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Opioid Litigation Daily Media Report - 12/6/17
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Northern District of Ohio judge picked to preside over opioid MDL
Dec 5, 2017 | Madison St. Clair Record
By Staff
Multi district judges consolidated 155 opioid suits from 25 courts on Dec. 5, and chose District Judge Dan Polster of the Northern District of Ohio in Cleveland to preside over them. -
Cleveland federal judge to hear dozens of lawsuits filed against Big Pharma nationwide
Dec 5, 2017 | Cleveland.com (OH)
By Eric Heisig
A longtime Cleveland federal judge will preside over dozens of lawsuits filed by cities and counties across the country that accuse drug manufacturers and distributors of heavily contributing to the deadly opioid epidemic in which the country currently finds itself. -
Callis makes pitch to MDL panel for opioid litigation in SDIL; Judges' reaction shows apparent disinterest
Dec 5, 2017 | Madison Sr. Clair Record
By Staff
Former Madison County chief judge Ann Callis, now in private practice at the Goldenberg firm in Edwardsville, prompted laughter among members of a national panel of judges by asking them to transfer all opioid-related lawsuits to a judge who has never handled national litigation. -
Process for opioid lawsuits argued
Dec 5, 2017 | Pineville Independent Herald (WV)
By Courtney Hessler
Hundreds of attorneys met before a federal litigation board in St. Louis on Thursday to argue whether about 150 nationwide lawsuits pointing the finger at several companies accused of fueling the opioid epidemic should be grouped together and heard by one judge. -
MDL Panel Orders All Federal Opioid Cases to Ohio
Dec 5, 2017 | The National Law Journal
By Amanda Bronstad
A federal judicial panel has ordered nearly 180 government lawsuits filed against opioid manufacturers and distributors to be transferred to a judge in Ohio. -
Panel consolidates federal opioid lawsuits before Ohio judge
Dec 5, 2017 | Westlaw Practitioner Insights
By Nate Raymond
A wave of lawsuits by cities and counties against drug manufacturers and distributors for their roles in the opioid epidemic should be centralized before a federal judge in hard-hit Ohio, a judicial panel ruled on Tuesday. -
Ohio Judge Will Oversee 64 Opioid Lawsuits From 7 States
Dec 6, 2017 | WOSU Public Media
By Ashton Mara
Dozens of lawsuits filed by cities, counties and states across the country against opioid manufacturers and distributors will be consolidated in an Ohio court after a ruling issued by a group of federal judges Tuesday. -
Cleveland Judge Will Oversee Opioid Lawsuits Filed in 7 States
Dec 5, 2017 | Ideastream
By Ashton Marra
Dozens of lawsuits filed by cities, counties and states across the country against opioid manufacturers and distributors will be consolidated in an Ohio court after a ruling issued by a group of federal judges Tuesday. -
Panel sends WV opioid lawsuits to Ohio
Dec 5, 2017 | Charleston-Gazette - Mail
By Eric Eyre
Lawsuits filed in West Virginia and other states against drug companies for their role in the opioid epidemic will be consolidated and heard by a federal judge in Cleveland. -
Judge rules that Oklahoma AG's suit against opioid companies can move forward
Dec 6, 2017 | Fox25 News (OK)
By Jordann Lucero
A Cleveland County judge has ruled to keep the Oklahoma Attorney General's suit against opioid manufacturers alive. -
Okla. opioid case will continue
Dec 6, 2017 | The Norman Transcript
By Jacob McGuire
A Cleveland County judge ruled that the legal battle between the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office and several major pharmaceutical companies will continue. -
Oklahoma's opioid suit clears hurdle, moves forward
Dec 6, 2017 | News Oklahoma (OK)
By Randy Ellis
A lawsuit filed by the state that accuses pharmaceutical companies of causing Oklahoma's opioid epidemic by fraudulently marketing their painkilling drugs will be allowed to move forward, a Cleveland County judge ruled Tuesday. -
Judge Rules Opioid Lawsuit Can Move Forward
Dec 6, 2017 | News 9 (OK)
By Aaron Brilbeck
A Cleveland County district court judge has ruled the State Attorney General’s Office can go forward with a lawsuit against more than a dozen pharmaceutical companies. That suit could be worth billions to the state of Oklahoma. -
Judge rules that Okla. lawsuit against opioid manufacturers can go to trial
Dec 6, 2017 | KOCO News (OK)
By Staff
Several drug companies want a lawsuit filed against them by Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter to be dismissed. -
Lawsuit against opioid manufacturers moves forward in Oklahoma court
Dec 5, 2017 | Oklahoma News 4 (OK)
By Lili Zheng
A judge has denied the motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed against pharmaceutical companies. -
Clark County takes steps to sue opioid companies, first jurisdiction in Nevada
Dec 6, 2017 | The Nevada Independent (NV)
By Riley Snyder
Despite concerns over a rushed process and lack of a competitive bid, members of the Clark County Commission voted unanimously to move forward on a lawsuit against opioid manufacturers through a suit filed by a private trial attorney. -
Clark County filing lawsuit against major pharmaceutical companies
Dec 6, 2017 | KVVU (NV)
By Eric Hilt
On Tuesday, Clark County Commissioners unanimously voted to take some of the country's largest pharmaceutical companies to court. It's a move supported by those who have suffered from the opioid epidemic. -
Clark County commissioners vote to file lawsuit against opioid manufacturers
Dec 6, 2017 | NBC 3 News Las Vegas (NV)
By Gabby Hart and John Treanor
Clark County commissioners are taking a bold move to fight a growing opioid drug crisis that’s been sweeping the nation. -
Clark County sues pharmaceutical industry over opioid crisis
Dec 6, 2017 | Las Vegas Now (NV)
By Patrick Walker
Grim statistics revealed that Nevadans are dying at a rate of more than one person a day because of the opioid crisis. -
Clark County to sue pharmaceutical companies
Dec 5, 2017 | Las Vegas Review Journal (NV)
By Michael Scott Davidson
Clark County plans to sue the world’s biggest generic drugmaker Wednesday morning. -
Bay County Commissioners Combating Opioid Epidemic with Lawsuit
Dec 6, 2017 | My Panhandle (FL)
By Erin Morgan
Bay County Commissioners are drawing attention to the opioid epidemic that is affecting the entire nation, and more specifically right in our backyards. -
County commissioners join movement to put an end to the opioid epidemic
Dec 6, 2017 | WJHG (FL)
By Megan Bell
We first told you in November about Panama City Commissioners filing lawsuits against manufacturers of prescription opioids to reduce the amount of dangerous drugs in Northwest Florida. -
Bay County to file opioid suit
Dec 5, 2017 | Panama City News Herald (FL)
By John Henderson
Bay County plans to file a federal lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies to try to recoup costs associated with the abuse of opioid prescription medicines. -
Palm Beach County set to sue drug companies over opioid epidemic
Dec 5, 2017 | Sun Sentinel (FL)
By Skyler Swisher
The opioid epidemic has strained emergency services, jails and safety-net treatment centers, producing millions of dollars in extra costs for taxpayers. -
Manatee Co. to sue drug companies amid opioid crisis
Dec 5, 2017 | Fox 13 News (FL)
By Dan Matics
The opioid addiction crisis continues to hit Manatee County harder than most places in Florida. -
Palm Beach County moves forward with lawsuit aimed at opioid industry
Dec 5, 2017 | WPBF (FL)
By Whitney Burbank
Law firms are lining up to represent Palm Beach County in a legal battle against drug manufacturers, according to county commissioner Melissa McKinlay. -
Palm Beach County moving forward with suit against ‘Big Pharma’
Dec 5, 2017 | CBS 12 (FL)
By Maxine Bentzel
Palm Beach County voted Tuesday to move forward in suing opioid manufacturers, distributors, pharmacies, and doctors. -
Twin Cities Attorneys Sue Makers Of 'Highly Addictive' Opioids
Dec 5, 2017 | Eagan Patch (MN
By William Bornhoft
Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman stood with five other county attorneys and county commissioners from Ramsey and Washington counties Thursday to announce the filing of civil lawsuits against the manufacturers and distributors of highly addictive opioid drugs. -
Hospitals in Mississippi and Alabama are suing more than a dozen pharmaceutical companies, claiming the companies deceptively marketed and sold opioids.
Dec 5, 2017 | Insurance Journal
By Staff
Hospitals in Mississippi and Alabama are suing more than a dozen pharmaceutical companies, claiming the companies deceptively marketed and sold opioids. -
2 More NJ Towns Bring Suits Against Makers of Opioids
Dec 6, 2017 | New Jersey Law Journal (NJ)
By Charles Toutant
Irvington and Ridgefield are the latest towns in New Jersey to bring suits against drug companies over their alleged roles in the opioid addiction crisis. -
Lake County moves forward with plans to sue opioid manufacturers, distributors
Dec 5, 2017 | The News Herald (OH)
By Andrew Cass
Lake County officials are moving ahead with plans to sue opioid manufacturers, wholesale distributors and pill mill doctors. -
Lake County Commissioners vote unanimously to sue opioid distributors, manufacturers
Dec 5, 2017 | News 5 Cleveland (OH)
By Amanda VanAllen
A unanimous decision during the Lake County Commissioners Meeting on Tuesday resulted in hiring a law firm to sue the manufacturers, distributors and even so-called "pill mill" doctors who prescribe opioids. -
Tucson City Council Considers Joining Opioid Lawsuits
Dec 6, 2017 | Arizona Public Media (AZ)
By Zachary Ziegler
The Tucson City Council voted unanimously to allow City Attorney Mike Rankin to gather data and explore the possibility of signing on to a lawsuit seeking damages from the opioid industry. -
County approves opioid litigation
Dec 6, 2017 | Piatt County Journal Republican (IL)
By Steve Hoffman
Piatt County board members decided last week that litigation should be the next step in fighting opioid addiction issues in the county. -
County joins lawsuit against opioid industry
Dec 6, 2017 | Forsyth Herald (GA)
By Kathleen Sturgeon
Forsyth County has officially agreed to retain a law firm that is in the process of prosecuting multiple manufacturers and distributers linked to the opioid crisis. -
Metro Council votes to hire law firm in opioid lawsuit
Dec 6, 2017 | WSMV (TN)
By Kevin Trager
The city of Nashville is one step closer to joining a federal lawsuit against drug companies for their role in the American opioid epidemic. -
Steuben County joins lawsuit against opioid manufacturers
Dec 6, 2017 | WENY (NY)
By Brandon Menard
With a spike in opioid related deaths, Steuben County has joined numerous counties in filing a lawsuit against opioid manufacturers. -
Waterville council votes to join lawsuit against opiate drug companies
Dec 5, 2017 | Central Maine (MN)
By Amy Calder
City councilors on Tuesday voted to authorize the city to join a lawsuit against opiate drug companies, accepting $33,000 from Colby College to pay for a new police cruiser and approving union contracts with public works and parks and recreation employees. -
State lawsuit seeks to recover opioid-related costs to public
Dec 5, 2017 | Dickinson County News (IW)
By Seth Boyes
President Trump gave the order in late October to declare the country's opioid crisis a public health emergency. The Iowa State Association of Counties recently called for cohesive support from the 99 counties regarding a class action lawsuit the organization hopes will address financial issues associated with the epidemic. -
Gallatin County joins lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies over opioid risks
Dec 5, 2017 | Bozeman Daily Chronicle (MT)
By Freddy Monares
Gallatin County Commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to join a federal lawsuit with Cascade County against several pharmaceutical companies that produce opioid painkillers, alleging the companies downplayed the risks of serious addiction to the drugs. -
Gallatin Co. commissioners vote to sue pharmaceutical companies
Dec 5, 2017 | NBC Montana (MT)
By Taylor Graham
Gallatin County Commissioners Don Seifert, Steve White and Joe Skinner voted to join a lawsuit against multiple pharmaceutical manufacturers at a public meeting Tuesday. -
Genesee Co. Commissioners to sue drug companies in relation to opioid epidemic
Dec 5, 2017 | NBC 25 News (MI)
By Courtney Wheaton
The Genesee County board of commissioners voted to hire three legal firms on Monday to represent the county in a lawsuit against drug manufacturers and distributors. -
Burke County could join lawsuit over painkillers
Dec 5, 2017 | The News Herald (NC)
By Sharon McBrayer
It’s no secret that opioid addiction has become a national epidemic, and it hits close to home for many in Burke County. -
Opioid crisis — the human cost: Pharmaceutical companies must be held accountable (EDITORIAL)
Dec 5, 2017 | Minnesota Star Tribune (MN)
By Chris Bauer
Opioids. Opioid addiction. Opioid deaths. Opioid crisis. Those words and the devastation that comes with them pop up every day, everywhere — in conversations, in the news, on social media, in emergency rooms, in living rooms, in hospitals and obituaries. -
One idea for preventing leftover opioids from fueling opioid abuse (EDITORIAL)
Dec 5, 2017 | Becker's Hospital Review
By Keith Humphreys
Most of the roughly 200 million opioid prescriptions dispensed in the United States each year are not finished by the patient for whom they are intended. No one knows how many unused opioid pills lie forgotten in American medicine cabinets and sock drawers, but it’s surely in the billions. This enormous reservoir of excess pills may be raided by addicted individuals (e.g., houseguests, holiday party attendees) or become the gateway to experiments in drug use or dealing by curious teenage children. Efforts to remove this threat to public health from American homes have made only a small dent in the problem. -
Good Day Maine on CBS 13
Dec 6, 2017 | WGME (CBS)
By Portland, OR
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31278400?token=6b1ac740-fcf3-47c4-947f-e21d9b566f7d -
Good Morning Las Vegas at 5AM
Dec 6, 2017 | KTNV (ABC)
By Las Vegas, NV
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31278464?token=6b1ac740-fcf3-47c4-947f-e21d9b566f7d -
News 9 This Morning
Dec 6, 2017 | KWTV (CBS)
By Oklahoma City, OK
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31278474?token=6b1ac740-fcf3-47c4-947f-e21d9b566f7d -
NewsChannel 7 Today
Dec 6, 2017 | WJHG (NBC)
By Panama City, FL
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31278480?token=6b1ac740-fcf3-47c4-947f-e21d9b566f7d -
GMC: FOX Edition
Dec 6, 2017 | WTVCDT2 (Fox)
By Chattanooga, TN
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31278487?token=6b1ac740-fcf3-47c4-947f-e21d9b566f7d -
Fox66 Mornings
Dec 6, 2017 | WSMH (Fox)
By Flint, MI
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31278505?token=6b1ac740-fcf3-47c4-947f-e21d9b566f7d -
Eyewitness News Daybreak 6:00
Dec 6, 2017 | WSOC (ABC)
By Charlotte, NC
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31278521?token=6b1ac740-fcf3-47c4-947f-e21d9b566f7d -
WXII 12 News at 6am
Dec 6, 2017 | WXII (NBC)
By Greensboro, NC
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31278528?token=6b1ac740-fcf3-47c4-947f-e21d9b566f7d
Litigation Consolidation
Oklahoma OAG Suit
Clark County, NV (Las Vegas)
Florida Counties
Other Litigation Coverage
Commentary and FYIs
Broadcast Media Coverage
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Northern District of Ohio judge picked to preside over opioid MDL
Dec 5, 2017 | Madison St. Clair Record
By Staff
Multi district judges consolidated 155 opioid suits from 25 courts on Dec. 5, and chose District Judge Dan Polster of the Northern District of Ohio in Cleveland to preside over them.
The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multi District Litigation reached its decisions five days after holding a hearing on consolidation in St. Louis.
Panel chair Sarah Vance wrote that all the actions implicate common fact questions as to allegedly improper marketing and widespread diversion.
She wrote that although individual issues might arise, they don’t negate the efficiencies to be gained by centralization at this early stage.
“As reflected in our questions at oral argument, this litigation might evolve to include additional categories of plaintiffs and defendants, as well as different types of claims,” Vance wrote.
“We will address whether to include specific actions or claims through the conditional transfer order process.”
She wrote that centralization in Northern Ohio would serve the convenience of parties and witnesses.
“Ohio has a strong factual connection to this litigation, given that it has experienced a significant rise in the number of opioid related overdoses in the past several years and expended significant sums in dealing with the effects of the opioid epidemic,” Vance wrote.
She wrote that the district presents a geographically central and accessible forum relatively close to headquarters of defendants.
“Indeed, one of the big three distributor defendants, Cardinal Health, is based in Ohio,” she wrote.
Vance further found that Polster’s experience in multi district litigation over gadolinium contrast dyes, which involved several hundred cases, provided him valuable insight into the management of complex litigation.
Hunter Shkolnik of New York City, representing three Ohio cities, recommended Polster at the panel’s hearing on Nov. 30.
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Cleveland federal judge to hear dozens of lawsuits filed against Big Pharma nationwide
Dec 5, 2017 | Cleveland.com (OH)
By Eric Heisig
A longtime Cleveland federal judge will preside over dozens of lawsuits filed by cities and counties across the country that accuse drug manufacturers and distributors of heavily contributing to the deadly opioid epidemic in which the country currently finds itself.
U.S. District Judge Dan Polster will preside over 64 lawsuits filed in federal courts nationwide that say drug manufacturers overstated the benefits and downplayed the risks of using opioids and that distributors failed to properly monitor suspicious orders of prescription opiates. The order was issued Tuesday by the Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, which is made up of federal judges across the country.
The lawsuits were filed in Alabama, California, Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio, Washington and West Virginia.
Multidistrict litigation is a way for federal courts to have similar cases under one umbrella to speed up procedures such as discovery and pre-trial rulings. The cases can be settled under this process as well, though a case is sent back to its original court if it goes to trial.
Some high-profile cases have been handled with multidistrict litigation, including litigation over the 2010 BP oil spill and lawsuits against agrochemical company Monsanto over the risks of using the herbicide Roundup.
While the list assigned to Polster does not include every case filed by cities, counties and states in the wake of the opioid crisis, additional federal cases with similar claims could be sent to him. Polster would also coordinate with judges and parties for cases filed in state courts.
Of the 64 cases, 16 originated from Ohio and include lawsuits filed by the cities of Cincinnati and Dayton. It also includes lawsuits filed by two Northeast Ohio cities, Parma and Lorain.
The list of cases Polster will preside over notably does not include a lawsuit the state of Ohio filed against Purdue Pharma and other manufacturers, which Attorney General Mike DeWine has touted on the campaign trail as he runs for governor.
The case is being heard by a judge in Ross County in Southern Ohio. Dan Tierney, a DeWine spokesman, said Ohio's lawsuit contains specific claims under state law, meaning it will likely not be moved to federal court.
The list also does not include a lawsuit filed by Cuyahoga County. The drug companies the county is suing moved the case to federal court last month, and the county has until Dec. 27 to argue the case should return to state court.
Polster, a former assistant U.S. attorney, has been on the bench since 1998. He is well-respected among Cleveland lawyers and has a reputation as a judge who tries to quickly resolve criminal and civil cases. Other federal judges have turned to him when they seek out a mediator to settle a lawsuit.
The panel's order assigning the cases to Polster says he has ably handled multidistrict litigation in the past, specifically lawsuits involving injuries sustained by people exposed to a chemical element called gadolinium during MRIs.
"We have no doubt that Judge Polster will steer this litigation on a prudent course," the order states.
Polster, through his court staff, declined comment.
Ohio also "has a strong factual connection to this litigation," because of the thousands of opioid deaths the state has seen and the money it has paid to battle the epidemic, the order says. The panel also noted that Cardinal Health, one of the big distributors being sued, Cardinal Health, is based in Ohio and that the state is close to the headquarters of multiple defendant companies with headquarters on the East Coast.
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Dec 5, 2017 | Madison Sr. Clair Record
By Staff
Former Madison County chief judge Ann Callis, now in private practice at the Goldenberg firm in Edwardsville, prompted laughter among members of a national panel of judges by asking them to transfer all opioid-related lawsuits to a judge who has never handled national litigation.
At a hearing of the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multi District Litigation on Nov. 30, Callis recommended U.S. District Judge Staci Yandle.
Panel chair Sarah Vance, district judge in Eastern Louisiana, said, “Has she ever had an MDL?”
Callis said, “No ma’am, she does not.”
Vance said, “And you want to give her this one?”
Laughter rippled through the panel and an audience of about 140.
Callis said, “Yes ma’am.”
Panel member Charles Breyer, district judge in Northern California said, “It will be the last one.”
The crowd laughed.
Callis and her firm already represent 15 local governments in Illinois, including counties of St. Clair, Bond, Jersey and the city of Granite City. And, last month, she made an appeal to Madison County’s judiciary committee seeking to represent her home county as well.
“If I may, just north of St. Clair County is Madison County, Illinois,” Callis told the panel. “There, I was a judge for 18 years.
“I was a felony trial judge for seven years and chief judge for seven years. Therefore, I know of the utter devastation of this opioid epidemic on our Southern Illinois communities.”
Callis said that in St. Clair County in 2014, there were 34 pills of hydrocodone and oxycodone prescribed per resident.
“Judge Staci Yandle is eminently qualified to handle this litigation,” Callis said,
“She was an accomplished lawyer handling and trying many complex litigation cases and she continues to do so to this day. She sat by designation on the Seventh Circuit of Appeals and I believe -”
Vance said, “How does that qualify her for handling this? No offense.”
The crowd laughed.
Callis said, “She certainly has the intellect, the legal ability, really the temperament to handle the herculean task of this litigation.”
Vance thanked her and called the next lawyer.
In all, 20 lawyers addressed the panel.
Roland Tellis of Baron and Budd, representing Cincinnati, spoke first.
Tellis said there were 155 cases in 25 districts.
He said there was discussion that there were distinct sets of claims against manufacturers and distributors.
“That perception stems from an erroneous understanding of the claims,” Tellis said,
“The duty to report and stop suspicious transactions here is at the heart of all of the claims.
“Manufacturers and distributors together have that duty.”
Vance asked if they carry out their duties in different ways.
Tellis said the Drug Enforcement Administration sets quotas on how many pills it will allow each year.
“There was a concerted effort on the part of both of them to ensure that those quotas remain artificially high,” Tellis said.
“If a distributor reported a suspicious transaction, it would hurt the manufacturers and vice versa.”
Vance said, “You’ve got governmental entities, you’ve got personal injury plaintiffs, you’ve got hospitals, you’ve got union trust funds, you’ve got third party payers.”
She asked Tellis what to do with them, and he said governmental entities are talking about increased cost to deal with addiction.
“Personal injury plaintiffs don’t have those costs,” Tellis said.
Panel member Catherine Perry, chief district judge for Eastern Missouri, said there was at least one wrongful death case.
“There’s got to be more than that if 800 people a day are dying,” Perry said.
Tellis said, “As long as the claim arises under this duty that you should have reported and stopped suspicious transactions, they ought to be in.”
Vance said, “The third party payers and the personal injury plaintiffs don’t have to deal with all of the hurdles of whether or not you can sue for these kind of damages that the political subdivisions do under the laws of every jurisdiction.”
For Tacoma, Derek Loeser recommended the Western District of Washington.
“The MDL is not going to solve all problems but if it speeds things up it is absolutely worth doing,” Loeser said.
Kristal Baich, representing 48 Wisconsin counties, recommended Judge Lynn Adelman of the state’s Eastern District.
She said he has effectively handled multiple MDLs.
Shelly Sanford of Watts Guerra, representing two Texas counties that have filed and others that haven’t filed, recommended Breyer at the Northern District of California.
Sanford also recommended Judge Robert Pitman in Austin.
Eric Young, representing health and welfare funds of two Pennsylvania unions, said he wouldn’t have a problem with a separate MDL for third party payers.
Patrick Barthle, suing distributors but not manufacturers for eight cities, towns, and counties in West Virginia, opposed consolidation.
He said each claim is based on specific shipments to specific locations in and around the area, and said it wasn’t a question of a distributor sending too many opioids to the United States, but a question of a specific shipment to the town of Kermit.
Perry said, “They didn’t target your jurisdiction under your theory of the case, did they?”
Barthle said, “I don’t know that they specifically targeted it.”
Perry said, “So you’re going to have some executive saying yeah, we sat there and said I’m going to go after Kermit, Nebraska?”
Barthle said, “I think we would have to know, was there discussion about this area, what did the employees of these distributors know about those areas, what was going on in those pain clinics.”
For Chicago, Linda Singer argued that consolidation would delay an opioid suit the city filed against manufacturers only in 2014.
Vance asked her the difference between manufacturers and distributors.
Singer said the complaint alleged that five manufacturers engaged in deceptive promotion, misrepresented the risk of addiction, and overrepresented the ability of doctors to manage the risk.
She said consolidation would effectively stay the case for 18 months. She also said people who have become addicted would love to go back to 2014.
“In the meantime, city of Chicago’s case gets stopped,” Singer said. “Defendants continue to engage in the same practices.”
Jeffrey Simon, suing manufacturers and distributors for eight Texas counties, opposed consolidation.
“We can coordinate with the defendants on our own in Texas,” Simon said.
Chris Huck, suing Purdue Pharma for Everett, Wash., opposed consolidation.
He said the panel has been hesitant to do industry wide centralization and that,
“This is multiple industry wide centralization,” Huck said. “Every other counsel in this room hasn’t been able to point the panel to any case that has ever done that.”
“These people are dying every day. The conduct is continuing.”
He said statistics show that attempting an MDL slows a case down
Hunter Shkolnik opposed consolidation on behalf of three Ohio cities, saying they seek to move forward in terms of injunctive relief.
He said municipalities have a right to information under state programs so they can take immediate action.
“I’m a proponent of MDL’s, but we also know that some MDL’s take too long to help communities,” Shkolnik said.
Breyer said that was up to the judge, and Shkolnik said he was right.
He suggested that if the panel consolidated cases, it should assign District Judge Dan Polster of Northern Ohio.
Lee Javins, private counsel to West Virginia attorney general Patrick Morrissey, opposed consolidation of a suit Morrissey filed in Boone County.
Defendants have removed the suit to district court in Charleston, where Javins has asked District Judge David Faber to remand it to Boone County.
Javins told the panel, “It’s my hope that we are temporarily here on removal.”
He said his case specifically disavowed federal jurisdiction.
“We know how to litigate these cases,” Javins said. “Twelve of them have litigated to resolution.”
“We are as far along as the city of Chicago.”
Panel member David Proctor, district judge in Northern Alabama, asked if Faber deferred ruling until the panel decided or if it was just hanging in the balance.
Javins said, “I guess I’d have to say it’s hanging in the balance.”
Vance said, “We wouldn’t be offended if he ruled on it.”
Javins said, “I advised the court that he could wrap this up in a one paragraph order, and I’m a little concerned that he hasn’t done that yet.”
CVS counsel Richard Schirtzer opposed consolidation for distributors CVS, Wal-Mart, Walgreens, Kroger, SAG, and Rite Aid.
He said the difference between manufacturers and distributors would raise very different issues in discovery.
Breyer said he understood things would go on in the MDL that don’t concern distributors, but asked if good things would go on that do concern them.
Schirtzer said, “At what point does what doesn’t concern us swamp what does concern us?”
He said CVS, Rite-Aid and others never distributed oxy.
“We are going to be dragged into a series of 154 cases that are going to be about oxy for clients who have never distributed oxy,” Schirtzer said.
Robert Ridge, counsel for Top RX, opposed consolidation for small distributors.
“Our clients in most cases are contributing a fraction of the opioids,” Ridge said.
He said suspicious order issues would be different for smaller clients than for larger clients.
Pfizer counsel Loren Brown adopted a unique stance as an interested party with no suits pending against his client.
He said Pfizer was named in five government cases and in all five Pfizer secured voluntary dismissals.
Vance asked what Pfizer did, and Brown said it shared very basic marketing and sales information.
“If we don’t get a carve out in the order, we believe there is a substantial chance that we are going to end up getting named in hundreds of cases,” Brown said.
Proctor said, “We can’t send out a general order that no plaintiff’s counsel can sue you.”
Brown said, “We are not looking for any kind of immunity. It’s just that the advantages of an MDL, which I almost always argue for, are far outweighed by the disadvantages here.
“Even the best MDL judge and the best tracking system would not be as efficient as we have been up until now getting ourselves out of these cases.”
Proctor said nothing precluded him from employing the same strategy in an MDL.
For big distributors Amerisource Bergen, Cardinal Health, and McKesson, Enu Mainigi supported centralization.
Vance said, “What’s the scope? Who’s in and who’s out?”
Mainigi said, “I think you can have separate tracks.”
Vance asked if manufacturers, distributors, and closed distributors should be in, and Mainigi said yes to all three.
Vance asked if prescribers, hospitals, and third party payers should be in, and Mainigi said those were harder question for the transferee judge.
Mainigi said threshold issues might completely turn the litigation. She said they relate to whether a city or county can even bring this litigation, and that there are causation issues of great significance.
“How does a distributor lead to these opioid deaths?” she said.
Panel member Marjorie Rendell, judge of the Third Circuit appellate court, said, “Doesn’t that argue for non centralization so that these things can be litigated where God flung them and let those issues be litigated in separate courts?”
Mainigi said, “We can’t have 150 different rulings on that issue.”
She said the one judge in the country who has been thinking about these issues for the better part of the year is Faber.
“I imagine you don’t get many defendants like us who show up asking for West Virginia as the place to go to be transferred,” she said.
Rendell said Faber hasn’t had an MDL.
For manufacturers, Purdue Pharma counsel Mark Cheffo recommended consolidation in Northern Illinois or Southern New York.
He suggested Judge Jorge Alonso, who presides over Chicago’s case.
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Process for opioid lawsuits argued
Dec 5, 2017 | Pineville Independent Herald (WV)
By Courtney Hessler
Hundreds of attorneys met before a federal litigation board in St. Louis on Thursday to argue whether about 150 nationwide lawsuits pointing the finger at several companies accused of fueling the opioid epidemic should be grouped together and heard by one judge.
A request, filed with the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, was made in September, asking to group together those suits filed in multiple states, creating an MDL, for better cohesion and efficiency as the cases move forward. A decision is expected in two weeks.
The lawsuits state the wholesale distributors breached their duty to monitor, detect, investigate, refuse and report suspicious orders of prescription opiates coming into the states over the past several years - a duty the lawsuits claim companies have under the Controlled Substances Act of 1970.
Among those who have filed lawsuits are several governments in the Tri-State, including Scioto, Gallia and Lawrence counties and the city of Portsmouth in Ohio, and McDowell, Kanawha, Boone, Wyoming, Logan, Lincoln, Cabell and Wayne counties and the city of Huntington in West Virginia.
Huntington attorney Paul T. Farrell Jr., whose coalition of law firms represents about half of the 154 cases filed thus far, said Thursday's hearing did not seem to focus so much on whether the cases would be grouped, but instead where the cases would be heard.
"It's anyone's guess on where they will land," he said. "But the panel is looking for a judge with some experience with handling MDLs, and there was not a whole lot of time debating on judge or jurisdiction. Most of them want Columbus, Ohio, or Charleston."
The grouping will allow one judge to make rulings on pretrial motions and other issues that arise, Farrell said. Even if the case is moved out of state for the rulings, there is still an option for the case to be heard by a West Virginia federal jury.
"No one is losing their case," he said. "There are just several decisions that have to be made and that will be conducted by one person if the panel approves the order. It saves time and inconsistent rulings."
Farrell also noted the issue of who had filed the suits - whose plaintiffs range from hospitals, government entities, labor unions, third-party payees and individual citizens. The panel could choose to separate those suits from each other due to different claims.
The "Big Three" and five manufacturers, like Purdue Pharma and Johnson & Johnson, who are named in dozens of the lawsuits, argued the move would be ideal. But other pharmaceutical distribution businesses - including Walgreens, Kroger, Walmart, CVS and Rite Aid - who are named in just a handful of lawsuits opposed the consolidation and taking the lawsuits out of the state of West Virginia.
Smaller pharmacy distributors named in local lawsuits oppose the centralization of dozens of cases they are not named in. The move would be unfair and dramatically increase burdens and costs associated with the move, several claimed.
The filings started after a 2016 Charleston Gazette-Mail investigation revealed that between 2007 and 2012, the "Big Three" distributors - McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen Drug Corp. - shipped 423 million pain pills to West Virginia, which has about 1.8 million citizens, before the number of pills started to decrease.
The Cabell County Commission declared the distribution of pain medications in the county a public nuisance under West Virginia State Code and hired the law firm of Greene, Ketchum, Farrell, Bailey & Tweel to pursue first-of-its-kind legal action against those in the chain of distribution. It created a domino effect of lawsuits being filed nationwide.
Farrell then put together a national coalition of law firms that now represents over 120 cities and counties in the Appalachian and Ohio River Valley regions that have filed lawsuits or plan to take action in the future. Eighty have been filed by the group so far, Farrell said.
"I thought initially the Tri-State would be the focal point," he said. "But I've learned the opioid epidemic is like a flower that is blossoming. It's just doing that at different times and different places. As it's at full bloom in Huntington, it's just starting to bloom in other places - from Appalachia to the East Coast."
While he knew the lawsuits would be large in numbers, Farrell said it was humbling to see so many filings nationwide.
"What's amazing is the lawsuits we filed on behalf of the southern counties (of West Virginia) have resulted in 200 lawyers from around the country showing up in St. Louis representing communities across the country," he said.
In total, there are 16 lawsuits in Ohio, 19 in West Virginia and 19 in Kentucky.
In a state-led lawsuit predating these, two of the "Big Three" agreed to pay $36 million to settle a West Virginia lawsuit, led by the West Virginia Attorney General's Office, in January. AmerisourceBergen will pay $16 million and Cardinal Health will pay $20 million.
Cardinal Health announced Nov. 16 the creation of its Opioid Action Program, which is aimed at helping communities in Appalachia combat the opioid epidemic.
Cardinal Health has promised to purchase approximately 80,000 doses of naloxone nasal spray for first responders and law enforcement officials in Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia. It will also invest $3 million in youth prevention education and increase its existing support for drug "take back" and education programs, according to a press release from the company.
Farrell had little comment on the move.
"I'm just a hillbilly lawyer representing some southern West Virginia communities," he said. "I don't really have any comment to their donation of naloxone to help those overdosing on their own pills. That should come from local leaders.
"We got their attention today in one of the most important courtrooms in the country right now," he later said. "They know that there is going to be a reckoning and it's going to be magic or tragic - one or the other."
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MDL Panel Orders All Federal Opioid Cases to Ohio
Dec 5, 2017 | The National Law Journal
By Amanda Bronstad
A federal judicial panel has ordered nearly 180 government lawsuits filed against opioid manufacturers and distributors to be transferred to a judge in Ohio.
The remainder of this article is under paywall: https://www.law.com/nationallawjournal/sites/nationallawjournal/2017/12/05/mdl-panel-orders-all-federal-opioid-cases-to-ohio/
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Panel consolidates federal opioid lawsuits before Ohio judge
Dec 5, 2017 | Westlaw Practitioner Insights
By Nate Raymond
A wave of lawsuits by cities and counties against drug manufacturers and distributors for their roles in the opioid epidemic should be centralized before a federal judge in hard-hit Ohio, a judicial panel ruled on Tuesday.
The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation ordered 64 lawsuits against Purdue Pharma LP, Johnson & Johnson, Cardinal Health and others in seven different states to be transferred to U.S. District Judge Dan Polster in Cleveland.
The remainder of the article is under paywall: https://www.reuters.com/article/health-opioids/panel-consolidates-federal-opioid-lawsuits-before-ohio-judge-idUSL1N1O52J2
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Ohio Judge Will Oversee 64 Opioid Lawsuits From 7 States
Dec 6, 2017 | WOSU Public Media
By Ashton Mara
Dozens of lawsuits filed by cities, counties and states across the country against opioid manufacturers and distributors will be consolidated in an Ohio court after a ruling issued by a group of federal judges Tuesday.
The United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation ruled 64 lawsuits filed against pharmaceutical companies in nine federal district courts will have their pretrial motions overseen by Judge Dan Polster in the Northern District of Ohio, in Cleveland.
The consolidation is part of the federal multidistrict litigation process, which allows both plaintiffs and defendants to request to have complex civil cases that address common legal questions heard by one court.
The 64 cases allege that a group of opioid distributors and manufacturers, including Purdue Pharma, AmerisourceBergen Drug Corporation, and McKesson Corporation, among others, “overstated the benefits and downplayed the risks” of their opioid medications, “aggressively marketed” them to doctors, and failed to monitor and investigate suspicious orders.
The consolidation includes two cases from Northeast Ohio filed by the cities of Lorain and Parma, as well as 14 cases filed in the Southern District of Ohio, including lawsuits from Cincinnati, Dayton and a number of counties.
Cases filed in Alabama, California, Illinois, Kentucky, Washington and West Virginia are also included in the multidistrict litigation transfer order.
In the written decision signed by Chair Sarah Vance from the Eastern District of Louisiana, the Panel says northern Ohio not only has a strong connection to the case because of the quick rise of opioid overdose deaths its experienced over the past several years, but is a geographically central location, making travel easier and lessening the cost of the suits for plaintiffs, defendants and eventual witnesses.
The ruling also points out that Cardinal Health, one of the largest manufacturers included in the suits, is based in Ohio.
The decision mentions 115 other cases have been filed outside of federal court that deal with similar claims.
Those cases, including the lawsuits filed by Cuyahoga County and Attorney General Mike DeWine in county Common Pleas Courts, could also be moved to the Northern District of Ohio.
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Cleveland Judge Will Oversee Opioid Lawsuits Filed in 7 States
Dec 5, 2017 | Ideastream
By Ashton Marra
Dozens of lawsuits filed by cities, counties and states across the country against opioid manufacturers and distributors will be consolidated in an Ohio court after a ruling issued by a group of federal judges Tuesday.
The United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation ruled 64 lawsuits filed against pharmaceutical companies in 9 federal district courts will have their pretrial motions overseen by Judge Dan Polster in the Northern District of Ohio, in Cleveland.
The consolidation is part of the federal multidistrict litigation process, which allows both plaintiffs and defendants to request to have complex civil cases that address common legal questions heard by one court.
The 64 cases allege that a group of opioid distributors and manufacturers, including Purdue Pharma, AmerisourceBergen Drug Corporation, and McKesson Corporation, among others, “overstated the benefits and downplayed the risks” of their opioid medications, “aggressively marketed” them to doctors, and failed to monitor and investigate suspicious orders.
The consolidation includes two cases from Northeast Ohio filed by the cities of Lorain and Parma, as well as 14 cases filed in the Southern District of Ohio, including lawsuits from Cincinnati, Dayton and a number of counties.
Cases filed in Alabama, California, Illinois, Kentucky, Washington and West Virginia are also included in the multidistrict litigation transfer order.
In the written decision signed by Chair Sarah Vance from the Eastern District of Louisianna, the Panel says northern Ohio not only has a strong connection to the case because of the quick rise of opioid overdose deaths its experienced over the past several years, but is a geographically central location, making travel easier and lessening the cost of the suits for plaintiffs, defendants and eventual witnesses. The ruling also points out that Cardinal Health, one of the largest manufacturers included in the suits, is based in Ohio.
The decision mentions 115 other cases have been filed outside of federal court that deal with similar claims.
Those cases, including the lawsuits filed by Cuyahoga County and Attorney General Mike DeWine in county Common Pleas Courts, could also be moved to the Northern District of Ohio.
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Panel sends WV opioid lawsuits to Ohio
Dec 5, 2017 | Charleston-Gazette - Mail
By Eric Eyre
Lawsuits filed in West Virginia and other states against drug companies for their role in the opioid epidemic will be consolidated and heard by a federal judge in Cleveland.
The cases include West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey’s ongoing lawsuit against drug giant McKesson Corp., along with at least 17 suits filed by counties, cities and towns across the state against McKesson and other drug distributors such as Cardinal Heath.
The distributors, which are accused of fueling the opioid crisis by shipping an excessive number of prescription pain pills to pharmacies, wanted the cases heard in West Virginia by U.S. District Judge David Faber. The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation decided Tuesday to send the lawsuits to Ohio, where Judge Dan Polster will oversee them.
“Ohio has a strong factual connection to this litigation, given that it has experienced a significant rise in the number of opioid-related overdoses in the past several years and expended significant sums in dealing with the effects of the opioid epidemic,” the panel wrote in a four-page order Tuesday.
Polster has previously handled multi-state cases and opioid lawsuits.
“We have no doubt that Judge Polster will steer this litigation on a prudent course,” the judicial panel said.
Other lawsuits filed in Ohio and Illinois will be consolidated with the West Virginia cases. Some of the lawsuits name drug manufacturers and doctors as defendants.
Most manufacturers wanted the cases heard in New Jersey. Several smaller distributors and retail pharmacy chains, which only ship to their own stores, opposed merging the lawsuits. They argued that consolidating the cases would slow their progress.
The panel disagreed. “The alternative of allowing the various cases to proceed independently across myriad districts raises a serious risk of inconsistent rulings and inefficient pretrial proceedings,” the panel wrote.
The Kanawha County Commission, and the cities of Charleston and Huntington are among the 46 counties and cities to file opioid-related lawsuits, which seek to recover costs associated with the epidemic.
West Virginia has the highest overdose death rate in the nation, and the overdose numbers are expected to reach a record number again this year.
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Judge rules that Oklahoma AG's suit against opioid companies can move forward
Dec 6, 2017 | Fox25 News (OK)
By Jordann Lucero
A Cleveland County judge has ruled to keep the Oklahoma Attorney General's suit against opioid manufacturers alive.
Big pharmaceutical companies, like Purdue Pharma and Cephalon, were asking Cleveland County Judge Thad Balkman to toss a lawsuit filed against them by Attorney General Mike Hunter. Hunter's suit claims that companies knowingly marketed their drugs as safe for chronic pain management while downplaying the risks of opioid dependency and overstating the effectiveness of the drugs.
After hours of presentation, Balkman dismissed most of the companies motions but agreed that the companies have not violated the Oklahoma Consumer Protection Act.
A court date for the trial has yet to be set. Hunter's office hopes to take it to trial in 2019.
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Okla. opioid case will continue
Dec 6, 2017 | The Norman Transcript
By Jacob McGuire
A Cleveland County judge ruled that the legal battle between the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office and several major pharmaceutical companies will continue.
In June, Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter filed a lawsuit against Purdue Pharma, Allergan, Teva Pharmaceuticals and Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc., alleging affiliates of the companies undersold the risks of addiction to Oklahomans, ultimately leading to an opioid epidemic.
Oklahoma joined about a dozen other states with similar pending lawsuits, including Ohio and Missouri.
“Deceptive marketing campaigns and the resulting opioid abuse and addiction epidemic caused, and continues to cause, the state of Oklahoma, its businesses, communities and citizens to bear enormous social and economic costs including increased health care, criminal justice and lost work productivity expenses,” the suit read.
On Tuesday, Judge Thad Balkman denied the companies’ request to dismiss the lawsuit, which they filed in September in response to the state’s petition.
“Through decades of fraudulent marketing campaigns to doctors and consumers, these companies have been the driving force in the deadliest drug epidemic in U.S. history, an epidemic that claimed 64,000 lives last year alone,” Hunter said in statement released Tuesday following the hearing. “Oklahoma continues to suffer greatly because of it.
“In the last three years, nearly 3,000 Oklahomans have died from overdoses and more than 1,300 newborns have tested positive for substance exposure. The opioid crisis has created a generation of addicts, who continue to struggle on a daily basis. These companies put profits over people, and we intend to hold them accountable.”
The epidemic has even gotten the attention of President Donald Trump, who declared opioid abuse a national public health emergency in October, describing it as the worst drug crisis in U.S. history.
“As Americans, we cannot allow this to continue,” Trump said during a White House speech in October. “It is time to liberate our communities from this scourge of drug addiction. We can be the generation that ends the opioid epidemic.”
Balkman subsequently scheduled a conference Jan. 11, where attorneys from the parties will meet to agree on a trial date. And according to attorneys representing the state, they already have a date in mind.
“We requested a May 2019 trial date,” said the state’s lead attorney, Michael Burrage. “We always thought we had pleaded sufficient causes of action against these drug manufacturers, and the court agreed with us. We now can proceed to the next steps of this case.”
The hearing Tuesday lasted more than four hours, with both sides not pulling any punches.
“We do not think the petition filed by the state meets the pleading requirements under Oklahoma law,” defendant attorney Steven Reed said. “The petition improperly lumps all defendants together and asserts that all defendants committed the same alleged misconduct.”
State attorney Reggie Whitten said in 2012, more than 120 painkiller prescriptions were dispersed per 100 Oklahomans, and in 2016, the state ranked at the top of the list in regard to the amount of milligrams of opioids distributed to adults.
“This is about Oklahoma and Oklahomans,” he said. “[The companies] don’t care how many lives are ruined or how many deaths are caused by this epidemic. It took us 20 years to get in this epidemic, and I predict it will take as long or even longer to get out of it.”
Following the hearing, Burrage confirmed the state is in negotiations with Allergan and its affiliates to find a solution, but he didn’t allude to what that solution would be.
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Oklahoma's opioid suit clears hurdle, moves forward
Dec 6, 2017 | News Oklahoma (OK)
By Randy Ellis
A lawsuit filed by the state that accuses pharmaceutical companies of causing Oklahoma's opioid epidemic by fraudulently marketing their painkilling drugs will be allowed to move forward, a Cleveland County judge ruled Tuesday.
"It's not a ticking time bomb. It's a bomb that's already exploded," said Bradley Beckworth, one of the attorneys representing the state.
Cleveland County District Judge Thad Balkman has not yet set a trial date, but attorneys for the state said they would like the trial to begin in May 2019.
The state expects to ask for billions of dollars in damages, said Michael Burrage, who is also representing the state.
Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter filed the lawsuit against 13 opioid manufacturers, affiliates and successor companies in June — accusing them of engaging in massive marketing efforts that fraudulently misrepresented the addictive risks of their drugs in an effort to pump up their multibillion-dollar profits.
"They lied in their marketing," said Reggie Whitten, another attorney who is assisting the state.
The results have been devastating, he said.
"More Americans died from opioid overdose in 2016 alone than in the entire Vietnam War," Whitten said. "The bodies, sadly, will continue to pile up."
"Defendants created the worst public health crisis in modern history. Families destroyed," state attorneys claimed in a court filing. "Children killed. Babies addicted. Morgues overflowing. Prisons full."
Purdue Pharma Inc., Johnson & Johnson and Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. are among the drug manufacturers named in the lawsuit.
The drug companies had sought dismissal of the court action, contending that the addictive risks of the opioids they manufacture were clearly described in labels required by the federal Food and Drug Administration.
"The state's claims against Purdue are pre-empted by federal law because they would require Purdue to make statements about the safety and efficacy of its medications that are different from what the Food and Drug Administration has approved," Purdue attorneys argued in one court filing.
Purdue attorneys also accused state attorneys of painting all the opioid manufacturers with a broad brush and failing to provide specific information that would allow them to properly defend themselves against the fraud allegations.
State attorneys, however, argued that the drug companies deliberately tried to downplay the addictive properties of their drugs.
"Defendants hired and paid physicians ... to act as 'key opinion leaders,'" attorneys for the state alleged.
These key opinion leaders "spoke at medical education seminars, spoke in the media, and published articles pushing more opioids and downplaying (if not altogether denying) the risk of addiction," the state's attorneys said. "Defendants created and/or funded third-party pain advocacy front groups — such as the American Pain Foundation and the American Pain Society — to disseminate their message that opioids are not addictive and should be prescribed liberally."
The pharmaceutical manufacturers did win one small victory Tuesday when Judge Balkman dismissed a relatively minor portion of the state's lawsuit alleging the drug companies had violated the Oklahoma Consumer Protection Act.
The state can continue to pursue its claims that the drug companies violated the Oklahoma Medicaid False Claims and Oklahoma Medicaid Program Integrity Acts, created a public nuisance, committed fraud and were unjustly enriched at the expense of the state, the judge ruled.
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Judge Rules Opioid Lawsuit Can Move Forward
Dec 6, 2017 | News 9 (OK)
By Aaron Brilbeck
A Cleveland County district court judge has ruled the State Attorney General’s Office can go forward with a lawsuit against more than a dozen pharmaceutical companies. That suit could be worth billions to the state of Oklahoma.
The lawsuit alleges the pharmaceutical companies lied to doctors about how addictive opioids are leading to the nations opioid epidemic.
In more than four hours of testimony, teams of attorneys for the pharmaceutical companies and the state made their points. The drug companies wanted the case tossed out, claiming doctors knew the dangers of opioid addiction. The state disagreed.
"But that's not what happened,” said Michael Burrage, Attorney for State. “What happened is a systemic campaign funded by millions of dollars of misrepresentation to these doctors."
Attorneys for the pharmaceutical companies did not want to comment.
Both sides will return next month to decide on a trial date. The state is pushing for May of 2019.
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Judge rules that Okla. lawsuit against opioid manufacturers can go to trial
Dec 6, 2017 | KOCO News (OK)
By Staff
Several drug companies want a lawsuit filed against them by Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter to be dismissed.
Hunter filed the lawsuit earlier this year, claiming the companies are partly to blame for the growing opioid epidemic. On Tuesday, a judge ruled that the case will go to trial after the state made sufficient claims against the pharmaceutical companies.
The state said the case is about how the companies misled or lied to consumers about how addictive painkillers are. The lawsuit also claims the companies ignored the warning signs of opioid addiction and went for profits.
The defendants, however, want the case thrown out, saying the Federal Drug Administration required them to market and label the painkillers as opioids. They also claimed that it’s not proper to hold them liable in Oklahoma when the federal government gave them specific guidelines.
The judge hasn’t set a trial date, but the state and pharmaceutical companies will be in court next month to determine when the trial will start.
The state wants to set a trial date for May 2019.
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Lawsuit against opioid manufacturers moves forward in Oklahoma court
Dec 5, 2017 | Oklahoma News 4 (OK)
By Lili Zheng
A judge has denied the motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed against pharmaceutical companies.
After a four-hour hearing in Cleveland County court Tuesday, Judge Thad Balkman ruled the lawsuit filed by Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter will move forward in litigation.
The complaint, originally filed in June, lists several companies including Purdue Pharma. The state claims companies have made billions through their “deceptive and misleading” opioid marketing campaign, convincing doctors and consumers there is a low risk of addiction with long-term opioid use.
“One way to expand the market beyond a niche for cancer patients, the terminally ill, and acute short-term pain and persuade medical professors to prescribe more opioids to a broader range of patients with chronic, non-cancer related pain,” the lawsuit states. “To convince medical professors to prescribe more opioids to a broader range of patients, Defendants elected to falsely downplay the risk of opioid addiction and overstate the efficacy of opioids for more wide-ranging conditions.”
Speaking to reporters afterwards, lead counsel for the state Michael Burrage called Tuesday’s hearing a “victory."
The state made it a point to argue the case is not based off mislabels, but marketing.
“What happened is a systemic campaign funded by millions of dollars to make misrepresentation to these doctors and it wasn’t just through drug reps. They had key opinion leaders to go out and to talk to the doctors,” explained Burrage.
In court Tuesday, an attorney for Purdue Pharma argued claims made by the state were preemptive. To be approved as a drug, it must go through the FDA. The defense added the general language about addiction is already labeled.
Attorney General Mike Hunter released a statement regarding the ruling saying:
“We appreciate the care with which Judge Balkman evaluated the motions to dismiss and our response, and applaud his decision to move the case forward. My team and I look forward to the next phase of this important case.
Through decades of fraudulent marketing campaigns to doctors and consumers, these companies have been the driving force in the deadliest drug epidemic in U.S. history, an epidemic that claimed more than 64,000 lives last year alone.
Oklahoma continues to suffer greatly because of it. In the last three years, nearly 3,000 Oklahomans have died from overdoses and more than 1,300 newborns have tested positive for substance exposure. The opioid crisis has created a generation of addicts, who continue to struggle on a daily basis.
These companies put profits over people and we intend to hold them accountable.”
Both legal counsels will return in January to set a court date. The state is requesting May 2019.
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Clark County takes steps to sue opioid companies, first jurisdiction in Nevada
Dec 6, 2017 | The Nevada Independent (NV)
By Riley Snyder
Despite concerns over a rushed process and lack of a competitive bid, members of the Clark County Commission voted unanimously to move forward on a lawsuit against opioid manufacturers through a suit filed by a private trial attorney.
After a nearly two-hour discussion during the regularly scheduled Tuesday meeting, commissioners voted to allow Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson to enter into an agreement with the law firm of Eglet Prince to pursue litigation against approximately 17 pharmaceutical-grade opioid companies.
Robert Eglet, the firm’s namesake, said in an interview that the firm had already drafted a complaint and planned to file it on Wednesday. He said the exact structure of a fee agreement with Wolfson’s office still needed to be figured out, but any fees to the firm would be capped at 25 percent and that the firm would cover all up-front costs.
But approval did not come without tension — several commissioners, including gubernatorial candidate Chris Giunchigliani, said they were frustrated with the process and weren’t really aware of the potential suit until recently. Giunchigliani even asked that her name be removed from the agenda item indicating that she and commission chairman (and fellow gubernatorial hopeful) Steve Sisolak had requested the suit be brought forward, saying she wasn’t aware of Eglet Prince’s involvement and that the process was “different than I ever seen before.”
“If we’re going to be transparent, make sure we have the same information so we know what the heck we’re talking about,” she said.
Sisolak said that he had met with Eglet — along with Wolfson but without Giunchigliani — in an earlier meeting, and had requested the agenda item be brought forward. Giunchigliani’s name was added after she brought up a similar idea at the last county commission meeting.
During the hearing, Eglet touted his firm’s accomplishments in the area of trial law, including several multi-million dollar settlements obtained on behalf of victims of a Hepatitis C outbreak in southern Nevada. He said the firm had set aside up to $15 million to pursue litigation against opioid manufacturers.
In an interview, Eglet brushed aside concerns from fellow attorney Peter Wetherall, who suggested that county commission members open up the process to a competitive bid rather than go with one firm. Eglet said his firm was best-suited to take on the case in part because they know what resources and tools that pharmaceutical companies will have to use in any case.
“We know them, we know their businesses practices, we know the firms that represent them,” he said. “We’re able to litigate this case here without having to bring in out-of-state lawyers from back east or California to litigate this case here.”
Eglet said that he had also been approached about filing similar lawsuits on behalf of the City of North Las Vegas and the City of Las Vegas, and had met with Attorney General Adam Laxalt earlier in the summer about a potential state suit separate from the ongoing multistate investigation.
He said he wasn’t concerned about Nevada’s involvement in the multi-state suit — a point of contention between Reno Mayor Hillary Schieve and Laxalt — given the various areas of law that jurisdictions can sue over.
“The damages don’t really overlap,” he said. “One doesn’t get in the way of another.”
The Reno city council is also scheduled to vote on a similar suit tomorrow. Wetherall, who presented litigation options to the city last month, said in a letter to council members on Monday that he would support the city voting to move forward with litigation but allowing multiple firms to bid for the city’s services.
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Clark County filing lawsuit against major pharmaceutical companies
Dec 6, 2017 | KVVU (NV)
By Eric Hilt
On Tuesday, Clark County Commissioners unanimously voted to take some of the country's largest pharmaceutical companies to court. It's a move supported by those who have suffered from the opioid epidemic.
"I lost my eldest son to a heroin overdose in 2011," Joe Engle of Las Vegas said.
Reese Engle was 19 when he overdosed. His father, Joe Engle said he watched as opioid addiction destroyed his son's life.
In the years since, he's worked to help addicts across the valley through his organization "There's no hero in heroin."
"We fund-raise, we raise awareness, we rally the community," Joe Engle said.
He said he supported the Clark county vote to take on pharmaceutical companies.
"It's great news. Certainly, the companies misled the public when they said they found a non-addictive painkiller," Engle said.
District Attorney Steve Wolfson said he will team up with Las Vegas law firm Eglet-Prince.
A win in that case would mean those companies would reimburse the county for hundreds of millions of dollars it spent fighting the opioid crisis.
Engle said he hopes a win would also mean more resources for valley addicts.
"Getting off opioids is a tremendous difficulty. That money could really go to do some good. That money could go to recovery support services," Engle said.
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Clark County commissioners vote to file lawsuit against opioid manufacturers
Dec 6, 2017 | NBC 3 News Las Vegas (NV)
By Gabby Hart and John Treanor
Clark County commissioners are taking a bold move to fight a growing opioid drug crisis that’s been sweeping the nation.
Commissioners agreed to sue major opioid drug makers despite objections from Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt.
The suit claims drug makers played a role in the opioid epidemic and wants damages for the cost of addiction services and law enforcement for opioid-related crimes.
The opioid epidemic in the U.S. has been declared a state of emergency.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports 91 Americans die every day from an overdose involving opioids. The National Governor's Association reports Nevada has the fourth-highest death rate in the country for overdoses.
Commissioner Steve Sisolak says he is pleased with the board's decision. He said he agrees the blame doesn't fall solely on the manufacturers but says these lawsuits are a step in the right direction.
"I think it's important that the public get some protection and we try and put a stop to it,” he said. “The time of talking has passed. We need to do something proactively, and I think that's what we did today."
But Laxalt says he thinks it's best if the county doesn't pursue legal action and instead leaves it up to the state. Nevada is already part of a lawsuit against opioid manufacturers that involves at least 40 other states.
Laxalt's office released this statement:
"While This office commends the determination to protect Clark County residents, we continue to believe Nevada is best positioned in the bipartisan multistate effort of 40 attorneys general. We hope that any lawsuits by local jurisdictions do not unintentionally undermine our ongoing bipartisan investigation.”
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Clark County sues pharmaceutical industry over opioid crisis
Dec 6, 2017 | Las Vegas Now (NV)
By Patrick Walker
Grim statistics revealed that Nevadans are dying at a rate of more than one person a day because of the opioid crisis.
Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson wants to fight back by suing drug manufacturers and distributors. He says they're to blame for the abuse of opiate painkillers.
"It is my request that you authorize the commencement of civil litigation," said Wolfson during a County Commission meeting Tuesday. "It's all about results, and that's what we want and need as a result of this lawsuit."
County commissioners also approved Robert Eglet and his law firm to handle the litigation of the civil lawsuit. The county is seeking damages and relief from what it has endured as the opioid crisis has worsened across the nation and Nevada.
"For all the losses that the county has incurred and the strain that is put on their social services as well as the justice system, the healthcare system, among other things," Eglet said.
8 News Now has obtained a draft of the lawsuit, which is expected to be filed in District Court on Wednesday. It names over a dozen pharmacies and manufacturers, and distributors of opiate painkillers, including Nevada companies, "Watson Laboratories" and "Lam's Pharmacy incorporated."
The 46-page complaint alleges the companies are "public nuisances; common law public nuisances that engage in negligent misrepresentation, and negligence creating a public health crisis, by engaging in a fraudulent scheme" that is fueling a secondary market of illegal drugs."
Any settlement or judgment could be massive, and Eglet says filing in district court will likely be the fastest way to get to a resolution.
"I believe our state courts here will be able to efficiently move this case through the system quicker than most other jurisdictions," said Eglet.
Eglet and his law firm have also successfully won some $1.5 billion dollars in settlements and verdicts over the past decade.
Most notably, several cases and hundreds of millions of dollars in settlement money related to the Hepatitis C outbreak. -
Clark County to sue pharmaceutical companies
Dec 5, 2017 | Las Vegas Review Journal (NV)
By Michael Scott Davidson
Clark County plans to sue the world’s biggest generic drugmaker Wednesday morning.
The county is seeking to recover hundreds of millions to billions of dollars spent addressing the opioid epidemic through costs related to law enforcement, medical treatment and social services.
A draft of the lawsuit provided to the Review-Journal accuses pharmaceutical companies of carrying out a “nefarious plan” to create billions in profit while playing down the addictive qualities of narcotic painkillers.
“The dramatic increase in prescription opioid use over the last two decades, and the resultant public-health crisis, is no accident,” the draft states.
County commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to allow District Attorney Steve Wolfson to pursue the suit in conjunction with Las Vegas personal injury law firm Eglet Prince.
With some 150 civil cases against opioid manufacturers and distributors already filed in federal court, attorney Robert Eglet told commissioners it was imperative to sue now.
“We need to get into this litigation … so we don’t have to wait around for whatever crumbs are spilled our way like what happened in the (big tobacco) litigation,” he said.
The county’s move comes despite a warning from the office of Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt that the lawsuit could undermine a similar, ongoing multi-state investigation.
“Deceptive means”
A draft of the lawsuit includes nearly 20 defendants.
They range from the local Lam’s Pharmacy, which the FBI once accused of aiding a pill mill operation, to industry giants like McKesson Pharmaceutical and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, an Israeli company known as the world’s biggest generic drugmaker.
“The crisis was precipitated by Defendants, who, through deceptive means, and using one of the biggest pharmaceutical marketing campaigns in history, carefully engineered and continue to support a dramatic shift in the culture of prescribing opioids by falsely portraying both the risks of addiction and abuse and the safety and benefits of long-term use,” the draft states.
Since 2008 more people have died in Clark County from an opioid overdose than auto crashes or firearms, according to the Southern Nevada Health District. Almost 300 people died from such overdoses in 2015.
Eglet said the case could take two to eight years to litigate.
The county’s damages are known to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, he said, probably in the billions.
Eglet said he plans to sue in Clark County District Court because Nevada’s product liability laws are favorable to the county. He added the county will reap other benefits by filing its own lawsuit, including a larger settlement or verdict, and the discretion to spend damages.
“All about winning”
Before commissioners voted, another Las Vegas-based attorney tried to get them to pick their co-counsel via the competitive bid process.Nevada Senate Majority Leader Aaron Ford, who is running for Attorney General, is a partner at Eglet Prince.
“You have far more leverage than you realize to take a look at the firms out there and see what they have to offer in terms of representing Clark County,” said Peter Wetherall, who has discussed filing a similar suit with the city of Reno.
Wolfson contended pointed to Eglet Prince’s history in big money cases — twice the firm has won catastrophic injury verdicts larger than $500 million.
“It’s all about winning,” Wolfson said.
The Reno City Council on Wednesday will discuss whether to partner with Wetherall’s law firm. Wetherall suggested Monday that the city use the competitive bid process in its selection.
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Bay County Commissioners Combating Opioid Epidemic with Lawsuit
Dec 6, 2017 | My Panhandle (FL)
By Erin Morgan
Bay County Commissioners are drawing attention to the opioid epidemic that is affecting the entire nation, and more specifically right in our backyards. Several agencies in Bay County like law enforcement, the jail, and clinics are doing whatever they can to combat the epidemic, but Bay County Commissioner, Robert Carroll, explained that these efforts are costing tax payers thousands of dollars.
"There's all kinds of excess funding that no one was prepared for that we're trying to deal with this crisis," he said. "Anything to help with these clinics, to help these families, to help these children that no longer have their parents -- that are in the jails that are being overcrowded."
Bay County Commissioners decided to join hundreds of cities and counties across the state to try and win back the funds they have lost while fighting the crisis.
"We are looking to bring on attornies to be apart of class action type lawsuits, they are going after pharmaceutical companies, because we are trying to recoup some funds because it's costing tax payers a lot of dollars," Carroll said.Commissioners did not decide on a law firm to use for the lawsuit, and will continue the dicussion of the lawsuits at their next meeting on December 19.
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County commissioners join movement to put an end to the opioid epidemic
Dec 6, 2017 | WJHG (FL)
By Megan Bell
We first told you in November about Panama City Commissioners filing lawsuits against manufacturers of prescription opioids to reduce the amount of dangerous drugs in Northwest Florida.
On Tuesday, Bay County Commissioners decided to get behind that movement.
This, after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data stating Bay County and Washington County rank among the highest in the state when it comes to prescribing opioid drugs.
Now, both city and county commissioners are meeting with attorneys to file lawsuits against the largest manufacturers.
It's all in an effort, to not only reduce the amount drugs in our area, but also to save some taxpayer dollars.
"We've got outside agencies that are providing drug treatment, we've got our first responders, our deputies, they're having to have Narcan and so there's all kinds of excess funding that no one was prepared for, that we're trying to deal with this crisis," Bay County Commissioner Robert Carroll said.
Commissioners say they'll be teaming up with a group of trial attorneys from dozens of national firms to create a big team effort.
Sheriff Tommy Ford and Representative Jay Trumbull will be hosting an opiod epidemic discussion on Thursday at 5:30 p.m. at the Florida State University Panama City campus in the Bland Conference Center.
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Bay County to file opioid suit
Dec 5, 2017 | Panama City News Herald (FL)
By John Henderson
Bay County plans to file a federal lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies to try to recoup costs associated with the abuse of opioid prescription medicines.
The Bay County Commission on Tuesday voted in favor of the move, but decided to wait until its meeting in two weeks to pick an outside legal firm to handle the case, which would be done on a contingency basis. County Attorney Don Banks recommended the county go with the law firm of Bryant & Higby in Panama City, one of the law firms Panama City recently agreed to hire in filing its own lawsuit against opioid manufacturers and distributors. But the law firm Harrison Rivard & Duncan, which handled BP oil settlement cases for the county, also has expressed an interest in the job.
County Commissioner Philip “Griff” Griffitts said both firms are capable of doing a great job working in conjunction with other national firms, and he wanted time to hear a presentation from Harrison Rivard.
“I know we need to get out in front of this, but I hate to rush into it without hearing a presentation,” he said.
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Palm Beach County set to sue drug companies over opioid epidemic
Dec 5, 2017 | Sun Sentinel (FL)
By Skyler Swisher
The opioid epidemic has strained emergency services, jails and safety-net treatment centers, producing millions of dollars in extra costs for taxpayers.
Now, Palm Beach County — a destination for people recovering from addiction — wants its day in court.
County commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to move forward with a lawsuit accusing drug companies of misleading patients about the dangers of prescription pain medicine.
The county will now solicit proposals from law firms. So far, 16 firms have expressed interest.
County Mayor Melissa McKinlay said taxpayers shouldn’t be left to shoulder the burden of solving a problem fueled by drug companies. Nearly 600 people died of overdoses last year in Palm Beach County, according to the medical examiner’s office.
“The pharmaceutical industry was deceptive in its marketing practices about the risk of addiction,” McKinlay said.
Before a crackdown seven years ago, Florida was known as the nation’s pill mill capital, where doctors handed out oxycodone and other powerful painkillers like candy at storefront clinics. In 2010, 98 of the top 100 opioid-prescribing physicians were in Florida, according to the Drug Enforcement Agency.
Now, medical examiners are seeing unprecedented overdose deaths caused by heroin and ultra-potent synthetic versions of the drug.
Palm Beach County Fire Rescue estimates it costs about $1,500 to respond to an overdose call, and more than 4,000 were recorded in 2016, totaling $6 million in added costs.
The top three legal proposals will be submitted to commissioners for review early next year.
Palm Beach County Attorney Denise Nieman said she hopes to have a law firm selected by April. The agreement would be structured to avoid putting taxpayer dollars at risk in filing the lawsuit, she said.
Representatives of drug makers have denied wrongdoing. In response to lawsuits, they said they have taken steps to prevent pain medication from being diverted into the black market. They argue it will take a collaborative effort of the drug industry, doctors and government to address the epidemic.
Osceola County filed Florida’s first county-level opioid lawsuit. Delray Beach hired San Diego-based law firm Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd, whose attorneys helped to secure a $7 billion settlement against Enron in 2008.
The city intends to file its lawsuit by the end of this year, Delray Beach Mayor Cary Glickstein said.
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Manatee Co. to sue drug companies amid opioid crisis
Dec 5, 2017 | Fox 13 News (FL)
By Dan Matics
The opioid addiction crisis continues to hit Manatee County harder than most places in Florida.
Officials say there have been so many overdose deaths in the county, the medical examiner is running out of storage for bodies.
Manatee County says its overdose problem is largely driven by heroin and fentanyl use.The problem has become such a financial burden, County Commissioner Charles Smith says the county is taking steps to sue major pharmaceutical companies that produce a lot of the opioids that get people hooked.
“They’re marketing strategies are to blame,” Smith said. “People are dying.”
Commissioners are in the process of hiring an outside law firm that's been involved in similar suits for other drug-plagued communities.
Manatee County's Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Russell Vega, says the county's death rate is climbing so quickly, the county is being forced to build a new morgue because they are running out of space to store bodies.
“You’ve got to have refrigeration or the bodies decompose,” Vega said. “No one wants that.”
Commissioners say they are still in the early stages of a lawsuit and they're not announcing how much in damages the county will seek.
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Palm Beach County moves forward with lawsuit aimed at opioid industry
Dec 5, 2017 | WPBF (FL)
By Whitney Burbank
Law firms are lining up to represent Palm Beach County in a legal battle against drug manufacturers, according to county commissioner Melissa McKinlay.
fourteen law offices are vying for consideration, but McKinlay said an additional three came forward by the end of Tuesday’s commission meeting.
Commissioners voted to move forward with plans to file a lawsuit against pharmaceutical manufacturers. McKinlay initially brought the measure in front of council.
“About a year ago my chief aid lost her daughter after a 12 year battle with addiction, that’s how it’s personal and Palm Beach County, as of September 15, we’ve had another 571 people that lost their lives," McKinlay said.
She said the industry bears some of the responsibility for the epidemic that continues to destroy lives and drain resources in South Florida
“Law enforcement, fire rescue, treatment, homelessness, housing, all sorts of costs that the local tax payers are footing the bill for,” said McKinlay.
The county could be going after more than just drug manufacturers. McKinlay said the suit could include doctors and distributors, adding it would be up to the discretion of whatever legal team they hire.
The mayor said after public input they hope to narrow the choices down to three law firms by the end of January.
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Palm Beach County moving forward with suit against ‘Big Pharma’
Dec 5, 2017 | CBS 12 (FL)
By Maxine Bentzel
Palm Beach County voted Tuesday to move forward in suing opioid manufacturers, distributors, pharmacies, and doctors.
“As of September 15th of this year we had already lost another 571 people to overdoses. We’re seeing that the number of prescription drug related overdoses is not diminishing,” said Commissioner McKinlay. “It’s still increasing and those that helped cause the epidemic ought to help try to fix it.”
County Commissioner and Mayor Melissa McKinlay said the county is hoping to recover some of the millions of dollars spent fighting the opioid epidemic.
It all starts with a lawsuit against “Big Pharma.”
The county’s possible defendants include distributors, manufacturers like Purdue Pharma and Janssen, pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens, and local doctors.
“We put aside three million dollars just in the last year and half to help with the treatment efforts. That’s about $1,500 a call every time we roll an ambulance out of a fire station to respond to an overdose call, that was about 4 million dollars last year,” said McKinlay.
There have been more than 80 government entities to date that have also filed suit against opioid manufactures in state and federal courts nationwide.
Palm Beach county is hoping the pharmaceutical industry finally takes responsibility for fixing the problem the county says they created.
“We are asking the legislature for a million dollars to help us launch our addiction receiving facility early next year. Those are the types of cost that should we get any sort of judgement from the pharmaceutical industry we could pay for to help deal with this epidemic,” said McKinlay.
Fourteen firms have expressed interest in representing the county.
There will be a formal competitive selection process deciding which of the interested firms will represent the county.
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Twin Cities Attorneys Sue Makers Of 'Highly Addictive' Opioids
Dec 5, 2017 | Eagan Patch (MN
By William Bornhoft
Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman stood with five other county attorneys and county commissioners from Ramsey and Washington counties Thursday to announce the filing of civil lawsuits against the manufacturers and distributors of highly addictive opioid drugs.
"We've had enough of the fraudulent marketing and negligent distribution of opioids," Washington County Attorney Peter Orput said at a news conference Thursday morning. "When marketing a drug, the manufacturers must tell the truth and the claims must be based on science."
Orput said the makers of such popular drugs as OxyContin, Percodan, Percocet and Duragesic (fentanyl), did neither of those things, and he is "willing to prove it and so are my colleagues."
About 20 county attorneys across Minnesota are filing the lawsuits separately but in cooperation with each other, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said. In addition to Freeman, Orput and Choi, St. Louis County Attorney Mark Rubin, Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom, Mower County Attorney Kristin Nelsen and an assistant Olmsted County Attorney were present.
Officials said the opium-based painkillers "have left a trail of shattered families in Minnesota as loved ones became addicted to the painkillers and either overdosed on them or their close cousin, heroin, when they are cut off from the pills."
Orput credited Freeman for calling a meeting in his office bringing together interested prosecutors and some of the top law firms in the Twin Cities who have the wherewithal to take on some of the richest corporations in America. Hennepin County has hired Briol & Benson and Washington D.C. Counsel Linda Singer.
This effort shows "how profoundly committed the prosecutors are," in trying to stem the opioid epidemic through a civil suit, prosecution for third-degree murder charges against drug dealers and education, Freeman said. He added that there have been cases, including one prosecuted in Hennepin County, where high school athletes suffer an injury, are prescribed an opioid, "use this junk and a year later, they are dead."
Ramsey County filed its suit Thursday and is suing a long list of manufacturers including Purdue Pharma, Cephalon, Johnson & Johnson and Janssen Pharmaceuticals and drug distributors including McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health, Inc. and AmerisourceBergen Drug Corp.
The suits will all make similar allegations, according to a news release. Specifically, officials claim the drug manufacturers dishonestly marketed to doctors that the formulations of their drug were not addicting and so could be used not only for post-surgery pain or end of life pain management, but for backaches and other more common maladies.
The distributors failed to follow state and federal laws that required them to notify officials if a pharmacy was ordering suspiciously large amounts of the drugs, authorities said.
Orput said they will be seeking restitution from the defendants. The money would be used to reimburse various county departments such as health departments, sheriff's departments, medical examiners, social work departments and others "who have been burdened by the effects of people addicted to opioids."
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Dec 5, 2017 | Insurance Journal
By Staff
Hospitals in Mississippi and Alabama are suing more than a dozen pharmaceutical companies, claiming the companies deceptively marketed and sold opioids.
The Clarion Ledger reports the class-action federal lawsuit was filed Nov. 30 in Mississippi by Southwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center in McComb, Mississippi; Infirmary Health Hospitals, Inc., based in Mobile, Alabama; and Monroe County Healthcare Authority, based in Monroeville, Alabama.
The lawsuit says hospitals have faced expenses for treating opioid addicts because companies “pushed highly addictive, dangerous opioids, falsely representing to doctors that patients would only rarely succumb to drug addiction.”
The hospitals claim monetary losses as damages, saying they never would have had contact with these patients, and the patients would not have opioid conditions, “but for the opioid epidemic created and engineered by Defendants.”
Purdue Pharma makes OxyContin, the pill receiving the most claims of deceptive marketing. Purdue said in a statement that it denies the lawsuit’s allegations and the company is working to solve the opioid public health crisis.
Another defendant, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., said in a statement it provides resources to doctors, pharmacists and patients about responsible pain management and is working to develop non-opioid chronic pain treatment.
A representative from another defendant, Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a Johnson & Johnson company, said the lawsuits are “legally and factually unfounded” and that the company has acted in the best interest of patients, including warning labels on each product.
Another defendant – Endo Health Solutions Inc. and Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc. – also denied the allegations and said it has ceased opioid promotion.
Don Barrett, an attorney from Lexington, Mississippi, is representing Southwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center. In the 1990s, Barrett worked on the tobacco lawsuits that yielded billions of dollars in damages for the state.
“Hospitals are the front-line troops in the opioid battle,” Barrett told the newspaper. “Hospitals have lost billions treating opioid-related medical problems. Yet they have been thus far ignored. America’s hospitals will be ignored no longer.”
Barrett said the class-action lawsuit represents all U.S. hospitals that have treated patients with health issues related to the use of opioids.
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2 More NJ Towns Bring Suits Against Makers of Opioids
Dec 6, 2017 | New Jersey Law Journal (NJ)
By Charles Toutant
Irvington and Ridgefield are the latest towns in New Jersey to bring suits against drug companies over their alleged roles in the opioid addiction crisis.
The newest suits show that the largest cities are not the only places that are seeking to recoup costs to taxpayers for the consequences of opioid abuse.
The Irvington and Ridgefield suits follow actions against drug companies by New Jersey as well as Newark, the state’s largest city, and Paterson, its third-largest. But Irvington is far smaller, with a population of 53,926, and Ridgefield is smaller still, with 11,032 residents.
Mounting litigation prompted Tuesday’s order by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation to consolidate federal suits over prescription opiates to the Northern District of Ohio.
Irvington filed its suit on Nov. 28 in U.S. District Court in Newark against manufacturers and distributors of opiates. Ridgefield filed its suit in state Superior Court in Bergen County on Nov. 8.
Irvington is represented in its suit by two Roseland, New Jersey, firms: Carella, Byrne, Cecchi, Olstein, Brody & Agnello and Critchley, Kinum & Denoia. Ridgefield’s suit was filed by Shayna Sacks of Napoli Shkolnik in New York.
The Irvington suit brings claims for violation of the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, and for negligence and public nuisance. The suit also says the defendants, through a group called Pain Care Forum, lobbied for legislation that made it more difficult for the federal Drug Enforcement Agency to penalize manufacturers and distributors for failure to report suspicious orders of opioids.
That case also claims the defendants thwarted appropriate responses to opioid addiction by advancing a concept called pseudoaddiction, in which patients exhibiting signs of addiction were encouraged to increase their dosage of painkillers.
Irvington’s complaint says that the defendants’ actions have caused it to suffer “significant economic damages, including but not limited to increased health services costs, and costs related to responding to and dealing with opioid-related crimes and emergencies.”
Irvington says it has suffered significant economic damages, including increased health services costs, and costs related to responding to opioid-related crimes and emergencies.
The Ridgefield suit describes a group called the American Pain Foundation, which was funded by the defendants and engaged in public relations and grassroots lobbying against legislation that might limit opioid prescribing. The American Pain Foundation represented itself as independent but worked closely with the defendants, the suit claims. The group was shut down in 2012 after the U.S. Senate Finance Committee began to investigate its links to the opioid industry, the suit claims.
The Ridgefield suit, which runs to a hefty 243 pages, brings claims under the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act for deceptive acts and practices, false promises and misrepresentations and knowing omissions of material facts. The suit also has claims for public nuisance, fraud, unjust enrichment and negligence.
The Ridgefield suit describes the defendants’ marketing of their products to vulnerable groups such as the elderly and military veterans. A book that was purportedly the memoir of one returning veteran, “Exit Wounds: A Survival Guide to Pain Management for Veterans,” was funded by Purdue Pharma, Janssen Pharmaceutica and Endo Health Solutions.
The Ridgefield and Irvington suits name most of the same defendants, including Purdue, Teva Pharmaceutical, Cephalon Inc. Janssen, Actavis Pharma, Endo, Insys Therapeutics, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health Inc. Amerisource Bergen and Mallinckrodt LLC.
Lawyers filing the Irvington and Ridgefield suits did not return a reporter’s calls. But more municipalities will be filing similar cases soon, said Andrew D’Arcy of D’Arcy Johnson Day in Egg Harbor. He filed the Newark suit along with Motley Rice of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.
And D’Arcy says his firm and Motley Rice expect to file additional opioid suits shortly on behalf of four other municipalities, all in Ocean County: Brick, Berkeley, Lacey and Toms River.
A Janssen Pharmaceuticals spokesman, William Foster, said about the cities’ litigation, “Responsibly used opioid-based pain medicines give doctors and patients important choices to help manage the debilitating effects of chronic pain. At the same time, we recognize opioid abuse and addiction is a serious public health issue that must be addressed. We believe the allegations in lawsuits against our company are both legally and factually unfounded. Janssen has acted in the best interests of patients and physicians with regard to its opioid pain medicines, which are FDA-approved and carry FDA-mandated warnings about possible risks on every product label. According to independent surveillance data, Janssen opioid pain medicines consistently have some of the lowest rates of abuse among these medications, and since 2008 the volume of Janssen opioid products always has amounted to less than one percent of the total prescriptions written per year for opioid medications, including generics. Addressing opioid abuse will require collaboration among many stakeholders and we will continue to work with federal, state and local officials to support solutions.”
The JPML said that plaintiffs in the 46 suits that were the subject of its transfer motion were all political subdivisions, but the order will apply to tag-along actions by individuals, consumers, hospitals and third-party payers. The JPML said that the suits all implicate common fact questions as to the marketing and distribution of prescription opiates, and discovery likely will be voluminous. The panel said centralization “will substantially reduce the risk of duplicative discovery, minimize the possibility of inconsistent pretrial obligations, and prevent conflicting rulings on pretrial motions. Centralization will also allow a single transferee judge to coordinate with numerous cases pending in state courts.”
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Lake County moves forward with plans to sue opioid manufacturers, distributors
Dec 5, 2017 | The News Herald (OH)
By Andrew Cass
Lake County officials are moving ahead with plans to sue opioid manufacturers, wholesale distributors, and pill mill doctors.
The Lake County commissioners on Dec. 5 passed a resolution asking the Lake County Common Pleas Court to allow the hiring of an outside counsel to handle the litigation.
The same team of attorneys that the commissioners intend to hire already have filed a 364-page lawsuit in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court and were also hired by the Trumbull County commissioners.
Lake County Commissioner Daniel P. Troy said they’ve had to spend a lot more money in a lot more areas because of the opioid epidemic.
Costs of the epidemic can be felt from the increased number of children in the custody of Child Protective Services to increased demands on first responders, the Coroner’s Office and the Prosecutor’s Office.
Troy said the lawsuit would help them recoup some of the money they’ve had to expend because of the epidemic.
A record 4,050 people died of drug overdoses in Ohio in 2016. Lake County saw a record 86 overdose deaths last year. So far this year, there are 70 confirmed overdose deaths, according to the Lake County Coroner’s Office.
Ohio State University estimates the statewide cost of the opioid epidemic is now as much as $8.8 billion a year.
“I think everybody at this point agrees there’s a problem,” attorney Frank L. Gallucci said to the Lake County commissioners Nov. 15. He is one of the attorneys who will be handling the lawsuit.
At that meeting, he said the idea is to specifically seek the damages that have been incurred so far, but also to go after abatement.
By abatement, Gallucci said you first look at secondary education: Educate the next generation of would-be victims. You also look at law enforcement and treatment, he said.
Under the national counsel of New-York based Napoli Shkolnik, legal action is being taken in more than 60 counties in the United States.
In May, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine filed a lawsuit against drug manufacturers Purdue Pharma, Endo Health Solutions, Teva, Johnson & Johnson and Allergan.
But, by only going after the manufacturers, the attorney general’s lawsuit only goes after part of the problem, Gallucci said.
The attorney general’s complaint is about workers’ compensation and Medicaid, Gallucci said. That’s not going to address damages to job and family service departments or coroners’ offices.
The attorneys are working on a contingency fee basis. There will be no cost to the county if no money is recovered in the suit.
“We’re convinced this is the right step to take at this point,” Commissioner Jerry Cirino said.
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Lake County Commissioners vote unanimously to sue opioid distributors, manufacturers
Dec 5, 2017 | News 5 Cleveland (OH)
By Amanda VanAllen
A unanimous decision during the Lake County Commissioners Meeting on Tuesday resulted in hiring a law firm to sue the manufacturers, distributors and even so-called "pill mill" doctors who prescribe opioids.
"There are some folks who are suing that manufacturers, but I think this goes far, it not only gets the manufacturers, but also the distributors," said commissioner Daniel Troy.
Experts say after patients ran out of opioid prescriptions while trying to manage pain, they turned to the streets to satisfy their addictions.
"We're just hearing from all the experts that a lot of people that are now addicted to things like street heroin," said Troy.
With drug addiction comes other problems, like children left without parents and an increase in crime.
"We've had to beef up a special task force in our sheriffs department to investigate and go after a lot of these illegal operations where people are stealing items from either family members or from breaking and entering into homes and obviously turning this into cash to feed this habit," he said.
It's all costing the county money - possibly several hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, according to Commissioner Troy's estimates.
"There is a great deal of responsibility in our opinion on the part of the drug manufacturers and the distributors for this problem that our society is dealing with," he said.
Now that the commissioners have approved the measure, the next step is for a court of common pleas judge to approve it, which commissioners think won't be a problem. The firm won't collect any money from the county unless a settlement amount is reached.
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Tucson City Council Considers Joining Opioid Lawsuits
Dec 6, 2017 | Arizona Public Media (AZ)
By Zachary Ziegler
The Tucson City Council voted unanimously to allow City Attorney Mike Rankin to gather data and explore the possibility of signing on to a lawsuit seeking damages from the opioid industry.
"All I would ask for today is a motion that authorizes me to retain outside counsel for the purpose of investigating the viability of claims that the city might have and to represent the city in the event that we do decide to move forward into litigation," said Rankin during a council study session prior to the vote.
Rankin said the city has been approached by multiple firms that have filed such suits. A memorandum requesting time before the council referred to "dozens of lawsuits pending in various courts that have been brought against opioid manufacturers, suppliers and distributors."
Rankin said such legal representation would come on a contingency-fee basis, meaning the firm doesn't get paid unless the city wins.
"Similar to what we did with our asbestos litigation, where we had outside counsel who litigated that for, what, almost a decade," said Rankin. "And yes, they got paid at the end of it, but they bore the costs and the risk of not recovering those costs."
The city would incur some initial costs, though. Rankin said staff hours would be needed to gather information that could determine if the city can join such a lawsuit.
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County approves opioid litigation
Dec 6, 2017 | Piatt County Journal Republican (IL)
By Steve Hoffman
Piatt County board members decided last week that litigation should be the next step in fighting opioid addiction issues in the county.
The board voted unanimously on Nov. 29 to enter into an agreement with law firms Koester & Bradley and Meyers & Flowers to represent the county in “proposed litigation against the relevant wrongdoers,” which could include pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors of a class of drugs that includes Vicodin and Oxycontin.
“I think it’s a good idea, because if it’s a big amount of money we need to come up with (to fight opioid addiction), then this is going to reimburse us,” said board member Renee Fruendt.
“There is cost involved (in fighting addition),” added County Board Chairman Randy Keith. “There are hours and hours and hours spent by our police force as they deal with this stuff, and the state’s attorney’s office deals with this stuff.”
The law firms will foot the cost of the litigation and receive 25 percent of the “total gross amount recovered” through the lawsuit.
Attorney Tom Koester told the board on Nov. 8 that counties are being encouraged to file lawsuits separately instead of combining in a class action suit so that they will have a say in how the money will be spent in their county.
“It’s a step forward in getting this stuff out of our communities. I’m 100 percent behind it,” said county board member Randy Shumard.
Fellow board member Bob Murrell said he trusts the counsel of State’s Attorney Dana Rhoades, who has expressed support for the lawsuit.
“I have a lot of respect for her (Rhoades), and if she says this is the best way then I’m for it,” said Murrell.
Under the agreement, the law firms will “represent the interests of Piatt County in any opioid litigation – including investigation, discovery, pre-trial negotiations, and, if necessary, trial. All the costs are assumed by the law firms.”
“Just by signing on and being a part of this, it’s showing the large pharmaceutical companies that we’re getting serious about this. We’re getting tired of losing our folks to this,” said Keith. “These medicines do well, too, but obviously there’s too many of them out there.”
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County joins lawsuit against opioid industry
Dec 6, 2017 | Forsyth Herald (GA)
By Kathleen Sturgeon
Forsyth County has officially agreed to retain a law firm that is in the process of prosecuting multiple manufacturers and distributers linked to the opioid crisis.
At its Nov. 28 meeting, the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners approved Napoli Shkolnik PLLC as its attorneys as they pursue a lawsuit on behalf of local governments seeking damages to cover the costs associated with the drug epidemic.
The firm will receive 25 percent of all amounts recovered, according to the retainer agreement. Additionally, if the action is considered class action, the law firm will request compensation which will supersede and replace the contingency fee.
If the suit is successful, the award would help cover expenses associated with substance abuse programs, healthcare, environmental, medical examiner, lost productivity, foster care, Narcan and increased law enforcement.
Other local jurisdictions considering joining or that have already joined include Fulton County, Henry County, DeKalb County, Newton County and Clayton County.
In 2015, more than 300 million prescriptions were written for opioids, more than enough to give every American adult their own bottle of pills, according to Shayna Sacks, a partner with Napoli Shkolnik PLLC. That includes Vicodin, OxyContin and Opana.
From 1999 to 2013, opioids have claimed more than 175,000 lives, with more than 16,000 deaths attributed to opioid overdoses alone in 2013.
In Georgia, the overdose death rates have steadily increased from 1999 to 2015, nearly a nine-fold increase overall, Sacks said.
In the United States, prescription opioid abuse costs are about $55 billion annually.
The law firm is filing suit on behalf of municipalities, states/attorney generals, individuals and unions against the drug manufacturers, distributors, prescribers and pharmacies.
Some of the major drug distributers in the country have seen billions of dollars in sales, she said. Purdue Pharma manufactures OxyContin and Dilaudid, among others, and has generated from $2 to $3 billion annually in sales of OxyContin alone. Sacks said they are the “grandparent” of the epidemic.
The causes of action are negligence, false advertising, nuisance, consumer fraud and unfair and deceptive practices, Sacks said.
The history of the opioid crisis dates back to the 1990s when influential journal articles and key opinion leaders encouraged physicians to prescribe the medications, downplaying addiction risks, Sacks said.
“The pharmaceutical industry began aggressively marketing their drugs,” she said. “Pill mills began popping up around the country as communities were flooded with prescription opioids. Over the next decade, people quickly grew addicted to the drugs. For many, the addiction evolved into heroin use.”
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Metro Council votes to hire law firm in opioid lawsuit
Dec 6, 2017 | WSMV (TN)
By Kevin Trager
The city of Nashville is one step closer to joining a federal lawsuit against drug companies for their role in the American opioid epidemic.
Metro Council members voted on a resolution at Tuesday’s meeting to hire the law firm Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann, & Bernstein to represent the city of Nashville in a growing lawsuit filed by dozens of local governments across the United States.
“Corporations know the bottom line and you have to hit them in the area where they’re going to stand up and pay attention,” said Councilman Sheri Weiner, who co-sponsored the resolution. “I think you’re going to see this happen everywhere, and it should because it’s a crisis and if we don’t address it head on we’re not doing anybody any justice.”
There was some controversy leading up to the vote as some council members expressed frustration with a lack of clarity on the proposal from Mayor Megan Barry and her administration.
“This is the last time I’m able to go forward being able to throw my support behind something that I know nothing about,” exclaimed Councilman DeCosta Hastings. “Our system is broken. Our communication between two bodies, they’re supposed to be working together, is broken.”
According to Metro government attorney Jon Cooper the city will not have to pay the law firm to join the lawsuit. The firm will only make money if the plaintiff’s win the case.
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Steuben County joins lawsuit against opioid manufacturers
Dec 6, 2017 | WENY (NY)
By Brandon Menard
With a spike in opioid related deaths, Steuben County has joined numerous counties in filing a lawsuit against opioid manufacturers.
"We've all been discussing, some of the downstate counties, Suffolk county being the first one in the door, looked at potential litigation against opioid manufacturers and major distributors," said Steuben County Manager, Jack Wheeler. "Similar to what was done with the tobacco lawsuits of the late 90's."
The lawsuit claims certain pharmaceutical companies knew the dangers of opioid use, but still convinced physicians and patients that opioids were safe for long term treatment.
Wheeler says the county legislature voted unanimously to get a lawyer after a recent overdose spike.
Steuben now joins 20 other counties as plaintiffs.
"In 2016, we had sixteen individuals pass away from opioid overdoses," said Wheeler. "Now that doesn't sound like a lot, but each one is a precious individual life lost far too soon due to an opioid overdose. Back in the mid to late 2000's, we would see one or a couple of these a year."
For their case, the county plans to look into numerous things, like medicaid spending for opioid treatment.
The county hopes to get a settlement from the case, in which they'll use the money to directly address opioid and drug abuse.
When they go to trial, Steuben and, other counties, hope it'll address the opioid issue and cut down the number of deaths across the state.
"We got questions all the time from residents, what can the county do to help stem the tide and address the opioid issue, and this is one thing that we can do that a number of counties are also doing," said Wheeler.
Wheeler says the county is in the beginning stages of filing their lawsuit against the opioid manufacturers.
He believes by next month they'll hire a lawyer and start putting together their case.
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Waterville council votes to join lawsuit against opiate drug companies
Dec 5, 2017 | Central Maine (MN)
By Amy Calder
City councilors on Tuesday voted to authorize the city to join a lawsuit against opiate drug companies, accepting $33,000 from Colby College to pay for a new police cruiser and approving union contracts with public works and parks and recreation employees.
City officials say police, fire and other officials are required to respond every day to problems that arise because of painkiller addiction and the city has had to shift resources that otherwise could have been used for city improvements.
Last year, 376 people in Maine died from overdoses and 123 were caused by pharmaceutical opioids. Three people in Waterville died of overdoses in 2017 and naxolone, or Narcan, was used 33 times to treat the overdoses.
Opiate drug companies have enjoyed enormous profits with the sales of opiate drugs, promoting them relentlessly among physicians and paying doctors to promote these drugs at conferences, while failing repeatedly to tailor the drugs to make abuse impossible, according to city officials.
As part of the vote, councilors authorized City Manager Michael Roy and City Solicitor Bill Lee to engage the services of Napoli Shkolnik PLLC, of New York City, and Trafton, Matzen, Belleau & Frenette LLP, of Auburn, on behalf of the city for prosecuting legal claims against manufacturers and distributors of opioids arising out of the manufacturers’ and distributors’ fraudulent and negligent marketing and distribution of the drugs.
Before the council voted 6-0 to approve joining the lawsuit — Councilor Winifred Tate, D-Ward 6, was absent from the meeting — Mayor Nick Isgro said it is important the city join the lawsuit now so it is not superseded if the state decides to sue the companies later on.
“This is a very serious issue and there’s not many communities or families not touched by the opiate crisis,” Isgro said.
He said he hoped the council would approve the request.
“There is no financial risk to the city to do this, so I hope the council looks favorably upon this,” he said.
Councilor Sydney Mayhew, R-Ward 4, concurred.
“Municipal resources have been stretched razor thin because of this,” he said.
As part of the lawsuit, municipalities would seek to be reimbursed for resources spent on the opioid crisis, according to Roy.
In other matters, the council voted 6-0 to approve collective bargaining agreements with Teamsters Local 340 for a two-year term. The union represents public works and Parks and Recreation Department workers. The proposed contracts represent a 3 percent increase in salaries.
Councilors voted 5-0, with Councilor Lauren Lessing, D-Ward 3, abstaining, to accept $33,000 from Colby College for the purchase of a new police cruiser. Lessing said she was abstaining because she is employed by Colby. Isgro thanked Colby President David Greene and Doug Terp, Colby’s vice president for administration, for recognizing the city’s need and offering to buy the cruiser.
“Colby stepped in without being asked and offered to make this purchase, and we’re very thankful for that,” Isgro said.
Police Chief Joseph Massey also thanked Colby officials, saying it was a great thing and it is important police vehicles be safe.
“It’s critical that we trade those cruisers in every three years,” he said.
Councilor Nick Champagne, R-Ward 5, agreed, saying he hopes it is not the only gift the city sees from entities the city supports.
“I think this is a great gesture on behalf of Colby College and welcomed by the city,” Champagne said.
The council approved a food license for Pine Tree State Five VII, doing business as Five Guys burgers and fries, which plans to open in the former Friendly’s restaurant building on Main Street.
An official with Five Guys said the business is looking to open in late January or early February, an announcement that drew kudos from Isgro and others.
The council appointed Roy, Council Chairman Steve Soule, D-Ward 1, and Mayhew to the Kennebec Regional Development Authority to replace two members who resigned, Charles Gaunce and Marc Pitman. KRDA is a consortium of 24 towns that helped to build FirstPark in Oakland. KRDA, of which Roy is president, is governed by a general assembly and has a 12-member executive board, Roy said.
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State lawsuit seeks to recover opioid-related costs to public
Dec 5, 2017 | Dickinson County News (IW)
By Seth Boyes
President Trump gave the order in late October to declare the country's opioid crisis a public health emergency. The Iowa State Association of Counties recently called for cohesive support from the 99 counties regarding a class action lawsuit the organization hopes will address financial issues associated with the epidemic.
"ISAC wants to have a united front of all the counties in this lawsuit," Dickinson County Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Leupold said. "They're blaming — I believe it was pharma — (who) purposely misled doctors in the amount and safety of these opioids and that, in turn, has cost society jail time. And they're going to try and get some money back."
Supervisor Mardi Allen expressed her surprise at ISAC's involvement, but said she trusts some of the local leaders involved in the organization, such as Clay County Supervisor Burlin Matthews, who serves as third vice president of ISAC.
The group generally agreed proof of financial losses through jail expenses, medical treatment or other such bills, may be difficult to provide. Assistant County Attorney Lonnie Saunders agreed, saying the county is not being asked to provide such proof at this time but may be in the future.
"I don't think this is a big financial risk for us, but there will be some man-hours," Saunders said. "We're happy to do the work. We just don't see the light at the end of the tunnel for Dickinson County."
Some on the board said they would prefer more data be collected regarding opioid use and related expenses in the county before signing onto the lawsuit. Beth Will, disability service coordinator with Northwest Iowa Care Connections, said she was unfamiliar with the lawsuit. However, she said a group, consisting of regional emergency departments and law enforcement, has already been meeting once a month for approximately the last six to discuss the opioid issue. The effort is spearheaded by Compass Pointe Behavioral Health Services.
"There's already data being gathered," Will said. "I have charts and charts broken down by Dickinson County, Emmet County, Clay County and so forth."
Will said Sarah Prange, a counselor with Compass Pointe, is leading the data collection project. Though the data is still being collected, Will shared the preliminary charts with the board. She was quick to note: Opioids are being used in Dickinson County.
The board reached a general consensus to delay their decision to join the suit until more information could be presented by the Compass Pointe group. The board expects the issue will be readdressed within the next few weeks.
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Gallatin County joins lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies over opioid risks
Dec 5, 2017 | Bozeman Daily Chronicle (MT)
By Freddy Monares
Gallatin County Commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to join a federal lawsuit with Cascade County against several pharmaceutical companies that produce opioid painkillers, alleging the companies downplayed the risks of serious addiction to the drugs.
The two counties are asking a federal judge to rule that the pharmaceutical companies pay for unspecified damages that the companies may have caused in the county due to opioid prescribed painkillers. They are also asking that pharmaceutical companies stop misleading advertising and violating state law.
Commissioners said if the county prevails in the case, the money would be used for the prevention and treatment of opioid addiction.
Texas law firm Simon Greenstone Panatier Bartlett and Bozeman law firm Beck, Amsden and Stalpes will represent Gallatin County in the complaint. A number of pharmaceutical companies are listed in the joint lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Great Falls.
Commissioners said they had already given a green light to join the lawsuit Friday. Commissioner Don Seifert said that was done because Montana Attorney General Tim Fox had announced his office would be filing a similar lawsuit, which could have hindered the county’s ability to claim damages.
However, he said, commissioners wrote a condition that allowed them to back out of the suit if they decided against it Tuesday.
Bozeman attorney Justin Stalpes will be representing Gallatin County in the lawsuit. After looking over the state’s lawsuit, he said the county could still claim damages.
“This suit is about accountability for the pharmaceutical manufacturers who have misled the community,” Stalpes told commissioners.
Bozeman pharmacist Diane Oddy told commissioners this is a big problem, but she thinks pharmaceutical companies have been very committed to the health of their people.
The 30-year pharmacist said the Drug Enforcement Agency had implemented a process many years ago to change dosages if there were indicators a patient might be heavily relying on a medication. She asked commissioners to “please get all the information” in fear that their decision might raise prices for patients who have a legitimate need for the medication.
“If they are in pain, I want them to get the right pain medication in the right amount,” Oddy said.
Oddy’s statement sparked the discussion of whether the county’s lawsuit would hinder patients’ access to medication they need. Stalpes said consumers’ need for medication would not be hindered if the county prevails in the suit.
According to the lawsuit:
Pharmaceutical companies have falsely claimed the risk of addiction is low and unlikely to develop when opioids are prescribed. They also failed to reveal the greater risk of addiction with prolonged use of opioids.
Companies also have falsely instructed doctors and patients that signs of addiction are actually signs of undertreated pain, which could be remedied by prescribing more of the opioid painkillers. Pharmaceutical companies have coined the term “psuedoaddiction,” which refers to drug-seeking behavior such as asking for more medication because pain is not adequately managed.
The complaint also claimed that the drug manufacturers made doctors feel comfortable prescribing opioids to their patients by addiction risk screening tools, patient contracts and other similar strategies. The complaint said the companies targeted general practitioners and family doctors who lack the time and expertise to closely manage higher-risk patients.
The lawsuit went on to say that the pharmaceutical companies downplayed the risk of addiction to opioids. Manufacturers deceptively marketed “abuse-deterrents” and created false impressions that these medications can curb addiction and abuse.
Gallatin County Court Services alone estimated that each year it spends roughly $103,666 of tax money because of opioid abuse. That money is used on services such as treatment court and drug testing.
The complaint also cited that the Missouri River Drug Task Force reported more than 50 calls for service from opioid overdoses from September 2015 through September 2016. The next year saw about 58 overdoses.
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Gallatin Co. commissioners vote to sue pharmaceutical companies
Dec 5, 2017 | NBC Montana (MT)
By Taylor Graham
Gallatin County Commissioners Don Seifert, Steve White and Joe Skinner voted to join a lawsuit against multiple pharmaceutical manufacturers at a public meeting Tuesday.
"I believe the opioid use and misuse in this valley, in this county, needs to be addressed," Seifert said during the meeting. "I think we need to hold those responsible accountable."
The lawsuit is separate from the complaint announced by Attorney General Tim Fox's office Monday.
"I think it's telling that the state of Montana and the attorney general failed to include in his lawsuit," Seifert said. "I'm disappointed by that, but I think the county has positioned itself well to have standing in this case.
The lawsuit will be funded completely by local law firm Beck, Amsden & Stalpes, according to partner Justin Stalpes.
Ahead of the commission's decision multiple residents weighed in on the possibility of joining the lawsuit.
Pharmacist Diane Oddy said she is against it.
"This is a big problem, but I think pharmaceutical companies have been very committed to the health of their people," Oddy said.
Shelly Johnson, of Alcohol and Drug Services of Gallatin County, told commissioners she supports the complaint.
"It costs a lot for our community, for treatment, for prevention, for law enforcement, for medical," Johnson said. "I think that some way we need to be reimbursed and helped with that."
Stalpes told NBC Montana the process could take at least another five years. He said the law firm will now begin to collect evidence surrounding pharmaceutical companies’ marketing practices as well as gather expert testimony.
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Genesee Co. Commissioners to sue drug companies in relation to opioid epidemic
Dec 5, 2017 | NBC 25 News (MI)
By Courtney Wheaton
The Genesee County board of commissioners voted to hire three legal firms on Monday to represent the county in a lawsuit against drug manufacturers and distributors.
The paperwork said the board has reason to believe that some companies are violating state and federal laws and are responsible for the diversion of opioid drugs into the count, which in turn is increasing addiction and mortality rates.
County Commissioner Brenda Clack is hosting a town hall on Tuesday for people to learn more about opioid addiction throughout the county.
"We are seeing more bodies come into the morgue due to opioids. This is a major concern. We have to do something," said Clack.
The town hall will take place on Dec. 6 from 5:30 to 7:30 pm.m at the Genesee County Administration building's Harris Auditorium.
The Genesee County Prosecutor and Medical Examiner will speak along with commissioners.
The town hall is free and open to the public.
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Burke County could join lawsuit over painkillers
Dec 5, 2017 | The News Herald (NC)
By Sharon McBrayer
It’s no secret that opioid addiction has become a national epidemic, and it hits close to home for many in Burke County.
Soon, Burke County commissioners could decide whether to join other communities in the country and North Carolina who are suing opioid distributers. At its regular meeting on Dec. 19, the board of commissioners will decide on a resolution that, in essence, will bring a civil lawsuit against manufacturers and distributors of prescription opiates as a way to recoup taxpayer money spent to treat opioid-related issues, according to information from Burke County. McHugh Fuller Law Group will represent the county on a contingent basis if commissioners approve the measure.
A lawsuit filed by Buncombe County charges violations of Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, negligence and negligent misrepresentation, Violation of North Carolina Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act, civil conspiracy and fraud and fraudulent misrepresentation.
Ed Powell, an attorney in Winston-Salem, spoke to commissioners on Monday during the board’s pre-agenda meeting about the lawsuits. He said Burke County residents are paying the price of opioid distribution not be ing monitored properly because of the money the county pays through law enforcement, emergency medical services and social services. He said the federal Drug Enforcement Administration is charged with monitoring the distribution.
Powell said there are 800 distributors of the drug s in the U.S. but three of those distributors have 85 percent of the market. He said each year those three distributors have a combined revenue of $450 billion.
“This is a very serious problem,” Powell said.
Powell said the county will not be charged a contingency fee and expenses for legal representation in the lawsuit unless there is a monetary award. Buncombe and Yadkin counties are just two of the counties in the state who have joined the lawsuits. In addition, similar lawsuits have been filed in Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia, Powell said.
“This won’t be easy,” Powell warned commissioners. “It won’t be quick. It will take time.”
The Buncombe County lawsuit says, “Manufacturers aggressively pushed highly addictive, dangerous opioids, falsely representing to doctors that patients would only rarely succumb to drug addiction. These pharmaceutical companies aggressively advertised to and persuaded doctors to prescribe highly addictive, dangerous opioids and turned patients into drug addicts for their own corporate profit. Such actions were intentional and/or unlawful.”
One of the manufacturers named in the Buncombe lawsuit is Purdue Frederick Company, which i tsays promotes, sells and distributes OxyContin, MS Contin and Dilaudid/Dilaudid HP, among others. Since 2009, nationwide sales of OxyContin have fluctuated between $2.47 billion and $2.99 billion, the lawsuit says.
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Opioid crisis — the human cost: Pharmaceutical companies must be held accountable (EDITORIAL)
Dec 5, 2017 | Minnesota Star Tribune (MN)
By Chris Bauer
Opioids. Opioid addiction. Opioid deaths. Opioid crisis. Those words and the devastation that comes with them pop up every day, everywhere — in conversations, in the news, on social media, in emergency rooms, in living rooms, in hospitals and obituaries.
Whenever I hear those words, a crushing, vivid image bullies its way into my mind: my 19-year-old nephew, lying on the floor of his bedroom, his right arm straight and stiff above his head. He is surrounded by paramedics, his chest dotted with the sticky pads that held electrodes they had used in an attempt to shock him back to life, even though he was so clearly gone.
I witnessed this with my arm around my sister, who found her son unmoving and cold in his bed while his alarm clock blared next to him. She had her husband, then an emergency-room doctor, move Andrew out of his bed and onto the floor and try to revive him until the paramedics arrived. Andrew was their only son. A sweet, kind, funny kid who had struggled for many years with mental illness.
Andrew’s toxicology report came back with the cause of death noted as acute heroin toxicity. On the night he died, Andrew had tried to get Percocet, the painkiller frequently prescribed by doctors and dentists that has become the go-to drug for so many. When Andrew couldn’t find prescription drugs, he went up the chain to heroin.
To say that Andrew’s death was devastating to our family is, of course, a gross understatement. Sadly, we are far from alone. Drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death among Americans under 50. Since 1999, opioid deaths have quadrupled, as have sales of prescription drugs. It is estimated that opioids could kill as many as 500,000 people in the next decade.
As many know, the opioid crisis in this country has been fed by prescription medications that have been so readily doled out by health care providers and encouraged by the pharmaceutical industry.
Big Pharma is to blame, yet it continues to reap the benefits of this crisis. Worse yet, our government has not helped to put out this fire; instead, government has fueled the flame.
I had long felt that Big Pharma was the biggest cog in this wheel of a mess, but was astounded and outraged when I learned the extent of it in the recent “60 Minutes” story that reported how the opioid crisis has been aided in part by Congress, lobbyists and the drug-distribution industry.
As reported by CBS News, “at least 46 investigators, attorneys and supervisors from the DEA, including 32 directly from the division that regulates the drug industry,” have been hired by the pharmaceutical industry since the scrutiny on distributors began.
It is appalling and deeply disturbing that the deep pockets of individuals, drug and distribution companies continue to be lined with money tied to the deaths of so many Americans. Drug overdose deaths in the U.S. have more than doubled over the past decade. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 188,000 people died from opioid overdoses from 1999 to 2015.
While pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors and their executives have gotten rich and are getting richer, our prisons are grossly overcrowded with men and women (mostly African-Americans) serving overzealous sentences for minor drug offensives.
This is ludicrous, and we cannot let this continue. I was pleased and mildly hopeful when I read in a recent Star Tribune article that cities and counties across the state are joining a national push to sue drug manufacturers. They must be held accountable for the health crisis they have created. We must demand retribution and change in the pharmaceutical industry.
We must also demand change in the medical and insurance industries so that they are willing to prescribe and cover the costs of alternatives to pain pills, such as acupuncture, chiropractic care, massage, yoga and medical marijuana. We need transformation in our health care system, and we need alternatives.
We also need to change the so-called war on drugs to the war on opioid drugmakers.
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One idea for preventing leftover opioids from fueling opioid abuse (EDITORIAL)
Dec 5, 2017 | Becker's Hospital Review
By Keith Humphreys
Most of the roughly 200 million opioid prescriptions dispensed in the United States each year are not finished by the patient for whom they are intended. No one knows how many unused opioid pills lie forgotten in American medicine cabinets and sock drawers, but it’s surely in the billions. This enormous reservoir of excess pills may be raided by addicted individuals (e.g., houseguests, holiday party attendees) or become the gateway to experiments in drug use or dealing by curious teenage children. Efforts to remove this threat to public health from American homes have made only a small dent in the problem.
The Drug Enforcement Administration runs prescription take-back days twice a year which allow anyone to drop off at designated locations any amount and type of pills, no questions asked. The most recent such event netted an astonishing 456 tons of pills. However, this total includes everything from OxyContin to Flintstone chewable vitamins. Only an unknown fraction of what is gathered on take-back days reduces risks of addiction and overdose.
Another limitation to national prescription take back days is they are special events held six months apart. As with recycling of bottles and cans, turning in excess medications must become more routinized to have a population-wide impact. Congress passed useful legislation in 2010 authorizing organizations that dispense opioids (e.g., pharmacies, hospitals, clinics) to operate prescription drop off locations throughout the year.
It’s a good idea that hasn’t taken off. Last month, the Government Accountability Office reported only 2.5 percent of eligible organizations are participating. The key barrier is financial: Maintaining the safe-like prescription drop-off container, training staff to follow the relevant regulations, and destroying the returned medication costs money. The state with the highest proportion of participating organizations — North Dakota at 32 percent — funds drop off programs on an ongoing basis through its state Board of Pharmacy. In the private sector, CVS Health recently volunteered to build 750 disposal kiosks in its pharmacies. Most public and private sector organizations have not been willing to absorb the costs of operating prescription drop-off sites.
Given opioid manufacturers’ billions of dollars in revenue and the fact that at least some of them played a significant part is starting the opioid epidemic, they seem an obvious deep pocket to tap for supporting return of excess opioids. Recycling of bottles in the United States was kick-started by cash deposits until it became a voluntary, widespread habit. Mandating opioid manufacturers pay a few bucks per returned bottle of pills to the patient and to the drop off location operator may be what is needed to make returning leftover medication as automatic and prevalent as recycling cans and bottles.
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Dec 6, 2017 | WGME (CBS)
By Portland, OR
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31278400?token=6b1ac740-fcf3-47c4-947f-e21d9b566f7d
Rough Transcript: maine's task force to address the opioid crisis is expected to give recommendation s to the maine legislature. the recommendations have not been released yet-- but are expected to focus on law enforcement-- prevention and harm reduction-- and treatment and recovery. last year-- more than 370 mainers died of a drug overdose. 185 people died from died from 185 people 185 people died from overdose in maine-- in just the first six months of this year. hospitals across the country are joining forces in the battle to stop the opioid epidemic-- by suing the major 5:10 AMmakers of opioids. in the lawsuit, they argue pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors lied to doctors and broke federal laws -- so they could sell more painkillers. good day maine's andrea ramey breaks it down.kristy wells lost nearly everything because of her addiction to opioids which started with a back injury. kristy wells/former opioid addict"i went from taking four to five pills a day to 70 a day, 70 lortab 10s every single day of my life." emergency rooms are filled addicts seeking their next fix, overdose patients, and newborns already addicted to painkillers.ramey/reporting"a federal class action lawsuit filed by hospitals claim pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors created the opioid crisis that kills tens of thousands or people every year by misrepresenting the dangers to doctors. and they say it's costing hospitals billions -- $35 billion since 2010."this is the first class 5:11 AMaction lawsuit filed by hospitals and they're asking for rico damages as well. that's the same law used to prosecute the mafia."it's outrageous what they've been able to get away with. they're not going to get away with it anymore."we contacted all of the defendants. johnson & johnson, endo and purdue denied the claims. a purdue spokesperson saying the company looks forward to presenting its defense.the legal team for the plaintiffs consisting of six firms from four states is actively recruiting more hospitals and gearing up for a long legal battle.don barrett/plaintiffs' attorney"they're struggling because of this huge burden that's been dumped on them unfairly and illegally and we're going to get their money back for them."as for wells, she's off opioids and helping others battle addiciton."none of us wake up and think 'oh, i'd love to be a drug addict.' i was sick, and i didn't know what to do."in
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Dec 6, 2017 | KTNV (ABC)
By Las Vegas, NV
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31278464?token=6b1ac740-fcf3-47c4-947f-e21d9b566f7d
Rough Transcript: clark county is doing its part to crack down on opioids as well saying the county wil sue opioid distributors and manufacturers. district attorney steve wolfson made the announcement yesteray. he says the mortality rate from opioid overdoses in clark county is almost 70-percent higher than the national average. the county says it wants to force these companies to pay for the damage they did to our community and force them to change the way they do business.
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Dec 6, 2017 | KWTV (CBS)
By Oklahoma City, OK
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31278474?token=6b1ac740-fcf3-47c4-947f-e21d9b566f7d
Rough Transcript: a big step forward for a lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies. the state and those companies will be heading to court. grant hermes is live in the newsroom with more, grant. yesterday a judge in norman said the state has a case.. and it could put those major companies on trial. the lawsuit... filed by state attorney general mike hunter alleges those companies knew opioids were highly addictive and misled doctors and patients by downplaying the dangers... an allegatn experts say has lead to the nation's deadly opioid epidemic. according to hunter roughly 3000 people died after overdosing in the last three years and nearly 13-hundred infants were born already dicted. oklahoma is one of more than 100 states and cities suing majodrug companies for what they say was a campaign to put profits over people. here's what the state's attorney had to say after yesterday's ruling. what happened is a systemic campaign funded by millions of dollars to make misrepresentati ons to these doctors and it wasn't just through drug reps, they had key opinion leaders to go out and talk to the doctors to tell them opioids were not addictiv news9's request for comment from the drug companies was denied. there hasn't been a specified amount the state is seeking in the suit but hunter has alluded to a number in the billions.
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Dec 6, 2017 | WJHG (NBC)
By Panama City, FL
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31278480?token=6b1ac740-fcf3-47c4-947f-e21d9b566f7d
Rough Transcript: we first told you in november about the city filing lawsuits against manufacturers of prescription opioids.. reduce the amount of dangerous drugs in northwest florida. well tuesday bay county commissioners decided to get behind that movement. this... after the centers for disease control n released data stating bay county ranks among@the hight when it comes to prescribing opioid drugs. now... both city and county commissioners are meeting with attorneys to fil against the largest manufacturers. it's all in an effort to not only reduce the amount drugs in our area... and to save dollars. "we've got outside agencies that are providing we've got our first responders, our deputies, they're havingar and so there's all kinds of excess funding that no one was prepared for, to deal with this crisis." commissioners say they'll be teaming up withl attorneys with dozens of national firms to create a big team effort.
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Dec 6, 2017 | WTVCDT2 (Fox)
By Chattanooga, TN
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31278487?token=6b1ac740-fcf3-47c4-947f-e21d9b566f7d
Rough Transcript: nashville takes the opioid epidemic on. a bill that would hire a law firm to pursue claims against manufacturers and distributors. drug prevention advocates say a law like this is long overdue. some say it may not do enough. the measure will come up again in two weeks. according to the tennessee department of health more than 1100 people died in 2016 from opioid epidemics.
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Dec 6, 2017 | WSMH (Fox)
By Flint, MI
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31278505?token=6b1ac740-fcf3-47c4-947f-e21d9b566f7d
Rough Transcript: genesee county commissioners continue their fight against the opioid cris. the board will hire three legal firms for drug manufacturers they believe some companies violate state and federal law and they believe they are responsible for diverting opioid into the county which they believe increases addiction and death if you want to learn more about the lawsuit brenda is hosting opioid town hall the county demonstration building commissioners and medical examiner will be there to speak. we also have more information on opioid abuse resources and treatment available you will find that on the website, www.wsmh.com.
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Dec 6, 2017 | WSOC (ABC)
By Charlotte, NC
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31278521?token=6b1ac740-fcf3-47c4-947f-e21d9b566f7d
Rough Transcript: burke county commissioners will consider joing a lawsuit against opioid distributors and will join the civil suit alleging racketeering and negligence. our partners at the herald report they will consider the action on december 19. we told you last month mecklenburg county commissioners voted in a closed section to look into drug manufacturers and companies.
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Dec 6, 2017 | WXII (NBC)
By Greensboro, NC
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31278528?token=6b1ac740-fcf3-47c4-947f-e21d9b566f7d
Rough Transcript: commissioners in surry county are taking on companies that make and distribute opioids. they just filed a lawsuit. the county is going up against five of the largest prescription opioid manufacturers and against three wholesale drug companies. the county says the companies pushed the drugs while falsely representing to doctors how addictive they were. yadkin county commissioners recently filed a similar suit. high point's plan for a stadium is one step closer to becoming a reality.
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