’s deepening opioid epidemic is hitting Georgia harder than most states.
Some of the highest opioid use is in the Rust Belt and the Southeast, authorities said.
Medicaid statistics show high opioid use in parts of southeast Georgia, northwest Georgia and several counties to the north and east of Athens, The Athens Banner-Herald reports.
From 2009 to 2014, Georgia’s rate of increase in the number of patient encounters related to opioids led the nation, said Michael Crooks of Alliant Quality, a healthcare consulting firm.
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Pharma Cos., States Battle Over Opioid Litigation Transfer
Oct 24, 2017 | Law360
By Emily Field
Drugmakers, distributors, retailers and local governments have weighed in with divided responses to a request before the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation to consolidate dozens of suits launched by municipalities over the opioid epidemic.
James Peterson of Hill Peterson Carper Bee & Deitzler PLLC, which represents more than 40 municipalities suing over the opioid crisis, had asked the JPML on Sept. 25 to consolidate the more than 60 suits filed on behalf of local governments in roughly a dozen different federal courts around the country. The municipalities requesting centralization asked that the suits be sent to either the Southern District of Ohio or the Southern District of Illinois.
Nearly a month later, on Oct. 20, Purdue Pharma LP, Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc., Cephalon Inc. and other drugmakers, along with distributors and retailers and government entities, responded to the request, some opposed and some in favor of consolidation.
The suits share common questions about the manufacture, distribution and sales of opioids by the defendants, and they largely target the country’s largest drug distributors, though some also name drugmakers Purdue, Teva and Cephalon, among others, according to the request. Suits filed over the ongoing opioid epidemic generally allege the drug companies downplayed the addictive risks of the drugs in order to turn a profit.
The drug manufacturers said in a joint filing that they support centralizing the cases because the suits raise issues of “national importance” and involve sufficient common factual and legal issues — coordinating the cases would then help streamline the litigation and conserve resources.
However, the drugmakers asked that the suits be centralized in the Northern District of Illinois, where the most advanced federal opioid case — the city of Chicago’s — is pending before U.S. District Judge Jorge Alonso.
In the alternative, the drugmakers proposed sending the cases to the Southern District of New York, which is centrally located near their principal places of business.
Similarly, distributors AmerisourceBergen Drug Corp., Cardinal Health 110 LLC and McKesson Corp. also supported centralization in a joint response, and likewise disagreed with the municipalities' “surprising and rather insistent” argument that the cases should be sent to either Illinois or Ohio, saying the Southern District of West Virginia — where 16 related actions are now pending — would be the more appropriate option.
Those opposing the formation of an MDL include CVS and subsidiary Omnicare Distribution Center LLC, which said that CVS is named in only four suits, which are already coordinated in the Southern District of West Virginia.
“It is not appropriate to foist upon the CVS Defendants the burdens of participating in centralized litigation of more than 60 cases to which they are not a party and which involve particularized facts and claims wholly distinct from the four West Virginia cases in which any of the CVS Defendants have been named,” CVS said.
If the JPML opts for centralization, CVS asked that the cases against it be left out of the MDL.
Likewise, Rite Aid said it has no place in a nationwide MDL, as it’s named in only seven suits, all in West Virginia.
“Each of these actions raises questions of West Virginia law based on facts that occurred in West Virginia, and are appropriately and efficiently coordinated before a single judge in West Virginia,” Rite Aid said.
The state of New Hampshire also weighed in, saying that while it has serious reservations about the “wisdom and manageability” of an MDL, it doesn’t take a position one way or another whether one should be formed, since its suit shouldn’t be included.
New Hampshire’s suit is the only one brought by a state attorney general against a opioid drugmaker that’s pending in federal court, the state said.
“There is no basis for federal jurisdiction over New Hampshire’s litigation, which was improperly removed from state court and is the subject of a pending motion to remand,” the state said.
Representatives for Rite Aid and McKesson declined to comment. Representatives for the other parties didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.
The municipalities are represented by Hill Peterson Carper Bee & Deitzler PLLC.
CVS and Omnicare are represented by Richard Schirtzer of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP.
Rite Aid is represented by Webster J. Arceneaux III of Lewis Glasser Casey & Rollins PLLC.
New Hampshire is represented by Deputy Attorney General Ann Rice, Senior Assistant Attorney General James Bofetti and Linda Singer of Motley Rice.
AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson are respectively represented by Robert A. Nicholas of Reed Smith LLP, Enu Mainigi of Williams & Connolly LLP, and Russell D. Jessee of Steptie & Johnson PLLC.
Purdue is represented by Sheila L. Birnbaum of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP. Johnson & Johnson and Janssen are represented by Charles C. Lifland of O'Melveny & Myers LLP. Allergan is represented by Donna Welch of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. Endo is represented by Jonathan L. Stern of Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP. Teva and Cephalon are represented by Steven A. Reed of Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP.
The municipalities are represented by Greene Ketchum Farrell Bailey & Tweel LLP, Hill Peterson Carper Bee & Deitzler PLLC, Levin Papantonio Thomas Mitchell Rafferty & Proctor PA, Baron & Budd PC, McHugh Fuller Law Group PLLC, Seif & McNamee LLC, Oths Heiser Miller Waigand & Clagg LLC, Lancione & Lancione LLC, Walker Law LLC, and Burnside Law LLC, among others.
The MDL is In re: National Prescription Opiate Litigation, case number 2804, before the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. -
Georgia's most populated county files opioid epidemic lawsuit
Oct 24, 2017 | Becker's Hospital Review
By Brian Zimmerman
Fulton County officials filed a lawsuit on Monday against multiple drugmakers, drug distributors and physicians for their alleged role in facilitating high rates of opioid overdoses in the Georgia county, according to a report from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
While similar lawsuits have been filed by counties, cities and states around the country, the Fulton County suit marks the first such legal action in Georgia.
"Fulton County has experienced economic costs directly related to the opioid epidemic, including Medicaid costs, law enforcement, judicial, foster care, Narcan costs, loss of productivity and various other costs directly caused by the actions of the defendants," said the lawsuit, according to the report. "[Fulton County has spent] millions of dollars each year in its efforts to combat the public nuisance created by Defendants' deceptive marketing campaign."
With 61 deaths tallied so far, Fulton County has experienced more opioid-related overdose deaths than any other county in the state this year. In 2016, there were 154 such deaths. In 2015, there were 104.
To see a full list of defendants and read the Journal-Constitution's report in its entirety, click here.
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Cayuga County Legislature still considering opioid lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies
Oct 25, 2017 | Auburn Pub (NY)
By Gwendolyn Craig
The Cayuga County Legislature is still on the fence about joining a statewide lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies that produce opioid medications.
Three New York City law firms met with the body's Government Operations Committee in executive session earlier this month, and while the committee majority had chosen to recommend a law firm and proceed with the litigation to the full Legislature, committee members have since backtracked.
Ways and Means Committee Chair Aileen McNabb-Coleman presented an overview before the Legislature and Cayuga County high school seniors attending Student Government Day Tuesday morning. She explained that some of the law firms are targeting manufacturers, distributors, pharmacies and doctors, while others are focusing solely on the manufacturers and distributors of opioid pain medications.
Staff, she added, would have to collect specific data on how the issue has impacted the county financially. The time needed to do that, she said, is a concern. But the county would not be responsible for any financial obligation should it join, including attorney's fees. Government Operations Committee Chair Ryan Foley said the law firms estimated that litigation could take between two and six years.
Legislator Tucker Whitman said while Cayuga County has a heroin problem, he was not sure that would translate with this lawsuit dealing with opioid prescriptions.
"I think we're going to be disappointed in spending the next two to six years dragging ourselves through this lawsuit," he said. "I think we're going to regret it, and all we're going to do is make a bunch of attorneys rich in the meantime."
Judicial and Public Safety Chair Patrick Mahunik disagreed, and said the point of the lawsuit is about sending a message.
"I don't care if we see a penny out of this lawsuit, because that's not what this is about," he said. "It's about correcting the problem and sending message and putting those people on notice that are writing these prescriptions on a whim."
Legislator Andy Dennison and Tim Lattimore supported litigation, too, pointing to the spike in drug overdose deaths in Cayuga County recently. Dennison said with the potential for the lawsuit to last years, the problem will likely continue.
Despite his skepticism, Whitman said the only way he would support the lawsuit is if any monies awarded to the county was put back into rehabilitation expenses for addicts and "not on renovating the county office building." Many other legislators agreed.
The Legislature did not vote on whether to join the lawsuit, but rather opted to contact the three law firms again to present in executive session at November's full meeting.
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Wednesday Letters: It’s time to sue the opioid industry
Oct 25, 2017 | Floriday Times Union
By Terri Quint
Many years ago, the tobacco industry promenaded a group of “experts” before the American public to tell them that cigarettes and nicotine were not addictive. Meanwhile, the industry was adding more and more nicotine to cigarettes.
Later we learned that this was a lie — merely to have Americans buy more cigarettes and become more and more addicted to them (with millions eventually dying of cancer).
What was done?
The tobacco industry was sued to the tune of billions of dollars, and families were compensated for the loss of their loved ones.
Today, a similar scheme has occurred in which pharmaceutical companies also paraded a group of “experts” before the American people to tell them that opioids were not addictive.
Millions of opioid pills were prescribed, and thousands have died from overdoses.
Doctors are prescribing opioids in inordinate amounts, and people are easily becoming addicted. Pill mills have cropped up all over the country.
What must be done?
The same thing that was done to the tobacco industry: It must be hit in its pocketbook.
There are mainly five pharmaceutical companies that produce these opioids.
They must be punished and restricted from causing these horrifying deaths.
Instead of going after states that have voted to legalize marijuana, the Justice Department needs to put its energies in prosecuting those responsible for the opioid epidemic.
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Mitchell County considers joining class-action opioid lawsuit
Oct 25, 2017 | Globe Gazette (IA)
By Crystal Berche
Mitchell County may join a class-action lawsuit targeting opioid manufacturers.
The suit is being brought on behalf of cities and towns who are choosing to sue opioid manufacturers, County Attorney Mark Walk said during the board of supervisors meeting Tuesday.
If the county chose to join it, Walk said there would be no cost.
Mitchell County Sheriff Greg Beaver said Osage has "all kinds of costs related to drugs, from crime to housing inmates."
“People get hooked on painkillers like oxycontin, and when they stop being able to get it, they switch to things like heroin," Beaver said. "Ninety percent of crimes around the county — the domestic abuses, the robberies — could be solved if we could get rid of the drugs.”
A New York City firm is filing the suit and sending similar letters to cities and towns across the countries. The firm says opioid manufacturers knew there was no way the population of small towns could be supporting the amount of pills that were being sent to them.
“It should have been a red flag,” supervisor Shannon Paulus said. “I’m not surprised about the class-action suit; we have been discussing the opioid epidemic at the substance abuse coalition and how much it has grown. I feel like this is going to be a message to the manufacturers.
“They should have known, just with the amount of prescriptions going out. They convinced the medical profession of this new product, but they weren’t careful of how much of this potent drug was getting out there.
"I want it to change," Paulus said.
The supervisors will revisit the potential for joining the lawsuit at next week's meeting.
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House committee gives update on efforts to address opioid crisis (VIDEO)
Oct 25, 2017 | PBS
President Donald Trump’s long-awaited declaration that the opioid epidemic is a national emergency finally arrives this week, but some advocates are worried that it won’t be backed with the money and commitment to make much difference.
The Committee on Energy and Commerce is expected to give an update on efforts to combat the opioid crisis at 10 a.m. ET. You can watch live in the player above.
President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis
Trump is expected to make the formal declaration and deliver a major speech on the topic Thursday, more than two months after he first announced that would be his plan.There is concern the White House actions will be empty talk without a long-term commitment to paying for more addiction treatment: An emergency declaration would lack punch without money, said Andrew Kessler, who represents substance abuse treatment providers as a lobbyist in Washington.
“If there’s no new money to expand our treatment infrastructure, I don’t know what the punch is going to be,” Kessler said. He acknowledged that declaring a national emergency “would put it in the national spotlight. Create buzz. Create talk.” But with news coverage of the opioid crisis already saturating front pages and newscasts, he said, “I don’t know how much more buzz we can generate.”
Some health advocates also are concerned that devoting more public health resources to opioids could pull attention and resources from other health problems such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease. What’s needed, they say, are new funding streams and a willingness to work hand-in-hand with states and local governments.
“An emergency declaration without significant new funds will likely be unsuccessful. The problem is enormous and requires a similar investment in a comprehensive strategy that includes primary prevention,” said Becky Salay, director of government relations at Trust for America’s Health, a Washington-based public health research and advocacy organization.
The idea of declaring a national emergency was first raised in an interim report prepared by an opioid commission chaired by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and convened by the president earlier this year.
“The first and most urgent recommendation of this commission is direct and completely within your control. Declare a national emergency,” read the report from the group, which argued the move would empower Trump’s Cabinet to address the crisis and force Congress to dedicate more money to fighting overdose deaths.
Trump said back in August he planned to adopt the recommendation, and claimed his team was working on documents to formalize the declaration. But his words spurred immediate push-back from some inside his administration who argued it wasn’t the best move.
Emergency declarations are typically reserved for natural disaster like hurricanes, infectious diseases like swine flu and bioterrorist threats like anthrax, and Trump’s now-departed Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price argued publicly that the administration could deploy the needed resources without a formal declaration.
As the weeks have passed, Christie appeared to grow impatient, telling an audience in New Jersey earlier this month that it wasn’t “good that it hasn’t been done yet.”
“All I know is, two months is two months and I would have loved to have had the time to have worked on it in that respect,” Christie said. “But you know, they’re telling me they’ve got legal issues and hurdles to get over that they haven’t gotten over yet. I take them at their word. But if you’re asking me, would I have preferred him to sign it August 1st, yeah.”
He said the problem was too big to say the delay had made a significant difference, “but I would also say you can’t get those two months back.”
The Office of National Drug Control Policy defended the administration’s handling of the matter, saying Trump’s policy advisers, along with relevant government agencies, have been “working tirelessly since the beginning” to respond to the opioid crisis.
With an estimated 142 Americans dying every day from drug overdoses, more than 10,000 people have died in the weeks since the president first committed to the plan.
At a commission meeting last week, no overt reference was made to the president’s promise, but members stressed the need to act.
“We ought to be treating this like a FEMA response and getting the necessary medication,” said former Rep. Patrick Kennedy, who argued that, if the drug crisis were Ebola, “we’d waive all the rules and we’d say get it done and start saving lives, I mean that’s what we need.”
“That’s what we’ve been saying,” Christie responded. The New Jersey governor later compared the response to the AIDs epidemic.
“I still have not seen the passion for this epidemic that I saw in the AIDS epidemic,” Christie said.
The commission had suggested two mechanisms for an emergency declaration: the Public Health Service Act or the Stafford Act. The nation has a public health emergency fund, but it is empty, Kessler said.
If the emergency is declared instead under the Stafford Act, funding could be included with disaster relief for hurricanes and wildfires. But that would put the opioids emergency under the jurisdiction of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is under the Department of Homeland Security.
“All that money could go to border security and drug interdiction, rather than toward treatment,” Kessler said.
Trump’s delays have frustrated observers.
“The failure to follow through is a betrayal of families and I think unconscionable,” said Lawrence Gostin, a Georgetown University professor and the director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on National & Global Health Law.
View video here: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-commission-gives-update-on-efforts-to-address-opioid-crisis
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Family That Made Billions From Opioids Should Fund Treatment, Lawyer Says
Oct 24, 2017 | WBUR (MA)
An attorney who is representing states in lawsuits against the maker of OxyContin said they’re “looking really hard” at suing Purdue Pharma owners personally — a broadside against not just a faceless corporation, but a family that has made billions from addictive drugs.
The Sackler family should spend some of that fortune to fund treatment for a problem they helped cause, attorney Mike Moore said in an interview with On Point host Tom Ashbrook.
“We’ll be having those discussions with them soon, I hope,” Moore said.
Moore’s comments came during On Point’s hour on the Sackler family, which controls Purdue Pharma. They have made billions of dollars in America’s opioid flood.
The lawsuits allege that Purdue lied about how addictive OxyContin is, among other claims. Pill prescriptions turned into pill addictions, and from there addicts often turned to heroin. Tens of thousands of Americans die every year from opioid overdoses.
A number of states have filed lawsuits against drug makers and distributors — Moore said he’s representing Ohio, Louisiana and Mississippi, part of a battery of attorneys taking on opioid makers in litigation reminiscent of the tobacco cases.
Purdue is far from the only opioid maker to face scrutiny for its role in pushing addictive narcotics onto the market.
But Moore said he has some evidence connecting the Sackler family directly, and personally, to corporate “misdeeds” in the 1990s and 2000s.
For example, Sackler family members were on an email from a Purdue doctor that said OxyContin didn’t have the “abuse deterrence” that they’d thought, Moore said on the show.
“Whether all of them are personally liable or not is a question,” Moore told On Point. “But in my view, they’re morally liable for creating this opioid epidemic, and they absolutely should start doing something about it immediately.”
Purdue did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
According to Christopher Glazek, a journalist who wrote about the family for Esquire magazine, he has found no evidence that the family has spent any money at all on opioid treatment or research, even as their name has dotted a constellation of art museums, hospital wings and universities.
On Point’s listeners, like Moore, said the Sacklers should take responsibility.
“I think the Sackler family and Purdue should be on the hook for funding clinics in every community in every state that’s getting ravaged,” Doug in Maine said. “The Sackler Recovery Center in every state.”
Listen to segment here: http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2017/10/24/sacklers-opioid-lawsuits-extra
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In the Opioid Crisis, Keep Your Eyes on Heroin and Fentanyl
Oct 25, 2017 | National Review
By Jeffrey A. Singer
President Trump is preparing to declare the opioid crisis a “national emergency” next week. Yet policymakers should be careful about the measures they take to address this issue.
For years now, federal and state authorities have focused on the supply side of the problem, targeting prescription-drug producers and providers. This has been the media’s focus as well: 60 Minutes ran a story October 15 delving into the Drug Enforcement Administration’s efforts to stem supply, for example. But new information suggests that this approach is driving opioid abusers away from illegally obtained prescription opioids and towards heroin, fentanyl, and mixtures of the two. And this is increasing the death rate from drug abuse.
Nonmedical use of prescription opioids peaked in 2012, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, and total opioid use was lower in 2014 than 2012. Health-care practitioners have steadily curtailed the prescribing of opioids since 2010, the production of prescription opioids has come down under the direction of the DEA, and the federal government has encouraged pharmaceutical manufacturers to develop “abuse-deterrent” formulations of prescription opioid pills, meaning the drugs cannot be modified for injecting or snorting. All 50 states have prescription-drug-monitoring programs aimed at curtailing doctors’ prescribing habits and intercepting patients who “doctor-shop.”
Yet the opioid-overdose death rate continues to rise. Such deaths reached an all-time high of 33,000 in 2015, and according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention the numbers for 2016 will be even worse.
Meanwhile, the drugs causing these deaths are changing. In 2015, the majority of opioid-overdose deaths were from heroin (often laced with fentanyl) — not prescription pills as had been the case in the epidemic’s early years — and deaths from fentanyl alone doubled over the previous year.The supply-side approach is based on the belief that the cause of the problem is doctors’ prescribing opioids for patients in pain who then become addicted. Evidence suggests this is a misdiagnosis. The overwhelming majority of opioid-overdose victims are not patients receiving pain medicine; instead, they are mostly individuals with risk factors such as unemployment or childhood trauma. Only a minority of abusers even obtain prescriptions, according to the NSDUH.
Numerous studies have linked abuse-deterrent formulations of opioid pills with the migration of abusers to heroin. Researchers at Notre Dame University reported in a June 2017 working paper that they found a “one to one substitution of heroin deaths for opioid deaths” after the original formulation of Oxycontin was replaced with an abuse-deterrent one in 2010. And far from helping, states’ monitoring programs seem to be contributing to “significantly higher mortality rates in legal narcotics, illicit drugs, and other and unspecified drugs,” according to a May 2017 study.
Recently, Mississippi state representative Joel Bomgar, working with data supplied by the CDC, tracked the overdose-death rates for prescription opioids, heroin, and fentanyl from the years 2006 to 2015 (the most recent year available). He noted that the five-year trend line from 2006 to 2010 predicted overdose deaths from prescription opioids of 5.75 per 100,000 in 2015, but between 2010 (when vigorous supply-side interventions were implemented) and 2015 the actual rate went to 4.84 per 100,000. On the other hand, the pre-2010 trend predicted an overdose rate of 2.62 per 100,000 for heroin and fentanyl in 2015, but the actual overdose rate rose to 6.30 per 100,000. This implies that about one fewer person per 100,000 is dying from prescription-opioid overdose five years after restrictive policies went into effect, in exchange for nearly four more people per 100,000 dying from heroin and fentanyl.
Bomgar also found that the opioid-overdose rate as a proportion of opioid prescriptions was very stable, at roughly one overdose death per 13,000 prescriptions, from 2006 to 2010. But after 2010, a reduction in prescriptions corresponded with increased overdoses. As the prescription rate decreases, patients get cut off from pain medications, and some, in desperation, seek relief in the illegal market. Also, the pool of prescription opioids available in that market is diminishing, and the market is flooded with cheap and easy-to-obtain heroin and fentanyl. In many cases drug dealers insert fentanyl into counterfeit oxycodone capsules for sale as well.
Too many overdose deaths result from the proliferation of dangerous, impure, and fentanyl-laced drugs driven by the economic incentives that always accompany drug prohibition. When a strategy makes things worse year after year, we must change course.Allow doctors to use their best judgment to treat patients in pain. Direct resources away from current restrictive measures, and instead towards medication-assisted treatment, needle-exchange programs, expanded access to the overdose antidote naloxone, and other forms of harm reduction. It’s time to recognize that current opioid policy is contributing to the overdose crisis.
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The opioid crackdown is making life untenable for chronic pain patients like me (OP-ED)
Oct 25, 2017 | Los Angeles Times
By Melissa Sanders
President Trump recently said that he intends to declare the opioid crisis a national emergency. If he makes good on that promise, it will be the country’s first official state of emergency for a drug epidemic. That designation would make more federal funding available for curbing the crisis, and likely result in stricter limitations on new and existing opioid prescriptions.
When I hear the words “opioid” and “emergency” in the same sentence, I panic: Is my prescription running out? I have stage-3 neuroendocrine cancer. For me, not having opioids would be an emergency.
Every three weeks, for the last four years, I’ve had radiation treatment to suppress the cancer. Both the cancer and the treatment have left me in constant pain. I’ve tried everything. I drink bone broth. I slather the damaged nerves in my elbows, hands and feet with Bio-Freeze and Frankincense. I meet weekly with a massage therapist. But what seems to work best are oblong pills with a big “V” stamped on one side — Vicodin.
They make it possible for me to work. I teach creative writing and literature at UC Santa Cruz. To get from my car to the classroom, I have to walk up a large hill carrying two bags that contain my laptop, books, student papers and a cosmetic case full of medication — five bottles of pills, for nausea, digestion, headaches and pain. Together these bags weigh 32 pounds, and everything in them is necessary.
Once in the classroom, I usually stand for an hour and 50 minutes. As I write on the board, I can barely feel my fingers because of tingling neuropathies. When I sit down to hold discussions, I struggle to find a position in my hard plastic chair that doesn’t cause lightning bolts of pain to shoot through my body from the injection sites on my backside.
No one notices all this pain because of the Vicodin I take every six hours. It works so well, in fact, that last year, I was one of eight faculty members chosen out of a pool of more than 500 nominees to win the coveted UC Excellence in Teaching Award. So why do I feel like a criminal when I go to CVS?
There is no doubt that opioid misuse is a real problem. But it’s also true that less than halfof all adults who misuse opioids do so through a prescription. The rate of misuse is much lower among patients who are prescribed opioid medication for chronic pain — 21% to 29%, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. An even smaller percentage of chronic pain patients develop a disorder — between 8% and 12%. In a 2016 poll conducted by the Washington Post and Kaiser Family Foundation, a majority of long-term opioid users said the drugs had dramatically improved their lives, relieving pain when nothing else worked. More than two-thirds said the relief was well worth the risk of addiction.
This latter category is the one I fall into. After undergoing surgery to remove my cancer tumors in 2014, I was prescribed hydrocodone. The medication was effective, but because I had heard about the dangers of using opioids, I tried to cut down and get off it several times during the first two years. Every time I tried, the pain returned. I couldn’t focus or write cogent responses to my students’ papers — the pain was too acute.
About a year ago, I went to my oncologist’s office to get my prescription renewed and found that no one there was authorized to complete this routine task. I would have to wait three days until my doctor returned, I was told. In many places an opiate prescription can be renewed only by a doctor through special triplicate prescription forms or a phone call to the pharmacy — a ridiculous thing to require of a busy oncologist.
I will never forget those three days of waiting. Without medication, I began to vomit, shake and cry. I couldn’t concentrate, grade papers or function at all. I went through the kind of deep physical withdrawal Jamie Foxx portrays in the movie “Ray” when the real-life music legend he plays, Ray Charles, finally kicks heroin. And for what? I didn’t plan to quit.
Trump has been vague about what specific measures he would adopt in a state of emergency, but it’s clear that limiting prescriptions is becoming the preferred tactic across the country. Sens. John McCain and Kirsten Gillibrand have proposed legislation to limit new opioid prescriptions to seven days. New Jersey already has a five-day limit in place. Limits of three to seven days have been imposed in Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont.
Not all opioid users are destined to become heroin addicts, criminals or victims of overdose. For millions of people suffering from chronic, acute pain, regular life would be impossible without this medication. Limits on opioid prescriptions will harm patients like me. The American Medical Assn. understands this; it has warned that this “blunt, one-size-fits-all approach” takes treatment decisions away from doctors and patients. People who take opioids for long-term chronic pain need easier access to prescriptions, not more hurdles.
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Oct 24, 2017 | N12NJ
View clip here: https://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/30259122?token=b3db59be-8134-4d2e-8ea7-b562455b3fe9
Rough transcript: the city of paterson is suing some of the country's largest drug companies. oficials say they misled the public- about the dangers of prescription opioids. the drug manufacturers listed as defendants are- purdue pharma, teva pharmaceuticals, johnson & johnson, jansen pharmaceuticals, endo pharmaceuticals and insys therapeutics. several wholesale distributors are also named.
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