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Opioid Litigation Daily Media Report - 12/7/17
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JPML Sends Opioid MDL To Northern Ohio
Dec 6, 2017 | Law360
By Diana Novak Jones
The wave of lawsuits filed by local governments in the wake of the opioid addiction crisis will be centralized in the Northern District of Ohio, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation said Tuesday. -
Dozens of Lawsuits Vs. Opioid Makers and Distributors Will be Heard in Cleveland
Dec 6, 2017 | WKSU (OH)
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. -
Opioid cases to be heard by federal judge in Cleveland
Dec 6, 2017 | The Columbus Dispatch (OH)
By Earl Rinehart
A judicial panel picked Cleveland over Columbus to hear the civil litigation against more than a dozen pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors blamed by some for the nation’s opioid crisis. -
Oklahoma proceeds with $78 billion suit against drug-makers
Dec 6, 2017 | KTEN (TX)
By Amelia Mugavero
Numbers show the opioid epidemic claimed more lives nationwide in 2016 than the entire Vietnam War. -
Okla. opioid case will continue
Dec 7, 2017 | CNHI Oklahoma (OK)
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. -
Lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies to proceed
Dec 6, 2017 | KSWO (TX)
By Rhiannon Poolaw
A judge has ruled that Oklahoma's Attorney General can move forward with his lawsuit against more than a dozen pharmaceutical companies over opioid medications. -
State Lawsuit To Move Forward Against Pharmaceutical Companies
Dec 6, 2017 | News 9 (OK)
By Grant Hermes
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 allegation experts say has lead to the nation's deadly opioid epidemic. -
Alabama hospitals suing opioid manufacturers
Dec 6, 2017 | Lagniappe Weekly (AL)
By Jason Johnson
Mobile Infirmary and other area hospitals have initiated a legal battle against some of the nation’s largest purveyors of opioid medications, accusing several powerhouse pharmaceutical companies of fueling the drug epidemic that has burdened health care providers for years. -
Clark County sues pharmaceuticals over addiction epidemic
Dec 6, 2017 | KTNV (NV)
By Darcy Spears
Every nine minutes an American dies from a drug overdose prompting the U.S. Attorney General to call the opioid epidemic "...the worst drug crisis in American history." -
Lake County commissioners move forward with plan to sue drug companies amid opioid epidemic
Dec 6, 2017 | Cleveland.com (OH)
By Evan McDonald
Lake County's commissioners voted to move forward with a plan to become the latest Northeast Ohio county to file a lawsuit against drug manufacturers and distributors amid an opioid epidemic that has wreaked havoc across the state. -
County will join lawsuit against drug makers
Dec 6, 2017 | Ozaukee Press (WI)
By Bill Schanen
Ozaukee County supervisors on Wednesday decided to join a growing number of Wisconsin counties suing pharmaceutical companies that make and market the drugs blamed for the national opioid addiction epidemic. -
County joins suit against drug makers
Dec 6, 2017 | The Mount Airy News (NC)
By Jeff Linville
The Surry County Board of Commissioners voted Monday night to join a class-action lawsuit against drug companies as part of an effort to combat the growing opioid crisis. -
Monroe County signs on to opioid litigation
Dec 6, 2017 | Albia Newspapers (IA)
By Staff
The Monroe County Board of Supervisors signed on in support of litigation proposed by the Crueger Dickinson and Simmons Hanly Conroy law firm against certain pharmaceutical firms responsible for damages to the public in misrepresenting the safety of using opioids. -
More Mass. Communities Are Planning To Sue Big Pharma For The Opioid Crisis
Dec 6, 2017 | WBUR (MA)
By Deborah Becker
The list of Massachusetts communities suing big drug companies over the opioid epidemic is growing. -
County to take on big pharma
Dec 6, 2017 | My Kenosha County (WI)
By Jason Ardt
When the state Department of Health Services revealed Kenosha County ranked No. 1 in heroin-related deaths in Wisconsin, according to a recent study, county agencies acknowledged the need to address the epidemic in all levels of government. -
Tribe Hits Pharma Cos. Over Opioid Crisis
Dec 7, 2017 | Law360
By Adam Lidgett
The St. Croix Chippewa Indians of Wisconsin accused a host of companies in a federal lawsuit on Wednesday of purposefully minimizing, concealing or misrepresenting a nationwide epidemic of prescription opioid abuse. -
Nevada county to file opioid lawsuit against drug companies
Dec 6, 2017 | Becker's Hospital Review
By Brian Zimmerman
Clark County, Nev., commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to pursue an opioid epidemic lawsuit against major pharmaceutical companies, according to a report from the Las Vegas Review-Journal. -
'Corporate greed': County seeks damages from drug makers, distributors in opioid fight
Dec 6, 2017 | Star Beacon (OH)
By Justin Dennis
Ashtabula County is now seeking legal action against several opioid manufacturers and distributors whom officials said “directly contributed” to the county’s ongoing drug crisis. -
Florida county to sue opioid drug makers due to lack of morgue space for overdoses
Dec 6, 2017 | WSVN (FL)
By Johari Canty
A central Florida county is looking to sue several pharmaceutical companies due to the high amount of overdose victims taking up space in their morgue. -
County to file lawsuit against opioid makers, distributors
Dec 7, 2017 | Rockingham Now
By Joe Dexter
The county is moving forward with litigation against those who the Rockingham County Board of Commissioners feels are legally responsible for the wrongful distribution of prescription opiates. -
Surry County announces lawsuit against opioid companies
Dec 6, 2017 | WXII (NC)
By Jonee' Lewis
The Surry County Board of Commissioners approved a resolution this week to sue manufacturers and distributors of opioids. -
Kandiyohi County weighs opioid lawsuit
Dec 6, 2017 | West Central Tribune (MN)
By Anne Polta
Kandiyohi County is weighing whether to join other Minnesota counties in suing drug manufacturers and distributors for their role in the mounting opioid crisis across the United States. -
Allegheny County considering lawsuit against drug companies over opioid crisis
Dec 6, 2017 | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA)
By Rich Lord
Allegheny County is about to ask law firms for proposals to sue the pharmaceutical giants widely blamed for setting off the current opioid crisis, the county solicitor told council members at a meeting late Wednesday. -
County may join lawsuit over opioids
Dec 6, 2017 | The Neshoba Democrat (PA)
By Debbie Burt Myers
Neshoba County is considering joining a nationwide lawsuit against national distributors of opioids, the Board of Supervisors said on Monday after hearing a presentation from a Jackson attorney who is partnering with a Philadelphia firm in the litigation. -
Sedgwick County could file lawsuit over opioids
Dec 6, 2017 | KFDI (KS)
By Staff
Sedgwick County commissioners have approved a resolution that declares the opioid epidemic as a public nuisance. That sets the stage for a possible lawsuit in the future against opioid distributors. -
Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it?
Dec 7, 2017 | The Guardian
By Susana Ferreira
When the drugs came, they hit all at once. It was the 80s, and by the time one in 10 people had slipped into the depths of heroin use – bankers, university students, carpenters, socialites, miners – Portugal was in a state of panic. -
Opioid Pain Treatment Addiction Costs Workers’ Comp Carriers, Health Insurers Billions
Dec 7, 2017 | Claims Journal
By Gary Wickert
Big Pharma is having a Big Tobacco moment. Since 1999, the number of prescription opioids sold in America has almost quadrupled. Over the same period, prescription opioid deaths have more than quadrupled and millions have become addicted to legally-prescribed painkillers that are 50 times more powerful than heroin. Nearly two million Americans met criteria for prescription opioid abuse and dependence in 2013. In the same year, there were more than 16,000 deaths from prescription opioid overdose. Dozens of lawsuits and class actions have been filed against physicians, pharmacies, and the pharmaceutical companies manufacturing and distributing painkillers such as Fentanyl, Hydrocodone, and Oxycodone (under the brand names OxyContin, Roxicodone, and Oxecta). U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) has endorsed the lawsuits and claims that prescription painkillers are handed out in his home state “like M & M’s.” Even President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump spoke out publicly last month about fighting opioid addiction. -
AmerisourceBergen Announces Operating Commitments to Address Opioid Diversion and Abuse (PRESS RELEASE)
Dec 7, 2017 | AmerisourceBergen
AmerisourceBergen, a global healthcare solutions leader, announced today a commitment to a set of ongoing operating principles in order to further support the Company’s efforts to address opioid diversion and abuse. -
Wisconsin Attorney General to hold off on suing drug companies
Dec 7, 2017 | Associated Press
By Staff
Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel is defending his decision to hold off on suing drug companies over the country's opioid overdose epidemic. -
County considers class-action suit over opioid epidemic
Dec 6, 2017 | The Daily Reporter
By Joseph Hopper
The Clay County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a resolution Tuesday during its regular session which may result in Clay County joining a potential class-action lawsuit regarding the opioid epidemic in a class consisting of other counties in Iowa and Wisconsin. The resolution – also referenced as an engagement letter, showing an indication of a desire to join a class – will be sent to one of the two groups currently forming a class, however the signed letter will be pending delivery until Assistant County Attorney Barry Sackett receives more information regarding the second entity’s efforts. -
Opioid Suits Are The New Tobacco Litigation, Atty Says
Dec 6, 2017 | Law360
By Diana Novak Jones
The litigation coming out of the opioid crisis will rival the tobacco suits of the 1990s, Jay Edelson of plaintiffs firm Edelson PC told an audience during a Chicago City Club panel on the drugs and possible solutions to the epidemic of addiction. -
Doctor: Drug manufacturers just part of opioid problem
Dec 6, 2017 | WNEM (MI)
By Alana Holland
Despite warnings, community meetings and stepped up enforcement, opioid addiction continues to be a major problem for families in Mid-Michigan. -
KOCO 5 News at 10pm
Dec 6, 2017 | KOCO (ABC)
By Oklahoma City, OK
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31295634?token=460e0f5b-4f5f-4aa1-b2d9-9462bda438d5 -
FOX23 News This Morning
Dec 7, 2017 | KOKI (Fox)
By Tulsa, OK
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31295442?token=460e0f5b-4f5f-4aa1-b2d9-9462bda438d5 -
Good Day Siouxland at 6
Dec 7, 2017 | KCAU (ABC)
By Sioux City, IA
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31295602?token=460e0f5b-4f5f-4aa1-b2d9-9462bda438d5 -
Action 2 News: This Morning
Dec 7, 2017 | WBAY (ABC)
By Green Bay, WI
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31295612?token=460e0f5b-4f5f-4aa1-b2d9-9462bda438d5 -
Sunrise 7
Dec 7, 2017 | WSAW (CBS)
By Wasau, WI
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31295616?token=460e0f5b-4f5f-4aa1-b2d9-9462bda438d5 -
Eyewitness News at 11
Dec 6, 2017 | WCHS (ABC)
By Charleston, WV
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31295689?token=460e0f5b-4f5f-4aa1-b2d9-9462bda438d5 -
News 2 at 10pm
Dec 6, 2017 | WKRN (ABC)
By Nashville, TN
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31295698?token=460e0f5b-4f5f-4aa1-b2d9-9462bda438d5 -
WNEM TV-5 News at 5:30
Dec 6, 2017 | WNEM (CBS)
By Flint, MI
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31295702?token=460e0f5b-4f5f-4aa1-b2d9-9462bda438d5 -
KRTV Noon News
Dec 6, 2017 | KXLHLD (CBS)
By Helena, MT
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31295709?token=460e0f5b-4f5f-4aa1-b2d9-9462bda438d5
Litigation Consolidation
Oklahoma OAG Suit
Other Litigation Coverage
Commentary and FYIs
Broadcast Media Coverage
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JPML Sends Opioid MDL To Northern Ohio
Dec 6, 2017 | Law360
By Diana Novak Jones
The wave of lawsuits filed by local governments in the wake of the opioid addiction crisis will be centralized in the Northern District of Ohio, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation said Tuesday.
In an order issued less than a week after the panel heard arguments over the creation of an MDL to govern a growing group of suits filed against the manufacturers and distributors of the prescription painkillers, the panel sent the cases to U.S. District Judge Dan A. Polster.
At least 115 lawsuits in districts across the country currently fall under the MDL’s purview, although the JPML’s order acknowledged there will likely be far more suits with a wide variety of plaintiffs and defendants. The panel said Judge Polster may want to separate out different claims and parties on different tracks within the MDL, but it will address whether to include specific cases involving different claims with the conditional transfer order process.
“All of the actions can be expected to implicate common fact questions as to the allegedly improper marketing and widespread diversion of prescription opiates into states, counties and cities across the nation, and discovery likely will be voluminous,” the panel said in its order. “In our opinion, centralization will substantially reduce the risk of duplicative discovery, minimize the possibility of inconsistent pretrial obligations, and prevent conflicting rulings on pretrial motions.”
The panel picked Judge Polster’s court in part because of the large number of opioid overdoses in Ohio, and because he has experience managing large, centralized litigation, according to the order.
The suits involved in the centralization claim the makers of opioid pain medication overstated the drugs’ benefits and downplayed their risks while marketing them to doctors. Some suits are brought against the distributors, which the governments say failed to monitor and report suspicious drug orders.
A group of 46 suits asked for the MDL, arguing that it should be located in either the Southern District of Ohio or the Southern District of Illinois. Another 40 or so suits joined in the call for centralization, requesting courts across the country.
The defendants in the bulk of the cases also sought centralization. The three major distributors of the drugs in question, AmerisourceBergen Corp., McKesson Corp. and Cardinal Health, Inc., supported centralization but asked that it happen in the Southern District of West Virginia. Several of the manufacturers wanted the case to be in the Northern District of Illinois or the Southern District of New York.
An attorney representing Pfizer Inc. said during oral argument last week that the company opposed centralization. It asked to be carved out of any MDL, as it has secured dismissals in all five of the government suits it faced.
But because the company was not the subject of any pending cases, the panel declined to address its concerns.
About 15 plaintiffs argued against centralization or asked that their suits be left out.
Among those asking to be excluded was the city of Chicago, which was the first city to sue over opioids back in 2014.
Issues that have been “painfully negotiated” would have to be revisited, counsel for Chicago, Linda Singer of Motley Rice LLC, told the panel during oral argument last week. The city asked the panel to at minimum allow it to complete document discovery before sending the case to join a MDL, a request the JPML denied.
A spokesman for the city of Chicago did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
Another city that opposed centralization is Everett, Washington, which sued drugmakers earlier this year.
Christopher Huck of Kelley Goldfarb Huck Roth & Riojas PLLC, who represents the town of Everett, said at oral arguments last week that these cases — which involve a dozen drugs and a wide variety of claims — should not be used to try the limits of an MDL.
“This is not the case to test these waters,” Huck said. “People are dying every day.”
Huck did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
U.S. Circuit Judge Marjorie Rendell and U.S. District Judges R. David Proctor, Charles Breyer, Sarah Vance and Catherine Perry sat on the panel.
The case is In re: National Prescription Opiate Litigation, MDL No. 2804. -
Dozens of Lawsuits Vs. Opioid Makers and Distributors Will be Heard in Cleveland
Dec 6, 2017 | WKSU (OH)
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.
A panel of federal judges decided Tuesday that 64 lawsuits filed in seven states, including Ohio, will have their cases consolidated and pretrial motions will be heard by U.S. District Judge Dan Polster in Cleveland.
The cases allege that a group of the nation’s largest opioid distributors and manufacturers overstated the benefits and downplayed the risks of their opioid medications and aggressively marketed them to doctors.
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 those filed by Cincinnati and Dayton. Cases from Alabama, California, Illinois, Kentucky, Washington and West Virginia are also included.
Beyond the federal claims, 115 other lawsuits dealing with similar claims have been filed in state and local courts. Those cases, like the lawsuits filed by Cuyahoga County and the state of Ohio could be moved to the federal court in Ohio as well.
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Opioid cases to be heard by federal judge in Cleveland
Dec 6, 2017 | The Columbus Dispatch (OH)
By Earl Rinehart
A judicial panel picked Cleveland over Columbus to hear the civil litigation against more than a dozen pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors blamed by some for the nation’s opioid crisis.
Plaintiffs in the 66 lawsuits nationwide against the drug companies had asked that they be heard in Columbus by U.S. District Judge Edmund A. Sargus Jr., chief of the Southern District of Ohio. The suits include more than a dozen filed by southern Ohio counties.
Dublin-based Cardinal Health, one of the defendants, preferred the federal court for the southern West Virginia district. That disagreement likely prompted the panel to pick Cleveland, observers said.
The cases will be assigned to U.S. District Judge Dan A. Polster in the Northern District of Ohio. Together the lawsuits are called multidistrict litigation, or MDL, because they were filed in district courts around the country. The idea is that after a few test cases are resolved, the remaining plaintiffs might decide to settle, withdraw their cases or continue to trial.
“He’s a great judge who’s known for moving cases along efficiently and fairly,” Sargus said of Polster.
Sargus wrapped up an MDL in February 2017 when DuPont agreed to pay $671 million to settle 3,500 suits over C8 contamination from its plant near Parkersburg, West Virginia.
In October, Sargus ordered the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration not to destroy information from its database that tracks the transfer of drugs like OxyContin, Percocet and Dilaudid.
Vinton County officials contend that enough opioids were dispensed in that rural county of 13,000 for every man, woman and child to have received 105 doses.
Plaintiffs said the death rate due to unintentional drug poisonings increased 642 percent from 2000 to 2015, citing Ohio Department of Health statistics. Last year, there were 4,050.
Plaintiffs said manufacturers and distributors should have recognized when an inordinate amount of drugs were being ordered by doctors in a community.
Three drug distributors with operations in central Ohio are defendants: Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen Drug Corp. and McKesson Corp. The three together control 85 percent of the market share for prescription opioids.
Cardinal Health, the only one of those three distributors willing to comment, issued this statement: “We operate as part of a multifaceted and highly regulated health-care system ... and believe everyone in that chain, including us, must do their part, which is ultimately why we believe these copycat lawsuits filed against us are misguided and do nothing to stem the crisis.”
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Oklahoma proceeds with $78 billion suit against drug-makers
Dec 6, 2017 | KTEN (TX)
By Amelia Mugavero
Numbers show the opioid epidemic claimed more lives nationwide in 2016 than the entire Vietnam War.
The addiction crisis has also claimed billions of dollars of taxpayer money for treatment and enforcement. There have been almost 3,000 opioid overdose deaths in Oklahoma in the past three years.
Now the state is doing something about it.
After a four-hour hearing in Norman on Tuesday, Judge Thad Balkman said the state can proceed with its lawsuit against four major pharmaceutical companies: Purdue, Actavis, Cephalon and Janssen.
The lawsuit says the state has overwhelming evidence that the companies used false marketing campaigns.
"What happened is a systemic campaign funded by millions of dollars to make misrepresentation to these doctors," said Oklahoma's lead counsel Michael Burrage.
In a statement to The Oklahoman, Janssen Pharmecueticals defended its business practices.
"Janssen acted responsibly," the company said, adding that its products "are FDA-approved and carry FDA-mandated warnings about possible risks on every product label."
Attorney Reggie Whitten said the only true remedy is to attempt to collect the money the companies have taken from the state by addicting thousands of Oklahomans.
"We're seeking to recover that from these companies that have conspired to put greed ahead of safety," he said.
The state is seeking nearly $78 billion. The next step is to get a court date in Janurary.
Mississippi, Ohio and Missouri have all filed similar lawsuits, but have yet to go to trial. If Oklahoma gets its desired court date for the summer of 2019, it would be the first state in the nation to go to court.
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Okla. opioid case will continue
Dec 7, 2017 | CNHI Oklahoma (OK)
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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Lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies to proceed
Dec 6, 2017 | KSWO (TX)
By Rhiannon Poolaw
A judge has ruled that Oklahoma's Attorney General can move forward with his lawsuit against more than a dozen pharmaceutical companies over opioid medications.
The lawsuit says the companies misled doctors about how addictive opioids are leading to the nation's ongoing epidemic. The drug companies claimed the doctors knew the dangers of opioid addiction but the court disagreed and ruled that the case can go to full trial.
A hearing will be held next month to decide a trial date.
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State Lawsuit To Move Forward Against Pharmaceutical Companies
Dec 6, 2017 | News 9 (OK)
By Grant Hermes
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 allegation experts say has lead to the nation's deadly opioid epidemic.
According to Hunter, roughly 3,000 people died after overdosing in the last three years and nearly 1,300 infants were born already addicted.
Oklahoma is one of more than 100 states and cities suing major drug companies for what they say was a campaign to put profits over people.
Here's what the state's attorney had to say after Tuesday's ruling.
News 9'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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Alabama hospitals suing opioid manufacturers
Dec 6, 2017 | Lagniappe Weekly (AL)
By Jason Johnson
Mobile Infirmary and other area hospitals have initiated a legal battle against some of the nation’s largest purveyors of opioid medications, accusing several powerhouse pharmaceutical companies of fueling the drug epidemic that has burdened health care providers for years.
Styled similarly to 1980s lawsuits against the tobacco industry, the case claims corporations such as Purdue Pharma, Endo Pharmaceuticals and several other manufacturers used “false, deceptive and unfair marking” to sell doctors and patients on their opioid products.
Infirmary Health is joined in the lawsuit by the Southwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center as well as the Monroe County Healthcare Authority and Monroe County Hospital in Alabama.
In a 134-page complaint filed in Mississippi on Nov. 30, the hospitals accuse several opioid manufacturers of aggressively pushing “highly addictive, dangerous opioids” for years while “falsely representing that patients would rarely succumb to drug addiction.”
“[They] turned patients into drug addicts for their own corporate profit,” it continues.
In addition to manufacturers, several drug distributors, including the McKesson Corp., are also named as defendants. They’re accused of failing to “monitor, detect, investigate, refuse and report suspicious orders of prescription opiates,” which the hospitals claim has aided the large-scale drug diversion that supplies the illicit market for opioids.
The hospitals are represented by Mississippi Attorney John W. “Don” Barrett, who had a hand in the aforementioned lawsuits against the tobacco industry. Several other attorneys are also involved, including the Mobile-based firm Taylor Martino.
“These hospitals and their leadership take very seriously their commitment to health care in their communities,” attorney Steve Martino told Lagniappe. “They try to keep health care efficient and safe, but the carnage of this epidemic falls on them, and many times they don’t get reimbursed.”
Martino was referring to the treatment hospitals provide for those affected by opioid abuse and addiction — many of whom are uninsured. In addition to general health care, Martino said hospitals often provide psychiatric, neonatal and detox services for patients affected by opioids.
In recent years, opioid abuse and addiction has grown into one of the most pressing concerns for health care officials at all levels of government. In October, President Donald Trump designated it a “health emergency” and in Alabama, Gov. Kay Ivey and Attorney General Steve Marshall have set up independent committees to address the situation.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, there were 64,000 opioid-related deaths in 2016 — a 22 percent increase from the previous year. More in line with the hospitals’ complaint, though, has ben the monetary cost incurred dealing with this problem.
In November, the White House released calculations of the financial impact of the current crisis, concluding that between health care, criminal justice and lost productivity, opioid abuse and addiction cost the United States $504 billion in 2015.
While there are numerous allegations in the recent legal complaint, most deal with how pharmaceutical companies market their products. Several are accused of disseminating misleading information about the addictiveness and effectiveness of opioid painkillers and the likelihood of long-term patients developing an increased tolerance over time.
In some cases, companies named in the lawsuit are accused of spending millions to have those “misleading” claims perpetuated by patient advocacy groups, in publications and by medical professionals, all discreetly funded by the companies themselves.
Others deal with business practices for which some of the companies have already faced multi-million dollar criminal penalties for, such as the $600 million Purdue Pharma was fined in 2007 after misleading regulators, doctors and patients about the risk of its flagship drug, OxyContin, being addictive and its potential for abuse.
Martino said many of the companies that manufactured these drugs went about their business in “a devious way,” claiming they “knew there would be a health care fallout at some point, but it would be for somebody else to worry about.” He said hospitals and emergency rooms across the country have been dealing with that fallout for years.
“You’ve got the hospitals — nurses, doctors and administrators — on the ground dealing with this problem, and then you have these guys who just invented this market,” he added. “For years the medical standard was that these drugs were prescribed only for end-of-life treatment and cancer. Well, that’s not much of a market.”
To date, none of the companies has filed a legal response to the lawsuit, though a few have released media statements addressing the litigation. In an email to Lagniappe, a representative of Purdue Pharma said the company is “deeply troubled by the opioid crisis” and “vigorously denied” the allegations made in the hospitals’ legal complaint.
“As a company grounded in science, we must balance patient access to FDA-approved medicines, while working collaboratively to solve this public health challenge,” the statement reads. “Although our products account for approximately 2 percent of the total opioid prescriptions, as a company, we’ve distributed the CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain, developed three of the first four FDA-approved opioid medications with abuse-deterrent properties and partner with law enforcement to ensure access to naloxone.” (Naloxone is a medication used to block the effects of opioids and prevent overdose deaths.)
While a civil lawsuit can’t force companies to change their behavior, Martino said he’s hopeful, if the hospitals’ case is successful, some might move to do so on their own. He also stressed that even though they are seeking substantial monetary damages, the hospitals bringing this case view it as “part of their obligation to provide effective and safe health care.”
“A lot of times, when the public hears about lawsuits like this, they think it’s just some big cash grab, but this is a real problem in emergency rooms,” he said. “It’s not just a money thing, either. If your kid falls out of a tree and breaks his arm, and you’re sitting in the ER waiting because they’re having to deal with someone looking for pills, that’s a problem.”
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Clark County sues pharmaceuticals over addiction epidemic
Dec 6, 2017 | KTNV (NV)
By Darcy Spears
Every nine minutes an American dies from a drug overdose prompting the U.S. Attorney General to call the opioid epidemic "...the worst drug crisis in American history."
Besides the devastating loss of human life there's a massive financial burden that impacts every Las Vegas taxpayer.
Contact 13 shows how Clark County officials say they've had enough
The Clark County's District Attorney is suing some of the pharmaceutical giants that make prescription pain pills. The lawsuit alleges deceptive marketing that downplayed the deadly dangers of those powerful medications. And though the addiction epidemic may not directly impact your family, according to the lawsuit, everyone pays.
County officials argue that local governments and the community services they provide have been strained to the breaking point. Public sector bears the cost while private sector makes the profit.
The lawsuit lays out how Clark County taxpayers are forced to take on the problems of addiction through court and social services, law enforcement and the coroner's office; costs associated with fire departments and hospitals too.
The county accuses big pharma of using deceptive means to convince doctors and patients that pain pills are safe allowing them to reap billions of dollars in "...one of the biggest pharmaceutical marketing campaigns in history."
"The reason we feel they should be accountable is because people have been given misinformation or no information," says County Commissioner Steve Sisolak. "They've been misled as of exactly the effects of these opioids. People have been hooked on this. A lot of our vulnerable population has been hooked on this."
County officials hope to recoup some of the millions of public dollars spent responding to the fallout from drug addiction.
In the meantime, to keep this tragedy in perspective, according to the lawsuit the CDC says the overdose death toll was over half a million from 2000 through 2015. That's more than eight times the number of U.S. soldiers killed in the Vietnam War.
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Lake County commissioners move forward with plan to sue drug companies amid opioid epidemic
Dec 6, 2017 | Cleveland.com (OH)
By Evan McDonald
Lake County's commissioners voted to move forward with a plan to become the latest Northeast Ohio county to file a lawsuit against drug manufacturers and distributors amid an opioid epidemic that has wreaked havoc across the state.
The commissioners voted 3-0 at a meeting Tuesday to take steps toward finalizing a lawsuit to seek reimbursement for the money Lake County has spent on costs related to the opioid epidemic.
Those costs include investigations conducted by the sheriff's office, medical treatment for inmates in the county's jail and an increased burden on the county's Department of Job and Family Services, Commissioner Jerry Cerino said.
"Our budget has been impacted significantly, and that's really going to be the crux of our case," Cerino said. "We believe we've already incurred a great deal of expenses, and we will continue to do so."
Lake County Sheriff Daniel Dunlap, who is also a member of the county's Opiate Task Force, said he supports litigation.
"I think these lawsuits have to happen," he said. "I think the pharmaceutical companies have a role in this."
Tuesday's vote allowed the commissioners to move forward with a plan to hire outside attorneys to represent the county. The commissioners could finalize the hiring as soon as the next meeting on Dec. 14, and the lawsuit could be filed days later, Cerino said.
The commissioners plan to work with Cleveland firm Plevin and Gallucci, which is also serving as local counsel in a similar lawsuit against drug companies filed in Cuyahoga County. The law firm will work under a contingency arrangement, which means it would be paid a yet-to-be-decided percentage of any judgement in the case, Cerino said.
Cuyahoga County officials previously filed a lawsuit that accuses drug companies of intentionally misleading the public about the dangers of opioids to sell more painkillers; Summit County officials have also announced plans to file a similar suit. Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine also filed over the summer against some of the same manufacturers.
A Cleveland federal judge will preside over 64 lawsuits filed by cities and counties across the country. 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.
Officials nationwide have said prescription drug abuse is inextricably linked to heroin and fentanyl abuse, and the opioid epidemic that claimed thousands of lives last year in Ohio. In 2016, more than 4,050 people died of unintentional drug overdoses across the state, with many of those being caused by opioids.
Opioid overdose deaths nearly tripled last year in Lake County, statistics show. The coroner's office attributed 72 deaths last year to heroin, fentanyl or a combination of the two drugs. That's up from the 28 people killed by those drugs in 2015 and the 27 who died in 2014, the coroner's office said.
Statistics show there were 77 drug overdose deaths in Lake County through Tuesday, but that total includes deaths caused by opioids and other drugs such as cocaine, the coroner's office said.
The Lake County Sheriff's Office is devoting more resources to investigating drug overdose deaths, and it spent $125,000 to buy a body scanner to prevent inmates from smuggling drugs into the county's jail, Dunlap said.
Dunlap said the sheriff's office has also seen an uptick in drug-related crimes such as armed robberies.
"It's been very time-consuming," Dunlap said. 'We're devoting a lot of time to these [drug-related] investigations."
Lake County officials feel the opioid epidemic may worsen before things improve, Cerino said. The commissioners surveyed the heads of the county's offices that are impacted by the epidemic, and each respondent believes the problem is getting worse, Cerino said.
"We're not folks who rush into litigation lightly," he said. "But we have been dealing with the results of this opioid epidemic in a variety of areas."
Lake County is trying to address the opioid epidemic in other ways outside of the planned lawsuit. The sheriff's department and the Lake County Opiate Task Force are focusing on law enforcement, and the county's Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services (ADAMHS) Board is among the agencies offering treatment and rehabilitation, Cerino said.
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County will join lawsuit against drug makers
Dec 6, 2017 | Ozaukee Press (WI)
By Bill Schanen
Ozaukee County supervisors on Wednesday decided to join a growing number of Wisconsin counties suing pharmaceutical companies that make and market the drugs blamed for the national opioid addiction epidemic.
The County Board voted 24-0 to sign on to a lawsuit that seeks to hold large pharmaceutical companies responsible for the epidemic that is sapping the local, state and federal agencies tasked with battling the drug dealers who feed addiction and help those whose lives have been shattered by opioids, a class of drugs that includes prescription painkillers such as oxycodone and morphine, as well as illegal drugs like heroin.
Supr. Karl Hertz of Thiensville abstained from the vote after expressing concern that the lawsuit would not target the root of the addiction epidemic — illegal drugs like heroin — and could deter doctors from prescribing needed opioid pain medication.
Ozaukee County is now one of 52 Wisconsin counties suing pharmaceutical manufacturers.
“Opioid addiction is a significant driver of what we now do, and it constitutes a significant portion of our budget,” County Administrator Jason Dzwinel said. “It’s an unfortunate area of growth, some of which is really unseen by the public.”
Ozaukee County and other plaintiffs will not bankroll the legal effort. Instead, the law firms representing the counties — the Milwaukee-area firms of van Briesen & Roper and Crueger Dickinson and the national firm of Simmons Hanly Conroy — would bear all costs of litigation and be reimbursed only if there is a judgment in the plaintiff’s favor.
The only cost to the county would be the staff time needed to help lawyers document the cost of dealing with opioid addiction, which in addition to assisting with the lawsuit will help illustrate the extent and impact of the local addiction epidemic, Dzwinel said.
“Hopefully we can quantify the impact of addiction, which should shed more light on the epidemic for the public,” he said.
The Wisconsin Counties Association is coordinating the lawsuit against so-called Big Pharma, the pharmaceutical companies that, according to background information distributed to supervisors, “flooded the market with highly addictive drugs claiming they were safe and efficacious for long-term use, manufactured studies to support these false claims and knowingly misrepresented the addictive nature of these drugs.
“As a result of these misrepresentations, millions of American lives have been impacted or destroyed. The opioid epidemic has in turn imposed huge costs on both county and state governments around the country ....”
The goal of the lawsuit is to “hold Pharma responsible for their role in creating the opioid epidemic and return to the counties the money spent battling the epidemic at the expense of other critical programming,” according to county documents.
Among those on the front lines of the battle against the epidemic is Ozaukee County District Attorney Adam Gerol, who said opioid addiction is not only responsible for an increase in drug crimes but a surge in property crimes committed by those who steal to finance their addiction.
“Certainly we see a lot of possession of heroin and possession of opioid cases, but what we’ve really seen an increase in is burglaries, thefts from cars and retail thefts,” he said.
For years, the District Attorney’s Office filed about 150 felony cases a year. About a decade ago, that number spiked into the 300s and last year reached 389 cases, and drugs had a lot to do with it, Gerol said.
“We set a record last year and are on track to set another record this year,” he said, referring to felony cases filed.
“If we could go back to the days before drug addiction and just deal with alcohol and bar fights, we wouldn’t be as busy.”
While opioids alone are not responsible for the drug addiction epidemic — “We have people who are just slamming Xanex,” a prescription drug used to treat anxiety, Gerol said — the connection between opioid painkillers and addiction that has fueled the market for illegal drugs like heroin is clear. In several of the cases Gerol has prosecuted, the stories are similar — a defendant who is prescribed an opioid pain medication by his doctor becomes addicted, and when his supply of medication is cut off, he turns to the illegal drug market to satisfy his addiction.
“Very few people start out saying they want to be a heroin addict,” Gerol said. “They start out taking oxycodone, Vicodin or Percocet. That’s what they want, but eventually they can’t get it. Then we have this explosion of heroin, the cost of which hasn’t gone up in 10 years. We are just swimming in this drug.”
Left to help people whose lives have been shattered by drug addiction is the Ozaukee County Human Services Department, and in many cases that means protecting the most vulnerable victims of the epidemic — children.
“From our perspective, we see the impact of drug addiction everywhere,” Human Services Director Liza Drake said. “And the most highly affected by addition is often children and families.”
Between 2012 and 2013, the number of children placed by the department outside of their homes because of drug abuse by their parents or other guardians jumped from the single to double digits, where it has remained since. Drug abuse, along with neglect and child behavior problems, both of which can be related to drug use in the house, are the leading reasons children are removed from their homes in Ozaukee County.
And ensuring children are in a safe environment is often just the beginning of the department’s work. Counseling is a key component of helping children and families whose lives have been upended by drugs, Drake said.
“Removing children from their home is pretty traumatic,” she said. “And in some cases, the children were completely exposed to their loved ones when they were using drugs.”
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County joins suit against drug makers
Dec 6, 2017 | The Mount Airy News (NC)
By Jeff Linville
The Surry County Board of Commissioners voted Monday night to join a class-action lawsuit against drug companies as part of an effort to combat the growing opioid crisis.
At the end of Monday’s regular meeting, the board held a closed session to discuss a legal matter. Afterward, county attorney Ed Woltz released a resolution that four of the five board members had voted in favor of joining a public-nuisance suit against pharmaceutical drug manufacturers and wholesale drug distributors. Commissioner Buck Golding was the lone dissenter.
On Tuesday, the county board released a statement that it was “taking a much-needed step to hold accountable the companies responsible for dumping millions of dollars’ worth of prescription opiates into its community.”
Commissioner Golding said the county was approached by a group of law firms that are adding counties to the lawsuit from across the whole country, not just North Carolina.
According to Woltz, Surry County has filed suit against five of the largest manufacturers of prescription opioids and their related companies and against the country’s three largest wholesale drug distributors.
“The manufacturing companies pushed highly addictive, dangerous opioids, falsely representing to doctors that patients would only rarely succumb to drug addiction, while the distributors breached their legal duties to monitor, detect, investigate, refuse and report suspicious orders of prescription opioids,” the board said in a statement.
“Because prescription opioids are a highly addictive substance, in 1970 Congress designed a system to control the volume of opioid pills being distributed in this country. It let only a select few wholesalers gain the right to receive narcotics from manufacturers and deliver them to legal users such as pharmacies, hospitals and clinics.”
In exchange, those companies agreed to do an important job: halt suspicious orders and control against the diversion of these dangerous drugs for illegal uses, noted Chairman Eddie Harris.
“This is a reflection of these manufacturers and distributors not reporting anomalies in distributing these drugs,” Harris said. “Nobody is minding the story. … These companies are obligated to monitor these pills.” In recent years they failed to do that, and today the Surry County community is paying the price.
According to a federal study the law firms quoted to the county, roughly 1 in 7 people who received a refill or had a second opioid prescription authorized were still on opioids one year later.
According to the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, from 1999 to 2016 more than 12,000 North Carolinians died from opioid-related overdoses. Surry County has been one of the hardest hit areas in the state. Based on the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of opioid prescriptions dispensed in Surry County in 2016 exceeded the total county population, amounting to nearly two prescriptions for every man, woman and child.
According to one of the stats Harris saw from the law firms was that Surry’s rate of prescriptions per person is about two and half times the national average.
“Opioid deaths have increased significantly,” said Harris. “We are at an all-time high on drug overdose deaths.”
According to Emergency Services Director John Shelton, the county has had 50 overdose deaths so far this year. There also have been 25 suicides, and opioids were involved in some of those cases, too, he noted.
The residents of Surry County continue to bear the burden of the cost of the epidemic, said Harris. Some of it is obvious such as police officers making drug arrest and hospitals treating overdose patients who may not have insurance to pay their bills.
But there are so many ancillary effects of this crisis, Harris said, which makes it hard to monetize. The county had to double its funding for medical examiner fees this year because of all the wrongful deaths. Ambulance drivers responding to drug overdoses aren’t available to run other emergency calls.
If a parent is hooked on drugs, the children may have to be taken away for their own protection, Harris added. In the case of an overdose death, a more permanent home could be needed.
“The judicial system has been overwhelmed,” he said. “There are costs to the criminal justice system that are extraordinary. … There is a huge impact on the families that make this county their home.”
The lawsuit looks to recoup those costs while also looking for funding to be proactive such as public education and treatment to reduce prescription drug use, the chairman said. Of course, it is impossible to put a monetary amount on the impact on the drugs users and their loved ones.
Golding was the only board member to vote against the lawsuit.
“They claim we can be an individual entity,” said Golding, but the firms are gathering up counties across the entire nation.
By the time the lawyers are finished recruiting, there will be a long line of people with their hands out, he believes, which will cut into how much any one group gets.
Like the big tobacco settlement of 1998, a huge chunk of the money would go to the law firms and not the governments. Golding said the lawyers were going after the deep pockets because they are demanding 30 percent of the winnings or settlement amount.
Golding said he isn’t totally against the notion of getting money from the drug companies, but he just doesn’t see it working out in the end.
The drug manufacturers will have a huge team of lawyers, too, he said, and the case will take years. Then appeals likely would push that time out even longer.
Even if somehow the county got lucky and got a nice chunk from the suit, Golding said he foresees any sum coming with stipulations on how the county would be able to use that money rather than just putting it in the general fund or fund balance.
“There’s no such thing as a free lunch, and there’s no free money,” he said.
The law firms working together who have been hired by the county include: Baron & Budd; Levin, Papantonio, Thomas, Mitchell, Rafferty & Proctor; Greene Ketchum Bailey Farrell & Tweel; Hill, Peterson, Carper, Bee & Deitzler; McHugh Fuller Law Group; Powell & Majestro; and Garry Whittaker, Local Counsel.
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Monroe County signs on to opioid litigation
Dec 6, 2017 | Albia Newspapers (IA)
By Staff
The Monroe County Board of Supervisors signed on in support of litigation proposed by the Crueger Dickinson and Simmons Hanly Conroy law firm against certain pharmaceutical firms responsible for damages to the public in misrepresenting the safety of using opioids.
The Iowa State Association of Counties asked Monroe County and the other 98 counties in Iowa to vote in support of the action. There will be no out-of-pocket costs to Iowa counties by joining the effort, however there may be some staff time involved in calculating damages and collecting data.
ISAC and other government bodies are recognizing the growing opioid epidemic in Iowa and across the nation. The opioid epidemic is caused in large part by prescription drugs. Nationally, estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate the opioid epidemic is costing American society $75 billion annually.
According to the ISAC resolution passed by the supervisors, certain manufacturers have already faced civil and criminal liability for actions involving the opioid epidemic. The litigation the county is joining is meant to make opioid manufacturers responsible for the financial costs assumed by counties and other public agencies across the country.
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More Mass. Communities Are Planning To Sue Big Pharma For The Opioid Crisis
Dec 6, 2017 | WBUR (MA)
By Deborah Becker
The list of Massachusetts communities suing big drug companies over the opioid epidemic is growing.
The lawsuits name drug companies and opioid distributors, alleging they did not properly monitor prescription painkillers flooding communities.
Unlike legal action at the state level, these suits would seek damages that would go directly to the communities that sign on, and any legal fees would be paid based on a percentage of any settlement with the companies.
Boston attorney Peter Merrigan works at Sweeney Merrigan, one of a handful of law firms working on this. So far, he's representing five Massachusetts communities, including Greenfield, which is where he's from.
Interview Transcript
Deborah Becker: Why are you filing these lawsuits?
Merrigan: It's a tremendous opportunity to not only play defense but also play offense. The goal is to get compensation for the communities that will help them abate damages in the future.
Is this litigation modeled after the litigation against the tobacco companies that resulted in a settlement in the '90s?
It's similar. One big difference is that we're focusing on cities and towns. The tobacco litigation, the attorney general sought damages for the state. With respect to the opioid litigation, that's happening as well: The attorney general is pursuing damages in Massachusetts. In this suit, we're focusing on the communities.
Because in the tobacco suit, that didn't necessarily happen. The money didn't necessarily go back to the communities.
It was a case by case situation. Some of the money went back to the communities but ultimately, it went back to the Legislature and it's charged with spending the dollars as is necessary
It seems like there could be big obstacles to this lawsuit. In the case of tobacco, people were using a product as were instructed and got sick anyway. Here, you're saying people were not using the drugs as instructed and got sick. Do you think that's going to be difficult legally?
I understand that argument and I don't agree with it, mainly because the use of opioids creates a foreseeable dependency. They're synthetic heroin. They're marketed as chronic, long-term, everyday pills to take, and as a result of that, it is foreseeable from a legal perspective that people are going to become addicted to it and when they become addicted to it, they're going to seek out other means to get opioids and when those options are no longer available, the next step is heroin.
They were marketed to doctors not consumers. Legally, how does that work?
When opioids were coming on the market, the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 said "we know these drugs are addictive." Congress said [to drug companies], "we're going to give you the opportunity to make billions of dollars, but you have to do one thing: You need to report to the DEA any suspicious orders." So if the sale of opioids is increasing in any substantial way from one month to the next, that's a suspicious order. With respect to the distributors, it arises from the failure to report suspicious orders.
What do you say to people who say this is a lot of legal wrangling to get Big Pharma to pay for this crisis?
Big Pharma absolutely should pay for this crisis. We're seeking damages for these communities to help them recover all that they've spent with respect to EMS, law enforcement, needle exchanges, Narcan — and those are all dollars coming directly out of the community. We're also seeking an abatement fund on money that communities can use to go forward and recover. We feel genuinely protective of our communities
We've experienced it personally with family members. We've had a cousin pass away from an overdose. We have other family members who have been affected by it. My father was a judge who started one of the first drug courts in the state out in western Massachusetts. It's not happenstance that we're working on this.
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Dec 6, 2017 | My Kenosha County (WI)
By Jason Ardt
When the state Department of Health Services revealed Kenosha County ranked No. 1 in heroin-related deaths in Wisconsin, according to a recent study, county agencies acknowledged the need to address the epidemic in all levels of government.
While the county received a state grant to fund Narcan for local agencies, and a federal grant to bolster treatment programs this year, the opioid epidemic has put a strain on county health and law enforcement resources.
The Kenosha County Board acknowledged the strain of resources, which led to its decision to join other Wisconsin counties in a federal lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies, according to a filing in U.S. District Court by Crueger Dickinson LLC.
Crueger Dickinson LLC, of Whitefish Bay, is one of three law firms filing the lawsuit on behalf of the involved counties.
The other two are von Briesen and Roper, S.C., along with Simmons, Hanley, Conroy LLC.
Kenosha County Board Chairwoman Kimberly Breunig, of Trevor, said the lawsuit comes at no cost to taxpayers.
“The county entered into an agreement that has no financial burden to the county. Our corporation counsel vetted the agreement to make sure there would be no adverse affect on the county or its residents,” Breunig said.
Manufacturers listed in complaint are Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson, Endo Health Solutions, Inc. and their subsidiaries.
The lawsuit alleges makers of prescription painkillers misled the public through deceptive marketing campaigns, to which it attributes the nation’s opioid overdose epidemic.
Additionally, the complaint contends drug manufacturers knew about the dangers of painkillers, but opted not to disclose the side effects to boost their profit margin.
Kenosha County, like the other 47 Wisconsin counties involved in the suit, seeks financial compensation from the defendants listed on the document for cost of services, like rescue and emergency calls, law enforcement intervention and court proceedings caused by the opioid epidemic.
“If information is brought forth to prove that pharmaceutical companies and individuals misled any of our physicians on the effects of certain drugs, we need to hold them accountable for their part in the epidemic,” Breunig said.
According to a resolution passed by the Kenosha County Board at a Nov. 7 meeting, the three law firms will assume full costs of the lawsuit, and if they win, would receive 25 percent of the total award with the rest going to the plaintiffs.
Kenosha mirrors national epidemic
In the 75-page court filing, the lawsuit contends Kenosha County and the state are not immune to the national crisis.“In 2015, the majority of opioid-related deaths in Wisconsin involved prescription opioids,” the lawsuit states. “Indeed, the number of Wisconsin citizens who die as a result of drug overdoses now exceeds the number of those who die from motor vehicle crashes, as well as suicide, breast cancer, colon cancer, firearms, influenza, or HIV.”
From 2013 until 2015, Kenosha County reported 103 people died from opiate overdoses. In 2016, the county said there were 35 overdose deaths.
While the Kenosha County Medical Examiner’s Office reported an uptick in overdoses, there was an increase in cases at local emergency rooms, the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit alleges 248 hospital encounters related to opioid poisoning happened from 2012 through 2014.
Hospitalizations grew exponentially in 2016, when 979 Kenosha County residents or visitors went to the emergency room for opioid-related reasons, according to the lawsuit.
Breunig, who said the board recognized the epidemic, started discussions with local law enforcement agencies and health officials related to overdoses when problems grew.
“The County Board has been having discussions with Human Services, Sheriff’s Department and District Attorney for about 2 to 3 years, knowing that the epidemic was getting worse in the county,” Breunig said.
“The board began recognizing the problem when Robert Zapf was the DA, but we didn’t know what could be done.”
After Zapf did not seek re-election, former Deputy District Attorney Michael Graveley was voted in as the new district attorney, which expedited the process, according to Breunig.
“That is where the bill of credit lies,” she said.
With support from the District Attorney’s Office, in addition to help from Human Services, the County Board began to develop a clearer vision for the solution.
Lawsuit examined in September
While the board had the support of local officials, it discovered another solution in September, when several county supervisors attended a Wisconsin Counties Association conference in the Wisconsin Dells.One of the presentations, according to Breunig, was the possible statewide lawsuit against drug manufacturers.
Breunig, who attended the presentation with supervisors Boyd Frederick, Jeff Wamboldt and Andy Berg, learned the lawsuit mirrors a filing against tobacco companies years earlier.
Unlike the tobacco settlement, where only states saw benefits, the drug lawsuit seeks to benefit each county involved.
“In order for the counties to benefit from any lawsuit, we would need to enter into it ourselves,” Breunig said.
According to Wisconsin Public Radio, about two-thirds of Wisconsin counties have joined the lawsuit.
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Tribe Hits Pharma Cos. Over Opioid Crisis
Dec 7, 2017 | Law360
By Adam Lidgett
The St. Croix Chippewa Indians of Wisconsin accused a host of companies in a federal lawsuit on Wednesday of purposefully minimizing, concealing or misrepresenting a nationwide epidemic of prescription opioid abuse.
The suit, filed in Wisconsin federal court, said that multiple companies — such as McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health Inc., AmerisourceBergen Corp., CVS Health Corp., Purdue Pharma LPand others — were not only motivated to keep the epidemic going but make it bigger for the purpose of profit. The suit said prescription opioids are more deadly within the tribe than any other drug — including heroin — and that its medical clinic is overwhelmed by the epidemic.
“This epidemic and its consequences could have been, and should have been, prevented by the opioid delivery industry created by the defendants, especially the distribution network that controls delivery to consumers of opioid prescription drugs and even illegal sale of the prescription opioid drugs through what is called opioid diversion,” the suit said.
The tribe said that while the companies should have acted with reasonable care, they “blindly stoked the engine of prescription opioid distribution” so it could make billions of dollars flooding tribes with the prescription drugs.
The suit is seeking injunctive relief as well as compensatory, statutory and punitive damages against the manufacturers, distributors and retailers.
The complaint follows a suit launched in April by Cherokee Nation that targeted some of the same companies St. Croix Chippewa Indians of Wisconsin did in its case. That suit, filed in tribal court, alleged that by failing to check the spread of illegally prescribed opioids, the companies played a large role in spawning an epidemic of opioid abuse in the tribe.
AmerisourceBergen said in a statement that it would defend itself in the suit.
“Beyond our reporting and immediate halting of tens of thousands of potentially suspicious orders, we refuse service to customers we deem as a diversion risk and provide daily reports to the DEA that detail the quantity, type and the receiving pharmacy of every single order of these products that we distribute,” the statement said.
Purdue Pharma in a statement denied the allegations on Wednesday.
“We are deeply troubled by the opioid crisis and we are dedicated to being part of the solution,” Purdue Pharma said. “As a company grounded in science, we must balance patient access to FDA-approved medicines, while working collaboratively to solve this public health challenge.”
J. Nixon Daniel III, one of the tribe’s attorneys, told Law360 on Wednesday that while cities and counties that have filed suits over opioid use have made claims for damages relating to things such as law enforcement and housing in jails, tribe have those types of problems on top of health care issues.
“Because of the opioid epidemic and what they have to pay to treat tribal members for drug addiction, it’s diverting funds they would otherwise be able to use for heart-related care [or] cancer-related care,” he said.
Representatives for the other companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
The tribe is represented by Jeffrey A Cormell of its own legal department, as well as J. Nixon Daniel III and John R. Zoesch III of Beggs & Lane RLLP, T. Roe Frazer II, Patrick D. McMurtray and Thomas Roe Frazer III of Frazer PLC and Frederick T. Kuykendall III of Kuykendall & Associates LLC.
Counsel information for the defendants was not immediately available Wednesday.
The case is St. Croix Chippewa Indians of Wisconsin v. McKesson Corp. et al., case number 3:17-cv-00914, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. -
Nevada county to file opioid lawsuit against drug companies
Dec 6, 2017 | Becker's Hospital Review
By Brian Zimmerman
Clark County, Nev., commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to pursue an opioid epidemic lawsuit against major pharmaceutical companies, according to a report from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
District Attorney Steve Wolfson will oversee the lawsuit in conjunction with Las Vegas law firm Eglet Prince. Clark County seeks to recover costs associated with its response to rising rates of opioid overdoses, which includes expenses for medical treatment, law enforcement efforts and educational initiatives.
"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," a draft of the lawsuit states, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Nearly 300 Clark County residents died of an opioid overdose in 2015, according to data from the Southern Nevada Health District cited in the report.
The report did not state which drugmakers will be named in the lawsuit.
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'Corporate greed': County seeks damages from drug makers, distributors in opioid fight
Dec 6, 2017 | Star Beacon (OH)
By Justin Dennis
Ashtabula County is now seeking legal action against several opioid manufacturers and distributors whom officials said “directly contributed” to the county’s ongoing drug crisis.
A more than 250-page complaint filed Tuesday in the Ashtabula County Common Pleas Court names 23 pharmaceutical companies and individual physicians as defendants and seeks currently unspecified damages, to recoup the county’s “avoidable” costs in combating and treating opioid abuse and relieve mounting burdens on county resources.
Officials announced the suit during a Tuesday press conference.
“This case is about one thing — it’s about corporate greed,” said county Prosecutor Nicholas Iarocci, flanked by attorneys from some of the Cleveland law firms retained by the county at no cost to assist in the litigation.
The 10-count complaint includes violations of sales and deceptive trade laws, as well as charges of fraud, negligence and unjust enrichment. All are Ohio law violations, which allows the case to be heard in the county courts.
The complaint alleges opioid makers and distributors intentionally misled the public on the dangers of long-term opioid use and dependency, and pushed to normalize opioid painkiller prescription “in order to expand the market for opioids and realize blockbuster profits,” Iarocci said.
“Through a sophisticated and highly deceptive unfair marketing campaign that began in the late 1990s and deepened around 2006 — which continues to the present day — these defendants set out to, and did in fact reverse the popular and medical understanding of opioids,” he said.
In 2012, health care providers nationwide wrote 259 million prescriptions for opioid painkillers — “enough to medicate every adult in America around the clock for a month,” Iarocci said. Though Americans represent less than 5 percent of the world’s population, they consume about 80 percent of opioids supplied worldwide, he said.
“These defendants’ efforts were wildly successful, and now the United States is awash in opioids,” he said. “And here we are, mired in an opioid epidemic that has resulted in a catastrophic loss of life and millions of dollars in costs to our county resources ... with no end in sight.”
In 2014, Ohio led the country in opioid overdose deaths. Ohio residents were prescribed more than 3.8 billion doses of opioid medication between 2011 and 2015, according to Cleveland.com.
“Here in Ashtabula County, the opioid crisis has had a devastating impact on our community at every level,” President Commissioner Casey Kozlowski said Tuesday. “Just about everyone knows someone who has been directly impacted by this crisis or who has died as a result of an unintentional drug poisoning.”
The county’s unintentional overdose deaths have “skyrocketed” since 2004, when the county reported eight deaths, to 39 deaths last year — an almost 500 percent increase, Kozlowski said. And the county’s justice system and social service agencies have long been outstripped by opioid-related costs.
In the last five years, the number of children in state custody increased 73 percent, and related costs rose almost 60 percent — a side effect of rampant drug abuse, Vice President Commissioner Kathryn Whittington said Tuesday. Commissioner J.P. Ducro IV cited the drugs’ impact on the county’s available workforce.
“How much longer can we continue at this pace? Enough is enough,” Kozlowski said. “Those who have contributed to this crisis can and must be held accountable for their actions that have destroyed communities and people’s lives.”
County Coroner Dr. Pamela Lancaster, who came on in 2010, has seen opioids’ impact firsthand. She said she stopped prescribing opioid medications to her private practice patients several years ago — save those who are terminally ill or hold prescription contracts with her office.
She said she feels people aren’t “entitled” to pain relief medications like opioids, as medical associations have asserted for years.
“Although it’s sad that our county would have to resort to something like this, I think it’s way overdue and I’m happy they are taking these steps,” she said. “They’re the wealthiest companies in the world and in our country. ... They have long since benefited from the impact that (opioids have) made.
“It’s not right. It’s wrong. I think that in making them pay, at least in some way financially, it will in turn help our county citizens.”
Iarocci will be joined by several outside law firms in the case, including Napoli Shkolnik of New York, which has been involved in nearly every major suit involving several pharmaceutical entities over the last two decades, according to a release from county officials.
Those firms will be paid on a contingency fee basis, meaning they’re only paid if the county is awarded damages in the case. According to a resolution commissioners passed Tuesday, the firms will take 25 percent of the net amount recovered.
On Oct. 27, the firm filed a similar suit on behalf of Cuyahoga County, naming some of the defendants listed in Ashtabula County’s suit as a “criminal enterprise.”
Attorney Frank Gallucci III, of Cleveland firm Plevin and Gallucci — who joined county officials Tuesday along with attorney Leo Spellacy Jr. of Cleveland firm Thrasher, Dinsmore and Dolan — said his firm has also assisted Trumbull, Lake and Jefferson counties, as well as some cities across the state in similar suits.
Those cases are still in the early stages, and it’s too soon to attach a dollar figure to the damages sought.
As Gallucci explains, the suits seeks not only to recover a community’s opioid-related costs, but to reinforce them for the future — in early education on opioid abuse, justice system resources and an expansion of treatment options for addicts.
He added the cases won’t be combined into a class action lawsuit, which allows attorneys to better address the damages incurred in each community. He added bringing the charges in county court “gives you the opportunity to level the playing field.”
Iarocci said Ashtabula County deserves to enact the 7th Amendment in this case — the right to a jury trial.
“This decision, the ultimate determination and outcome of this case should be decided by locals who see the effects that this epidemic is having on our county,” he said.
Lois Miller-Martone, a clinical drug treatment supervisor who lost her 30-year-old son to heroin close to three years ago, said the effort announced Tuesday stirred her emotions.
“I’m so happy they chose to do this locally. I think it sends a clear message to everyone in the community. We’re fighting. We’re going to fight this thing,” she said.
On May 31, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine filed a similar suit against five manufacturers on behalf of the state.
Jessica Castles Smith, a spokeswoman for Janssen Pharmaceuticals, told Cleveland.com the lawsuit’s claims are “legally and factually unfounded.”
“Janssen has acted appropriately, responsibly and in the best interests of patients regarding our opioid pain medications, which are FDA-approved and carry FDA-mandated warnings about the known risks of the medications on every product label,” she said.
Mississippi also sued those same companies in 2015. And that same year, Kentucky settled complaints with Janssen and another pharmaceutical company for a total of close to $40 million.
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Florida county to sue opioid drug makers due to lack of morgue space for overdoses
Dec 6, 2017 | WSVN (FL)
By Johari Canty
A central Florida county is looking to sue several pharmaceutical companies due to the high amount of overdose victims taking up space in their morgue.
Manatee County commissioners said they are currently in the early stages of filing a lawsuit after being burdened with the cost of building a new morgue, Fox 13 reports.
Officials said the opioid problem in the area has become so bad that the medical examiner is running out of space to store the bodies of victims of opioid overdoses.
Manatee County’s Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Russell Vega says the death rate is climbing so rapidly that they have had to contract out storage space to private companies. Now the county is being forced to build a new morgue.
“You’ve got to have refrigeration or the bodies decompose,” Vega said. “No one wants that.”
County Commissioner Charles Smith said the county is taking steps to sue major pharmaceutical companies that produce a majority of the opioids that get people hooked.
“Their marketing strategies are to blame,” Smith told Fox 13. “People are dying.”
Commissioners are in the process of hiring an outside law firm that’s been involved in similar suits for other communities suffering similar troubles.
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County to file lawsuit against opioid makers, distributors
Dec 7, 2017 | Rockingham Now
By Joe Dexter
The county is moving forward with litigation against those who the Rockingham County Board of Commissioners feels are legally responsible for the wrongful distribution of prescription opiates.
On Monday, the board unanimously approved an Authority to Represent-Contingency agreement with Mississippi-based McHugh Fuller Law Group, which has formed a consortium with several other law firms across the country.
The group represents over 110 clients across the country, with clients varying from the state, county and municipal level.
Michael Fuller of McHugh Fuller Law Group will serve as lead counsel. He will be assisted by Winston-Salem based lawyers Ed Powell and Garry Whitaker, who will work locally as associate counsel.
According to a request for information response emailed to county officials, McHugh Fuller Law Group began pursuing litigation in West Virginia as the first consortium in the country to bring suits against the wholesale distributors and manufacturers together.
In November, County Attorney Emily Sloop said that expenses related to the opioid crisis have created a $100,000 burden in Rockingham County alone.
Through September, Rockingham County EMS reported 92 confirmed opiate overdoses compared to 37 during the same time period last year – a 60 percent increase.
According to the contingency agreement, the county isn’t required to provide reimbursement of litigation expense or pay an attorney fee if there is no recovery in the lawsuit.
However, McHugh Fuller will receive thirty percent of the county’s total recovery, whether the civil claim is “resolved by compromise, settlement, or trial (and appeal).”
Chairman Kevin Berger said Rockingham County residents can expect to see a lawsuit filed within the next three weeks.
Similar litigation has been filed at the federal level by McHugh Fuller, on behalf of Buncombe County.
According to the reporting by the Mountain Xpress, that litigation was filed less than a month after Buncombe commissioners approved partnering with the Mississippi law group.
Once the decision is made to retain our consortium of firms we will be able to have a draft complaint to the county for review and approval within two weeks,” said Fuller in his emailed RFI response. “Our approach brings into the litigation all those responsible at the top of the chain of distribution.”
On average, about 1.25 opioid prescriptions were written in 2016 for every person living in Rockingham County. Nearly 10 million painkiller pills were disbursed in the rural region that is home to just over 91,000 residents.
“The problem is real,” said Commissioner Craig Travis during the comment portion of Monday’s regular meeting. “It's very dangerous, especially in Rockingham County. I don't know if some people know or not but we had an overdose today in a high school, so it has reached your kids. You need to take this seriously and you need to lock up your medicine at home. Your kids are playing games with your drugs, whether you know it or not. I hope you try to teach your kids about this problem and how dangerous it really can be."
The board also voted unanimously to sign a resolution deeming the opioid crisis a public nuisance that must be abated for the benefit of the county and its residents.
In other business:
Rockingham County Manager Lance Metzler announced the election of chairman and vice-chairman for the upcoming year. The Rockingham County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to name Kevin Berger chairman and Reece Pyrtle vice-chair.
County Attorney Emily Sloop has tenured her resignation, effective Dec. 6. Chairman Berger made the announcement, following closed session personnel discussion. The board announced that former county attorney Eugene Russell will fill in on an interim basis. Russell served as county attorney for 25 years, before retiring in November of 2012. County Manager Lance Metzler confirmed Tuesday that Sloop has taken a position in Washington D.C. with the U.S. Department of Defense.
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Surry County announces lawsuit against opioid companies
Dec 6, 2017 | WXII (NC)
By Jonee' Lewis
The Surry County Board of Commissioners approved a resolution this week to sue manufacturers and distributors of opioids.
Surry County will file a lawsuit against five of the largest manufacturers of prescription opioids, stating the companies pushed highly addictive, dangerous opioids and falsely represented to doctors the extent of possible drug addiction.
The county reports that statistics from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show the number of opioid prescriptions distributed in Surry County last year exceeded the total county population.
“The primary things that the suit would do would be to educate (people, and), enhance law enforcement and treatment. Funds that we would obtain from a settlement would be put towards those avenues,” County Attorney Edwin Woltz said.
County leaders said the public has had to bear the financial burden for treatment, law enforcement hours, jail costs and education. They hope this suit can help the county recoup some of the damages.
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Kandiyohi County weighs opioid lawsuit
Dec 6, 2017 | West Central Tribune (MN)
By Anne Polta
Kandiyohi County is weighing whether to join other Minnesota counties in suing drug manufacturers and distributors for their role in the mounting opioid crisis across the United States.
County Attorney Shane Baker raised the issue Wednesday in what's likely to be the first of many conversations with the Kandiyohi County Board of Commissioners.
"Ultimately it will be your policy decision," Baker told the board.
If Kandiyohi County decides to go ahead, it will join a growing number of Minnesota counties that are pursuing litigation to recoup public costs stemming from opioid misuse. Some are filing individual lawsuits while others are joining class-action suits in federal court.
The human toll has been rising, Baker said Wednesday.
Drug overdose deaths in Minnesota increased 9.2 percent from 2015 to 2016 and have gone up six-fold since 2000, according to the Minnesota Department of Health. There were 376 opioid-related deaths last year, nearly half involving prescription drugs such as oxycodone or hydrocodone.
"Each one of those cases is a tragedy," Baker said.
The cost to the public ranges from law enforcement and human services to out-of-home placement for children whose families are swept up in the opioid epidemic.
Lawsuits being filed across the U.S. allege numerous wrongdoings: deceptive marketing practices, consumer fraud and false advertising that downplay the drugs' addictive qualities and negligently allow the distribution of large quantities.
Any of these could form the basis of a lawsuit by Kandiyohi County, Baker said.
The first step, he suggested, is to collect information from county departments and analyze the data to help determine if litigation "is right for Kandiyohi County."
Some Minnesota counties and cities already filed suit in order to meet the deadline for a federal hearing last week in Missouri. But there's no specific time frame for Kandiyohi County to decide, Baker said.
The County Commissioners gave indications Wednesday that it's not likely to be a straightforward decision.
They wondered how well the local cost of opioid misuse can be measured and whether a lawsuit would yield a return to the taxpayers. They also questioned whether litigation would hold mostly symbolic value.
"How much difference are we going to make?" Commissioner Harlan Madsen wondered.
At the same time, board members said they recognize the cost to society of the opioid crisis.
Madsen called it "a scourge."
It's important to continue talking about it, he said. "Each of us has a significant role to play in the overall total solution that will not happen overnight."
Commissioner Jim Butterfield said he personally knows of three opioid overdose deaths within the past few years. "Doing nothing is not an option," he said.
Kandiyohi County owes it to the public to give thoughtful consideration to a lawsuit, he said. "That'll send a message to the manufacturers that we are serious," he said.
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Allegheny County considering lawsuit against drug companies over opioid crisis
Dec 6, 2017 | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA)
By Rich Lord
Allegheny County is about to ask law firms for proposals to sue the pharmaceutical giants widely blamed for setting off the current opioid crisis, the county solicitor told council members at a meeting late Wednesday.
The county plans to issue a request on Friday for qualifications from large "toxic tort" firms that would like to review the county's legal options, add up the county's damages from opioids including heroin, and sue.
"There's a very good chance we would authorize them to go ahead with litigation," said county Solicitor Andrew Szefi. "The point of this is not just to get money for the county. ... You want to have talks about solutions and how you would effectuate change in the industry to remediate the issue. Not just, here's some money, go away."
The chosen firm would bear the costs and be paid on a contingency basis, he said, so there would be no cost to taxpayers.
Lame duck Councilman Ed Kress, R-Shaler, passed around the one-paragraph letter from two physicians, penned in 1980, that pharmaceutical companies long used to convince doctors that opioids like OxyContin were not addictive. Now, experts say the surging use of heroin and fentanyl, often by people who became addicted to prescription opioids, drives the overdose surge that took 650 lives in the county last year.
"When you think about how many words caused all these damages and all of these deaths, it's unbelievable," Mr. Kress fumed.
Council colleague Cindy Kirk, though, said her work as a nurse at UPMC Presbyterian has showed her that the opioids are necessary.
"But what about the people who actually need the pain medication?" Ms. Kirk asked. "I'd hate to not have the tools to help the people who require it."
After roughly 45 minutes of debate, the county council Health and Human Services Committee voted to send a motion to council asking the solicitor to consider a lawsuit, with a neutral recommendation. Mr. Szefi said the council committee's neutrality would not prevent his office from proceeding this week to ask law firms for proposals.
He said the firms' proposals would be due at the end of January, after which the county will evaluate them and choose a firm. It's too soon to say when a lawsuit might be filed, or how much the county might claim in damages from the epidemic, he said.
He said the county will explore whether costs have risen in the courts, jail, and human services departments because of the opioid problem.
The county's fragmentation -- 130 municipal governments and 47 designated emergency medicine providers -- means that one, central authority needs to step up and sue, Mr. Kress has argued. Mr. Szefi, though, said that the county will likely only be able to sue to recover its own costs, not those of municipalities.
The number of lawsuits by states and counties against opioid manufacturers and distributors is rising. In October, Beaver County became the first in this region to file, seeking recompense for the costs of the painkiller epidemic from Purdue Pharma, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Cephalon, Johnson & Johnson, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Endo Health Solutions, Allergan, Actavis, Watson Pharmaceuticals, McKesson, Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen, subsidiaries of some of those firms, and five allied physicians.
Attorney General Josh Shapiro's office is one of the leaders in a 41-state investigation of the opioid industry. Last week at a forum about opioids in Mt. Lebanon, he pledged to "hold those accountable who have fueled this epidemic," though he declined to say whether he thinks criminal charges should be brought. "I think the pharmaceutical companies have to play a role in the answer to this crisis," he said.
Council's motion cites a lawsuit by Nassau County, N.Y., which alleges that the pharmaceutical companies knew about the addictive nature of opioids for years, and yet marketed them broadly. It quotes estimates that opioid abuse is burdening the nation's health and social systems to the tune of $55 billion each year. And it indicates that the industry is settling cases by states and counties for millions of dollars.
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County may join lawsuit over opioids
Dec 6, 2017 | The Neshoba Democrat (PA)
By Debbie Burt Myers
Neshoba County is considering joining a nationwide lawsuit against national distributors of opioids, the Board of Supervisors said on Monday after hearing a presentation from a Jackson attorney who is partnering with a Philadelphia firm in the litigation.
Supervisors have discussed the possibility of joining in the lawsuit since August, calling the opioid epidemic a public nuisance.
Sheila Bossier of Bossier and Associates of Jackson told supervisors Monday that Mississippi was the first state to file litigation against drug makers.
She is encouraging Neshoba and other Mississippi counties to join in, noting that there was an opioid drug crisis across the state.
Bossier asked the board to hire her firm, in partnership with the Mars, Mars and Mars law firm in Philadelphia, to represent Neshoba County in the lawsuit at no cost to the county.
Supervisors took her request under advisement.
In Neshoba County alone, Bossier said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that there were 147.1 opioid prescriptions written for every 100 people during 2016.
“Sixty-six prescriptions per 100 is the national average,” she said.
Bossier said distributors of opioid medications could be vulnerable to damage claims to treat those who are addicted as well as to fund related emergency room and law enforcement expenses among others.
“They are marketing to down play the addiction,” Bossier said, noting that opioid addiction often leads to heroin addiction.
“Mississippi is the fifth largest user of opioids in the country,” she said. “That is a staggering statistic if you compare it to the rest of the country.”
Bossier told supervisors that opioid addiction was costing counties through uninsured emergency room visits, ambulance responses and law enforcement, among other areas.
“Many small communities don’t understand the rising costs are, in part, related to opioid abuse,” she said.
Bossier said her firm, in partnership with Mars, Mars and Mars, would like to represent the county in a multi-district litigation.
“Like the tobacco litigation, there is power in numbers,” she said.
Attorney Dan Mars told supervisors that one only had to attend Circuit Court to see the effects of drug addiction in Neshoba County.
“The first thing here was marijuana and then crack cocaine. This is much more serious. I venture to guess that 80 percent of the crime is related to opioid addiction,” he said.
Board of Supervisors Attorney Wade White said it had become apparent to supervisors through the jail population, Department of Human Services matters and hospital populations that the distributors have flooded the area with opioids.
Opioids are prescription-type drugs such as morphine, hydrocodone and oxycodone.
White said distributors of opioids are “dumping too many on the market, over promoting their use to the medical community and failing to monitor the number of opioids being prescribed as required by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.
“Specifically federal law requires distributors of narcotics, not pharmacists, but national drug distributors, to monitor the volume of drugs and the destination of drugs. In that way they can alert the DEA of potential abuse in communities.”
A community of 5,000 people who receive 2,500 opioid prescriptions in a month should raise red flags and alert the DEA of opioid abuse, White said.
“However, the national distributors have failed to do that and have misled the medical community about the long-term effects of these drugs, among other things.
“The result is addiction, crime, broken families and broken lives,” he said.
White said the supervisors would continue to explore the county’s options. -
Sedgwick County could file lawsuit over opioids
Dec 6, 2017 | KFDI (KS)
By Staff
Sedgwick County commissioners have approved a resolution that declares the opioid epidemic as a public nuisance. That sets the stage for a possible lawsuit in the future against opioid distributors.
Assistant county counselor Michael Fessinger told commissioners Wednesday that the lawsuit would be intended to recover the costs of county services used to deal with the opioid crisis. That would involve costs of law enforcement, increased medical care, counseling, and other services.
Wichita attorney Mike Fuller is working with the county on the issue, and he said he has been talking with the state attorney general's office and other counties about possibly working together on a lawsuit. County counselor Eric Yost said he has also talked with attorney general Derek Schmidt about working together in a partnership on the issue.
Commissioners voted 4-1 for the resolution. Richard Ranzau voted no, saying he has not seen enough evidence to determine if the distributors are responsible for the harm caused to the community by opioid use.
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Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it?
Dec 7, 2017 | The Guardian
By Susana Ferreira
When the drugs came, they hit all at once. It was the 80s, and by the time one in 10 people had slipped into the depths of heroin use – bankers, university students, carpenters, socialites, miners – Portugal was in a state of panic.
Álvaro Pereira was working as a family doctor in Olhão in southern Portugal. “People were injecting themselves in the street, in public squares, in gardens,” he told me. “At that time, not a day passed when there wasn’t a robbery at a local business, or a mugging.”Lose yourself in a great story: Sign up for the long read email
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The crisis began in the south. The 80s were a prosperous time in Olhão, a fishing town 31 miles west of the Spanish border. Coastal waters filled fishermen’s nets from the Gulf of Cádiz to Morocco, tourism was growing, and currency flowed throughout the southern Algarve region. But by the end of the decade, heroin began washing up on Olhão’s shores. Overnight, Pereira’s beloved slice of the Algarve coast became one of the drug capitals of Europe: one in every 100 Portuguese was battling a problematic heroin addiction at that time, but the number was even higher in the south. Headlines in the local press raised the alarm about overdose deaths and rising crime. The rate of HIV infection in Portugal became the highest in the European Union. Pereira recalled desperate patients and families beating a path to his door, terrified, bewildered, begging for help. “I got involved,” he said, “only because I was ignorant.”
In truth, there was a lot of ignorance back then. Forty years of authoritarian ruleunder the regime established by António Salazar in 1933 had suppressed education, weakened institutions and lowered the school-leaving age, in a strategy intended to keep the population docile. The country was closed to the outside world; people missed out on the experimentation and mind-expanding culture of the 1960s. When the regime ended abruptly in a military coup in 1974, Portugal was suddenly opened to new markets and influences. Under the old regime, Coca-Cola was banned and owning a cigarette lighter required a licence. When marijuana and then heroin began flooding in, the country was utterly unprepared.
Pereira tackled the growing wave of addiction the only way he knew how: one patient at a time. A student in her 20s who still lived with her parents might have her family involved in her recovery; a middle-aged man, estranged from his wife and living on the street, faced different risks and needed a different kind of support. Pereira improvised, calling on institutions and individuals in the community to lend a hand.
In 2001, nearly two decades into Pereira’s accidental specialisation in addiction, Portugal became the first country to decriminalise the possession and consumption of all illicit substances. Rather than being arrested, those caught with a personal supply might be given a warning, a small fine, or told to appear before a local commission – a doctor, a lawyer and a social worker – about treatment, harm reduction, and the support services that were available to them.
The opioid crisis soon stabilised, and the ensuing years saw dramatic drops in problematic drug use, HIV and hepatitis infection rates, overdose deaths, drug-related crime and incarceration rates. HIV infection plummeted from an all-time high in 2000 of 104.2 new cases per million to 4.2 cases per million in 2015. The data behind these changes has been studied and cited as evidence by harm-reduction movements around the globe. It’s misleading, however, to credit these positive results entirely to a change in law.
Portugal’s remarkable recovery, and the fact that it has held steady through several changes in government – including conservative leaders who would have preferred to return to the US-style war on drugs – could not have happened without an enormous cultural shift, and a change in how the country viewed drugs, addiction – and itself. In many ways, the law was merely a reflection of transformations that were already happening in clinics, in pharmacies and around kitchen tables across the country. The official policy of decriminalisation made it far easier for a broad range of services (health, psychiatry, employment, housing etc) that had been struggling to pool their resources and expertise, to work together more effectively to serve their communities.
The language began to shift, too. Those who had been referred to sneeringly as drogados (junkies) – became known more broadly, more sympathetically, and more accurately, as “people who use drugs” or “people with addiction disorders”. This, too, was crucial.
It is important to note that Portugal stabilised its opioid crisis, but it didn’t make it disappear. While drug-related death, incarceration and infection rates plummeted, the country still had to deal with the health complications of long-term problematic drug use. Diseases including hepatitis C, cirrhosis and liver cancer are a burden on a health system that is still struggling to recover from recession and cutbacks. In this way, Portugal’s story serves as a warning of challenges yet to come.
Despite enthusiastic international reactions to Portugal’s success, local harm-reduction advocates have been frustrated by what they see as stagnation and inaction since decriminalisation came into effect. They criticise the state for dragging its feet on establishing supervised injection sites and drug consumption facilities; for failing to make the anti-overdose medication naloxone more readily available; for not implementing needle-exchange programmes in prisons. Where, they ask, is the courageous spirit and bold leadership that pushed the country to decriminalise drugs in the first place?
In the early days of Portugal’s panic, when Pereira’s beloved Olhão began falling apart in front of him, the state’s first instinct was to attack. Drugs were denounced as evil, drug users were demonised, and proximity to either was criminally and spiritually punishable. The Portuguese government launched a series of national anti-drug campaigns that were less “Just Say No” and more “Drugs Are Satan”.
Informal treatment approaches and experiments were rushed into use throughout the country, as doctors, psychiatrists, and pharmacists worked independently to deal with the flood of drug-dependency disorders at their doors, sometimes risking ostracism or arrest to do what they believed was best for their patients.
In 1977, in the north of the country, psychiatrist Eduíno Lopes pioneered a methadone programme at the Centro da Boavista in Porto. Lopes was the first doctor in continental Europe to experiment with substitution therapy, flying in methadone powder from Boston, under the auspices of the Ministry of Justice, rather than the Ministry of Health. His efforts met with a vicious public backlash and the disapproval of his peers, who considered methadone therapy nothing more than state-sponsored drug addiction.
In Lisbon, Odette Ferreira, an experienced pharmacist and pioneering HIV researcher, started an unofficial needle-exchange programme to address the growing Aids crisis. She received death threats from drug dealers, and legal threats from politicians. Ferreira – who is now in her 90s, and still has enough swagger to carry off long fake eyelashes and red leather at a midday meeting – started giving away clean syringes in the middle of Europe’s biggest open-air drug market, in the Casal Ventoso neighbourhood of Lisbon. She collected donations of clothing, soap, razors, condoms, fruit and sandwiches, and distributed them to users. When dealers reacted with hostility, she snapped back: “Don’t mess with me. You do your job, and I’ll do mine.” She then bullied the Portuguese Association of Pharmacies into running the country’s – and indeed the world’s – first national needle-exchange programme.
A flurry of expensive private clinics and free, faith-based facilities emerged, promising detoxes and miracle cures, but the first public drug-treatment centre run by the Ministry of Health – the Centro das Taipas in Lisbon – did not begin operating until 1987. Strapped for resources in Olhão, Pereira sent a few patients for treatment, although he did not agree with the abstinence-based approach used at Taipas. “First you take away the drug, and then, with psychotherapy, you plug up the crack,” said Pereira. There was no scientific evidence to show that this would work – and it didn’t.
He also sent patients to Lopes’s methadone programme in Porto, and found that some responded well. But Porto was at the other end of the country. He wanted to try methadone for his patients, but the Ministry of Health hadn’t yet approved it for use. To get around that, Pereira sometimes asked a nurse to sneak methadone to him in the boot of his car.
Pereira’s work treating patients for addiction eventually caught the attention of the Ministry of Health. “They heard there was a crazy man in the Algarve who was working on his own,” he said, with a slow smile. Now 68, he is sprightly and charming, with an athletic build, thick and wavy white hair that bounces when he walks, a gravelly drawl and a bottomless reserve of warmth. “They came down to find me at the clinic and proposed that I open a treatment centre,” he said. He invited a colleague from at a family practice in the next town over to join him – a young local doctor named João Goulão.
Goulão was a 20-year-old medical student when he was offered his first hit of heroin. He declined because he didn’t know what it was. By the time he finished school, got his licence and began practising medicine at a health centre in the southern city of Faro, it was everywhere. Like Pereira, he accidentally ended up specialising in treating drug addiction.
The two young colleagues joined forces to open southern Portugal’s first CAT in 1988. (These kinds of centres have used different names and acronyms over the years, but are still commonly referred to as Centros de Atendimento a Toxicodependentes, or CATs.) Local residents were vehemently opposed, and the doctors were improvising treatments as they went along. The following month, Pereira and Goulão opened a second CAT in Olhão, and other family doctors opened more in the north and central regions, forming a loose network. It had become clear to a growing number of practitioners that the most effective response to addiction had to be personal, and rooted in communities. Treatment was still small-scale, local and largely ad hoc.
The first official call to change Portugal’s drug laws came from Rui Pereira, a former constitutional court judge who undertook an overhaul of the penal code in 1996. He found the practice of jailing people for taking drugs to be counterproductive and unethical. “My thought right off the bat was that it wasn’t legitimate for the state to punish users,” he told me in his office at the University of Lisbon’s school of law. At that time, about half of the people in prison were there for drug-related reasons, and the epidemic, he said, was thought to be “an irresolvable problem”. He recommended that drug use be discouraged without imposing penalties, or further alienating users. His proposals weren’t immediately adopted, but they did not go unnoticed.
In 1997, after 10 years of running the CAT in Faro, Goulão was invited to help design and lead a national drug strategy. He assembled a team of experts to study potential solutions to Portugal’s drug problem. The resulting recommendations, including the full decriminalisation of drug use, were presented in 1999, approved by the council of ministers in 2000, and a new national plan of action came into effect in 2001.
Today, Goulão is Portugal’s drug czar. He has been the lodestar throughout eight alternating conservative and progressive administrations; through heated standoffs with lawmakers and lobbyists; through shifts in scientific understanding of addiction and in cultural tolerance for drug use; through austerity cuts, and through a global policy climate that only very recently became slightly less hostile. Goulão is also decriminalisation’s busiest global ambassador. He travels almost non-stop, invited again and again to present the successes of Portugal’s harm-reduction experiment to authorities around the world, from Norway to Brazil, which are dealing with desperate situations in their own countries.
“These social movements take time,” Goulão told me. “The fact that this happened across the board in a conservative society such as ours had some impact.” If the heroin epidemic had affected only Portugal’s lower classes or racialised minorities, and not the middle or upper classes, he doubts the conversation around drugs, addiction and harm reduction would have taken shape in the same way. “There was a point whenyou could not find a single Portuguese family that wasn’t affected. Every family had their addict, or addicts. This was universal in a way that the society felt: ‘We have to do something.’”
Portugal’s policy rests on three pillars: one, that there’s no such thing as a soft or hard drug, only healthy and unhealthy relationships with drugs; two, that an individual’s unhealthy relationship with drugs often conceals frayed relationships with loved ones, with the world around them, and with themselves; and three, that the eradication of all drugs is an impossible goal.
“The national policy is to treat each individual differently,” Goulão told me. “The secret is for us to be present.”
Adrop-in centre called IN-Mouraria sits unobtrusively in a lively, rapidly gentrifying neighbourhood of Lisbon, a longtime enclave of marginalised communities. From 2pm to 4pm, the centre provides services to undocumented migrants and refugees; from 5pm to 8pm, they open their doors to drug users. A staff of psychologists, doctors and peer support workers (themselves former drug users) offer clean needles, pre-cut squares of foil, crack kits, sandwiches, coffee, clean clothing, toiletries, rapid HIV testing, and consultations – all free and anonymous.
On the day I visited, young people stood around waiting for HIV test results while others played cards, complained about police harassment, tried on outfits, traded advice on living situations, watched movies and gave pep talks to one another. They varied in age, religion, ethnicity and gender identity, and came from all over the country and all over the world. When a slender, older man emerged from the bathroom, unrecognisable after having shaved his beard off, an energetic young man who had been flipping through magazines threw up his arms and cheered. He then turned to a quiet man sitting on my other side, his beard lush and dark hair curling from under his cap, and said: “What about you? Why don’t you go shave off that beard? You can’t give up on yourself, man. That’s when it’s all over.” The bearded man cracked a smile.
During my visits over the course of a month, I got to know some of the peer support workers, including João, a compact man with blue eyes who was rigorous in going over the details and nuances of what I was learning. João wanted to be sure I understood their role at the drop-in centre was not to force anyone to stop using, but to help minimise the risks users were exposed to.
“Our objective is not to steer people to treatment – they have to want it,” he told me. But even when they do want to stop using, he continued, having support workers accompany them to appointments and treatment facilities can feel like a burden on the user – and if the treatment doesn’t go well, there is the risk that that person will feel too ashamed to return to the drop-in centre. “Then we lose them, and that’s not what we want to do,” João said. “I want them to come back when they relapse.” Failure was part of the treatment process, he told me. And he would know.
João is a marijuana-legalisation activist, open about being HIV-positive, and after being absent for part of his son’s youth, he is delighting in his new role as a grandfather. He had stopped doing speedballs (mixtures of cocaine and opiates) after several painful, failed treatment attempts, each more destructive than the last. He long used cannabis as a form of therapy – methadone did not work for him, nor did any of the inpatient treatment programmes he tried – but the cruel hypocrisy of decriminalisation meant that although smoking weed was not a criminal offence, purchasing it was. His last and worst relapse came when he went to buy marijuana from his usual dealer and was told: “I don’t have that right now, but I do have some good cocaine.” João said no thanks and drove away, but soon found himself heading to a cash machine, and then back to the dealer. After this relapse, he embarked on a new relationship, and started his own business. At one point he had more than 30 employees. Then the financial crisis hit. “Clients weren’t paying, and creditors started knocking on my door,” he told me. “Within six months I had burned through everything I had built up over four or five years.”
In the mornings, I followed the centre’s street teams out to the fringes of Lisbon. I met Raquel and Sareia – their slim forms swimming in the large hi-vis vests they wear on their shifts – who worked with Crescer na Maior, a harm-reduction NGO. Six times a week, they loaded up a large white van with drinking water, wet wipes, gloves, boxes of tinfoil and piles of state-issued drug kits: green plastic pouches with single-use servings of filtered water, citric acid, a small metal tray for cooking, gauze, filter and a clean syringe. Portugal does not yet have any supervised injection sites (although there is legislation to allow them, several attempts to open one have come to nothing), so, Raquel and Sareia told me, they go out to the open-air sites where they know people go to buy and use. Both are trained psychologists, but out in the streets they are known simply as the “needle girls”.
“Good afternoon!” Raquel called out cheerily, as we walked across a seemingly abandoned lot in an area called Cruz Vermelha. “Street team!” People materialised from their hiding places like some strange version of whack-a-mole, poking their heads out from the holes in the wall where they had gone to smoke or shoot up. “My needle girls,” one woman cooed to them tenderly. “How are you, my loves?” Most made polite conversation, updating the workers on their health struggles, love lives, immigration woes or housing needs. One woman told them she would be going back to Angola to deal with her mother’s estate, that she was looking forward to the change of scenery. Another man told them he had managed to get his online girlfriend’s visa approved for a visit. “Does she know you’re still using?” Sareia asked. The man looked sheepish.
“I start methadone tomorrow,” another man said proudly. He was accompanied by his beaming girlfriend, and waved a warm goodbye to the girls as they handed him a square of foil.
In the foggy northern city of Porto, peer support workers from Caso – an association run by and for drug users and former users, the only one of its kind in Portugal – meet every week at a noisy cafe. They come here every Tuesday morning to down espressos, fresh pastries and toasted sandwiches, and to talk out the challenges, debate drug policy (which, a decade and a half after the law came into effect, was still confusing for many) and argue, with the warm rowdiness that is characteristic of people in the northern region. When I asked them what they thought of Portugal’s move to treat drug users as sick people in need of help, rather than as criminals, they scoffed. “Sick? We don’t say ‘sick’ up here. We’re not sick.”
I was told this again and again in the north: thinking of drug addiction simply in terms of health and disease was too reductive. Some people are able to use drugs for years without any major disruption to their personal or professional relationships. It only became a problem, they told me, when it became a problem.
Caso was supported by Apdes, a development NGO with a focus on harm reduction and empowerment, including programmes geared toward recreational users. Their award-winning Check!n project has for years set up shop at festivals, bars and parties to test substances for dangers. I was told more than once that if drugs were legalised, not just decriminalised, then these substances would be held to the same rigorous quality and safety standards as food, drink and medication.
In spite of Portugal’s tangible results, other countries have been reluctant to follow. The Portuguese began seriously considering decriminalisation in 1998, immediately following the first UN General Assembly Special Session on the Global Drug Problem (UNgass). High-level UNgass meetings are convened every 10 years to set drug policy for all member states, addressing trends in addiction, infection, money laundering, trafficking and cartel violence. At the first session – for which the slogan was “A drug-free world: we can do it” – Latin American member states pressed for a radical rethinking of the war on drugs, but every effort to examine alternative models (such as decriminalisation) was blocked. By the time of the next session, in 2008, worldwide drug use and violence related to the drug trade had vastly increased. An extraordinary session was held last year, but it was largely a disappointment – the outcome document didn’t mention “harm reduction” once.
Despite that letdown, 2016 produced a number of promising other developments: Chile and Australia opened their first medical cannabis clubs; following the lead of several others, four more US states introduced medical cannabis, and four more legalised recreational cannabis; Denmark opened the world’s largest drug consumption facility, and France opened its first; South Africa proposed legalising medical cannabis; Canada outlined a plan to legalise recreational cannabis nationally and to open more supervised injection sites; and Ghana announced it would decriminalise all personal drug use.
The biggest change in global attitudes and policy has been the momentum behind cannabis legalisation. Local activists have pressed Goulão to take a stance on regulating cannabis and legalising its sale in Portugal; for years, he has responded that the time wasn’t right. Legalising a single substance would call into question the foundation of Portugal’s drug and harm-reduction philosophy. If the drugs aren’t the problem, if the problem is the relationship with drugs, if there’s no such thing as a hard or a soft drug, and if all illicit substances are to be treated equally, he argued, then shouldn’t all drugs be legalised and regulated?
Massive international cultural shifts in thinking about drugs and addiction are needed to make way for decriminalisation and legalisation globally. In the US, the White House has remained reluctant to address what drug policy reform advocates have termed an “addiction to punishment”. But if conservative, isolationist, Catholic Portugal could transform into a country where same-sex marriage and abortion are legal, and where drug use is decriminalised, a broader shift in attitudes seems possible elsewhere. But, as the harm-reduction adage goes: one has to want the change in order to make it.
When Pereira first opened the CAT in Olhão, he faced vociferous opposition from residents; they worried that with more drogados would come more crime. But the opposite happened. Months later, one neighbour came to ask Pereira’s forgiveness. She hadn’t realised it at the time, but there had been three drug dealers on her street; when their local clientele stopped buying, they packed up and left.
The CAT building itself is a drab, brown two-storey block, with offices upstairs and an open waiting area, bathrooms, storage and clinics down below. The doors open at 8.30am, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Patients wander in throughout the day for appointments, to chat, to kill time, to wash, or to pick up their weekly supply of methadone doses. They tried to close the CAT for Christmas Day one year, but patients asked that it stay open. For some, estranged from loved ones and adrift from any version of home, this is the closest thing they’ve got to community and normality.
“It’s not just about administering methadone,” Pereira told me. “You have to maintain a relationship.”
In a back room, rows of little canisters with banana-flavoured methadone doses were lined up, each labelled with a patient’s name and information. The Olhão CAT regularly services about 400 people, but that number can double during the summer months, when seasonal workers and tourists come to town. Anyone receiving treatment elsewhere in the country, or even outside Portugal, can have their prescription sent over to the CAT, making the Algarve an ideal harm-reduction holiday destination.
After lunch at a restaurant owned by a former CAT employee, the doctor took me to visit another of his projects – a particular favourite. His decades of working with addiction disorders had taught him some lessons, and he poured his accumulated knowledge into designing a special treatment facility on the outskirts of Olhão: the Unidade de Desabituação, or Dishabituation Centre. Several such UDs, as they are known, have opened in other regions of the country, but this centre was developed to cater to the particular circumstances and needs of the south.
Pereira stepped down as director some years ago, but his replacement asked him to stay on to help with day-to-day operations. Pereira should be retired by now – indeed, he tried to – but Portugal is suffering from an overall shortage of health professionals in the public system, and not enough young doctors are stepping into this specialisation. As his colleagues elsewhere in the country grow closer to their own retirements, there’s a growing sense of dread that there is no one to replace them.
“Those of us from the Algarve always had a bit of a different attitude from our colleagues up north,” Pereira told me. “I don’t treat patients. They treat themselves. My function is to help them to make the changes they need to make.”
And thank goodness there is only one change to make, he deadpanned as we pulled into the centre’s parking lot: “You need to change almost everything.” He cackled at his own joke and stepped out of his car.
The glass doors at the entrance slid open to a facility that was bright and clean without feeling overwhelmingly institutional. Doctors’ and administrators’ offices were up a sweeping staircase ahead. Women at the front desk nodded their hellos, and Pereira greeted them warmly: “Good afternoon, my darlings.”
The Olhão centre was built for just under €3m (£2.6m), publicly funded, and opened to its first patients nine years ago. This facility, like the others, is connected to a web of health and social rehabilitation services. It can house up to 14 people at once: treatments are free, available on referral from a doctor or therapist, and normally last between eight and 14 days. When people first arrive, they put all of their personal belongings – photos, mobile phones, everything – into storage, retrievable on departure.
“We believe in the old maxim: ‘No news is good news,’” explained Pereira. “We don’t do this to punish them but to protect them.” Memories can be triggering, and sometimes families, friends and toxic relationships can be enabling.
To the left there were intake rooms and a padded isolation room, with clunky security cameras propped up in every corner. Patients each had their own suites – simple, comfortable and private. To the right, there was a “colour” room, with a pottery wheel, recycled plastic bottles, paints, egg cartons, glitter and other craft supplies. In another room, coloured pencils and easels for drawing. A kiln, and next to it a collection of excellent handmade ashtrays. Many patients remained heavy smokers.
Patients were always occupied, always using their hands or their bodies or their senses, doing exercise or making art, always filling their time with something. “We’d often hear our patients use the expression ‘me and my body’,” Pereira said. “As though there was a dissociation between the ‘me’ and ‘my flesh’.”
To help bring the body back, there was a small gym, exercise classes, physiotherapy and a jacuzzi. And after so much destructive behaviour – messing up their bodies, their relationships, their lives and communities – learning that they could create good and beautiful things was sometimes transformational.
“You know those lines on a running track?” Pereira asked me. He believed that everyone – however imperfect – was capable of finding their own way, given the right support. “Our love is like those lines.”
He was firm, he said, but never punished or judged his patients for their relapses or failures. Patients were free to leave at any time, and they were welcome to return if they needed, even if it was more than a dozen times.
He offered no magic wand or one-size-fits-all solution, just this daily search for balance: getting up, having breakfast, making art, taking meds, doing exercise, going to work, going to school, going into the world, going forward. Being alive, he said to me more than once, can be very complicated.
“My darling,” he told me, “it’s like I always say: I may be a doctor, but nobody’s perfect.”
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Opioid Pain Treatment Addiction Costs Workers’ Comp Carriers, Health Insurers Billions
Dec 7, 2017 | Claims Journal
By Gary Wickert
Big Pharma is having a Big Tobacco moment. Since 1999, the number of prescription opioids sold in America has almost quadrupled. Over the same period, prescription opioid deathshave more than quadrupled and millions have become addicted to legally-prescribed painkillers that are 50 times more powerful than heroin. Nearly two million Americans met criteria for prescription opioid abuse and dependence in 2013. In the same year, there were more than 16,000 deaths from prescription opioid overdose. Dozens of lawsuits and class actions have been filed against physicians, pharmacies, and the pharmaceutical companies manufacturing and distributing painkillers such as Fentanyl, Hydrocodone, and Oxycodone (under the brand names OxyContin, Roxicodone, and Oxecta). U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) has endorsed the lawsuits and claims that prescription painkillers are handed out in his home state “like M & M’s.” Even President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump spoke out publicly last month about fighting opioid addiction.
Much like the tobacco litigation over the past 50 years, there is no precedent for these opioid lawsuits. The complaints allege that by prescribing and supplying these powerfully addictive drugs, despite knowing their highly addictive characteristics, the physicians and pharmacies in question caused the plaintiffs to abuse the opioids and even engage in criminal activity to obtain them. The plaintiffs in these lawsuits aren’t just the families of those who died from overdose, incurred the cost of rehabilitation treatment, or suffered lost wages and jobs. Like the tobacco litigation, suits are now being filed by municipalities, counties, and states, claiming that the dangerous products have cost the government substantial sums of public funds to deal with the consequences of an opioid epidemic that was fueled by the defendants’ acts of placing these highly addictive prescription medications into the stream of commerce and “fraudulent” marketing regarding the safety of these analgesics. Even insurance companies are waking up to the fact that they have had to pay billions in claim dollars as a direct result of this preventable epidemic. They too are lining up to seek compensation and reimbursement for increased workers’ compensation and health insurance claims costs that could amount to more than $25 billion.
Opioid addiction starts with a legitimate doctor’s short-term pain relief prescription and a trip to the pharmacy, rather than a dark alley rendezvous with a drug dealer. Opioids are narcotic painkillers that work by preventing pain signals from reaching the brain. They are synthetic drugs that resemble the effects of natural opium, derived from the opium poppy. A 2016 survey reveals that 99 percent of doctors are prescribing opioids for longer than the three-day period recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Studies show that prescribing opioids isn’t the best treatment for chronic pain, and can actually increase a patient’s sensitivity to pain, requiring higher doses, and leading to addiction. Employees taking opioids (even if not addicted) pose a safety risk to themselves and others. In that way, opioid pain treatment in one employee can lead to the injury of a second employee, and so on. The behavior of someone on opioids can be similar to that of someone who has been drinking. Jobs that involve working from heights, being on construction sites, and driving are among those that cannot be safely performed while on opioids.
Last months’ issue of Medical Care magazine estimated that the societal cost of the U.S. prescription opioid epidemic tops $80 billion and is growing. Health insurers and workers’ compensation carriers shoulder about one-third of this cost, while only one-fourth of it is borne by the public sector. For employers and workers’ compensation carriers, this means that even employees who don’t fit the stereotype of drug users will struggle with this potentially deadly addiction.
The crisis has led directly to increased workers’ compensation costs. A 2012 report by Lockton Companies concluded that “prescription opioids are presently the number one workers’ compensation problem in terms of controlling the ultimate cost of indemnity losses.” The report says that there has never been a more damaging impact on the cost of workers’ compensation claims from a single issue than the abuse of opioid prescriptions for the management of chronic pain. It says that an estimated 55 to 86 percent of all claimants are receiving opioids for chronic pain relief. Read the Lockton report: http://www.lockton.com/Resource_/PageResource/MKT/wc-pbm10-9-2012.pdf
The perceived insurance cost of the opioid prescription crisis can easily be under-estimated. Ask most claims professionals, CFO’s, or corporate risk managers how much influence prescription drugs have on their cost of claims and the answer will typically be “a small percentage.” They reference discount pricing, as communicated by their third-party administrator, but are missing the bigger and more expensive picture not revealed in pharmacy stewardship reports. Not only is there a crisis in opioid prescription proliferation and the subsequent misuse of these prescription drugs, but the total effect is unseen and unknown. Half of prescription drugs are dispensed and billed by the physicians, unseen in most reports and costing up to 300 percent more than when run through a pharmacy benefits manager.
A 2012 Hopkins-Accident Research Fund Study determined that employees prescribed even one opioid had average total claims costs four to eight times greater than employees with similar claims who didn’t take opioids. The reasons include increased emergency room visits from overdose, death, addiction treatment, related illness, and abuse and misuse of prescribed drugs. It is estimated that 35 percent of employees receiving long-term opioid pain treatment are addicted. In Illinois, physicians are engaging in a process called “physician dispensing“, in which they not only prescribe opioids, but also sell them to injured workers. Research shows that when physician dispensing takes place, doctors prescribe 3.2 times the quantity they should, at a 60 to 300 percent markup. This partially explains why a recent study found that workers in Illinois spend twice as long away from work after an injury as workers in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Indiana.
Many work-related injuries occur to the back, for which doctors are increasingly prescribing opioids both short-term and long-term to address pain, despite broad medical recommendations against long-term use of such painkillers in back cases. Washington’s Department of Labor & Industries has revealed that 42 percent of employees with back injuries received an opioid prescription in the first year after an injury. However, after one year, 16 percent of those employees were still taking opioids. According to the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI) and the Workers’ Compensation Research Institute, while all 50 states are experiencing a similar problem, long-term use of opioids was most prevalent in New York and Louisiana, with significant long-term opioid usage found in Texas, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, California, and North Carolina. This translates to billions in additional costs for workers’ compensation carriers, since the medical benefits portion of a claim may be open for years or even for the lifetime of an injured worker.
The increased claims costs of prescription opioids are astronomical. An annual workers’ compensation report from pharmacy benefit managing giant Express Scripts recently noted: “The issue of opioid prescribing becomes even more important in workers’ compensation settings as prolonged opioid use has been shown to be associated with poorer outcomes, longer disability, and higher medical costs for injured workers.” In 2002, less than 1 percent of injured California employees were prescribed opioids. By 2011, it was 5 percent and payments for these prescriptions rose from 4 to 18 percent – an astonishing 321 percent increase in payments.
The politics of pain management is about to get very ugly. Many states have either put parameters on opioid prescribing in place or are in the process of doing so. For example, both New Jersey and Pennsylvania now limit first-fill prescriptions for opioids. As of April, Delaware and Ohio were well on their way to doing the same. California is proposing that its closed drug formulary, which will go into effect July 1, keep opioids off the preferred list for pain medications. New York’s budget for 2018 includes the creation of a formulary. Other states such as Florida and Louisiana were considering similar moves as of April.
The full scope of the opioid crises includes an investigation by Congress, lawsuits by individual states, counties and cities around the country (and in Canada), collaboration among attorneys general, and class action lawsuits. Workers’ compensation carriers and governmental agencies on whose shoulders these huge additional payments have fallen want their money back – and they are taking action to make that happen.
The growing opioid litigation is following in the footsteps of the infamous tobacco litigation. In the 1950s, individual plaintiffs sued tobacco companies alleging negligence in the manufacture of and advertising for cigarettes. Tobacco fought back and prevailed in all of those early lawsuits. A second wave of lawsuits emerged in the 1980s, and plaintiffs found their first victory in the landmark case of Cipollone v. Liggett, although the $400,000 verdict was reversed on appeal. Tobacco successfully argued that smokers knew and knowingly assumed the risks and that federal law governing advertising preempted state laws.
A third wave of litigation occurred in the 1990s, and the first big win for plaintiffs occurred in 2000, when a California jury ordered Philip Morris to pay $51.5 million to a California smoker with inoperable lung cancer. At the same time, much like the current opioid litigation, more than 40 states sued the tobacco companies under state consumer protection and antitrust laws. These states argued that cigarettes contributed to health problems that triggered significant costs for public health systems. In 1998, the attorneys general of 46 states and four of the largest tobacco companies agreed to settle the state cases for $368 billion. In 2014, a wrongful death lawsuit against R.J. Reynolds in Florida resulted in a verdict of $23 billion in punitive damages.
Opioid class action suits being filed against doctors, pharmacies, and the opioid manufacturers are eerily similar to the tobacco litigation – and could be just as successful. More than two dozen states, cities, and counties have filed similar lawsuits accusing pharmaceutical companies of making false claims about the dangers of their drugs to make a profit. West Virginia has been the loss leader on these class action suits. However, recent lawsuits have been filed by Illinois, California, Ohio, Mississippi, New York, Kentucky, the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma, and Washington State. With the hindsight of the tobacco litigation behind them, some of these cases are already settling. In December 2015, a suit in Kentucky against the manufacturer Purdue Pharma settled for $24 million. More recently, suits against opioid distributors in West Virginia have reaped over $40 million in settlements.
On November 7, 2017, nearly two dozen Wisconsin counties filed a federal lawsuit alleging that “nefarious and deceptive” marketing campaigns from pharmaceutical companies are responsible for the nation’s opioid overdose epidemic. The lawsuit claims that local governments’ health and law enforcement services “have been strained to the breaking point” because of widespread opioid abuse, and seeks unspecified monetary damages from Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson, Endo Health Solutions Inc., and subsidiaries of the companies. In Wisconsin, 1,824 people died from opioid overdoses from 2013 to 2015, according to the lawsuit. MWL’s home county of Washington County, Wisconsin, is aggressively seeking to recover costs associated with the opioid epidemic. With a population of about 131,900, the county had 542 hospitalizations involving opioids last year, according to the lawsuit, and 70 opioid overdose deaths from 2013 to 2016.
Lawyers working the opioid litigation against those responsible for the prescription opioid crisis recognize that billions have been spent unnecessarily by the insurance industry and are looking for insurance companies to join the litigation. MWL is part of a nationwide litigation team who is putting together a coalition of insurers to join in litigation to recoup these costs.
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Dec 7, 2017 | AmerisourceBergen
AmerisourceBergen, a global healthcare solutions leader, announced today a commitment to a set of ongoing operating principles in order to further support the Company’s efforts to address opioid diversion and abuse.
ince 2007, AmerisourceBergen Drug Corporation has reported to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and stopped shipment of tens of thousands of suspicious orders, and has provided daily reports of all opioid-based medication orders to the DEA including the quantity, type and receiving pharmacy of each order that has been shipped. Beyond this ongoing transparency with enforcement agencies, the Company is also publicly announcing a set of ongoing operational commitments in line with its efforts to safeguard the supply chain, including:Ongoing utilization of, and enhancements to, a sophisticated set of algorithms and data analytics tools that analyze the orders of individual customers against a relevant comparison peer group to identify and stop shipment on orders that are deemed to be suspicious.Continued multimillion dollar investment in a best-in-class Diversion Control Team, comprised of internal and external experts including former law enforcement professionals, diversion investigators, pharmacists, and pharmacy technicians that maintains an ongoing order monitoring program, conducts customer site visits, participates in surveillance activities, reviews customer policies and identifies and reports suspicious orders.Pledging continued commitment to the Company’s existing practices of taking no action to market or create demand for opioid-based medicines.AmerisourceBergen Drug Corporation has not, and will never, provide incentive-based compensation or bonuses targeting the sale of opioid products.
The Company is also investing in a new initiative to identify and activate partnerships with customers across our business to offer innovative solutions to address opioid abuse. For example, AmerisourceBergen in October announced a collaboration with Walgreens, as well as several other healthcare industry leaders, to expand the availability of safe medication disposal sites to an additional 900 Walgreens stores near military bases and other areas where the opioid epidemic has heavily impacted communities.
“The commitments and initiatives announced today reflect our belief that all companies in healthcare should be constantly looking at ways to innovate, collaborate and enhance existing practices in order to best combat the opioid issue,” said Steven H. Collis, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of AmerisourceBergen. “Alongside our recent legislative recommendations aimed at supporting regulator and industry data transparency, these reflect our dedication to doing our part to combat diversion and misuse of opioid products.”
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Wisconsin Attorney General to hold off on suing drug companies
Dec 7, 2017 | Associated Press
By Staff
Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel is defending his decision to hold off on suing drug companies over the country's opioid overdose epidemic.
Nearly 50 Wisconsin counties have filed a federal lawsuit alleging pharmaceutical companies precipitated the opioid problem by using deceptive marketing campaigns to sell prescription painkillers.
Schimel has promised opioids would be his top priority. Asked why the state Justice Department hasn't filed a similar lawsuit, he said he has joined a 41-state coalition that is investigating the companies and the role they may have played in creating the epidemic.
He says the coalition has broader discovery powers than the counties alone, helping it gather more information quickly. He pointed to an op-ed he wrote in November that said the investigation could yield a settlement without court delays.
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County considers class-action suit over opioid epidemic
Dec 6, 2017 | The Daily Reporter
By Joseph Hopper
The Clay County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a resolution Tuesday during its regular session which may result in Clay County joining a potential class-action lawsuit regarding the opioid epidemic in a class consisting of other counties in Iowa and Wisconsin. The resolution – also referenced as an engagement letter, showing an indication of a desire to join a class – will be sent to one of the two groups currently forming a class, however the signed letter will be pending delivery until Assistant County Attorney Barry Sackett receives more information regarding the second entity’s efforts.
“I want to make sure we look at the other side before we jump on this ship, but it seems this is the one to go for,” Sackett said.
The class Sackett thought likely for Clay County to join was explained as having around two-thirds of Wisconsin’s counties signed on, and additional Iowa counties either signed on or planning to join. During the meeting, Sackett said he had been in contact with one of the lead attorneys with the group; Erin Dickinson, founding partner of Crueger Dickinson, a firm based out of Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin.
“... (The group) thought they had about 10 Iowa counties, they’ve got about two-thirds of the counties in Wisconsin and they think they’ll get all of them,” Sackett said. “In a class action suit, the bigger the class, the more clout you have as far as negotiating something. Generally as you negotiate something, if you go through litigation then you’re talking several years (of litigation). As far as any costs to the county, there wouldn’t be any cost. ... As far as time dedicated to the case, (Dickinson) indicated it would be minimal. She can’t say it wouldn’t be anything, because they would need access to certain documents, they feel good about their chances obviously.”
Burlin Matthews, supervisor chairman and third vice-chair of the Iowa State Association of Counties, shared that during a recent ISAC meeting, ISAC shared their support of the group and spoke directly to Dickinson about her group.
“The CEO of ISAC has had lengthy discussions with law firms on this specific area and has determined this firm would provide the best counsel for Iowa counties,” Matthews said.
He continued, “When we met at our ISAC executive board meeting Thursday, ... two counties, Monroe and Sioux, had already signed up. ... The ISAC board listened to Erin (Dickinson), the attorney of Wisconsin. There really was only one question, and that was how much time it would take. She told us ... it would take a little bit of time, but they will redact any personal information, they will supply people to actually go through the records that they will have to access ... and so she thinks the time will be minimal.”
Matthews asked Sackett if the suit reached a settlement, how it would be structured to the counties involved.
“What (Dickinson) said at the meeting was, any settlement is probably going to be population based,” Sackett said. “If it goes through litigation then you never know, ... what the pharmaceutical company will do is try to show that you’re different, so they’re negotiating one on one with people instead of a group. For example, if Tama county has way more than we do or had a doctor that was prescribing like crazy and we’ve got good doctors, they’ll try to segregate those.”
Sackett shared some of his own thoughts regarding how the potential suit would be handled.
“I didn’t get a great sense from (Dickinson) ... as far as damages,” Sackett said. “What are our current costs of the opioid epidemic? How do we quantify those? How do we figure those out?”
Both Sackett and Matthews indicated that by participating in the formation of a class early, Clay County would have a better position regarding a potential settlement if one occurs, citing the 1998 Tobacco Settlement as an example of a settlement being reached without any compensation for the counties.
“In the tobacco litigation, when it was settled it was usually done at the state level and counties never really ended up with the settlement funds,” Sackett said. “This is kind of a way to get ahead of that and make sure we have a seat at the table if there is a settlement.”
“This way, even though the attorney general, several attorney generals have filed, if they file also — this organization — we would end up receiving something,” Matthews said.
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Opioid Suits Are The New Tobacco Litigation, Atty Says
Dec 6, 2017 | Law360
By Diana Novak Jones
The litigation coming out of the opioid crisis will rival the tobacco suits of the 1990s, Jay Edelson of plaintiffs firm Edelson PC told an audience during a Chicago City Club panel on the drugs and possible solutions to the epidemic of addiction.
Edelson, whose firm is pursuing several lawsuits against the drugs’ manufacturers on behalf of municipalities, self-insured businesses and labor unions, said he believes litigation will be the main way to stem the crisis’s growth. While the tobacco suits Edelson referred to were mainly driven by the states, this litigation will come from a wide variety of plaintiffs — everything from cities to Native American tribes, he said.
“It is an incredible thing to witness,” Edelson said. “Everybody is collaborating to come together to find a solution.”
Edelson appeared on the panel alongside former U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., an outspoken former addict and advocate for mental health and addiction treatment, and Dr. Steven Aks, a toxicologist and emergency medicine physician in Cook County’s hospital system.
The group was moderated by Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, who said the county has been hit especially hard by the crisis.
Cook County, which encompasses Chicago, saw opioid-related deaths jump from 647 in 2015 to 1,091 in 2016, Preckwinkle said. So far this year, 847 deaths in the county have been classified as opioid-related, though Preckwinkle said that number could increase as toxicology reports are completed.
Edelson’s comments came the day after the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation centralized around 115 lawsuits brought by cities, counties and states against the manufacturers and distributors of prescription opioid painkillers. The panel sent the suits to U.S. District Judge Dan Polster in the Northern District of Ohio, adding that lawsuits brought over opioids by consumers, insurers and others may require additional tracks within the same MDL.
There are many lawsuits proceeding in state court as well. Edelson told Law360 after the panel that his firm is coordinating with about 12 others to file suits in state courts, which the group hopes to run in a structure similar to an MDL. Most of the suits his firm is planning have yet to be filed, he added.
Edelson was reluctant to use the word “epidemic” to describe the problem, as he said the situation was caused by purposeful maneuvering on the part of the pharmaceutical industry.
The drugmakers sought to expand the market for opioid painkillers in the 1990s, Edelson said, so they began pushing research to doctors they claimed showed the drugs were not addictive.
These are “large companies pouring large amounts of money to lie to people,” Edelson said.
Kennedy criticized the federal government’s limited action in the face of the problem, which he said could take down the United States as a major world power. Edelson agreed, saying that lawsuits will have to pick up the government’s slack.
“All the solutions are paid for by us,” Edelson said, referencing taxpayer-funded care for addicts and law enforcement efforts to cut down the illegal distribution of opioid drugs.
“If I’m right, that this was a massive fraud, we should not be the ones who are bearing [the cost],” he added. “It ought to be Big Pharma.” -
Doctor: Drug manufacturers just part of opioid problem
Dec 6, 2017 | WNEM (MI)
By Alana Holland
Despite warnings, community meetings and stepped up enforcement, opioid addiction continues to be a major problem for families in Mid-Michigan.
The Genesee County Board of Commissioners are going after opioid manufacturers and distributors who are saturating neighborhoods with drugs.
One local doctor said drug manufacturers are just a piece of the problem.
"Not only is this a problem that's growing, it's a problem that has no end in sight in the next three to five years," said Dr. William Marrone, medical director for Recovery Pathways.
Marrone deals with pain management and addiction on a daily basis. He projects by the end of the year 2020, more than 120,000 people will die from an opioid overdose death.
It is a problem, but he said there are systemic factors that have led Mid-Michigan to this point.
"We can't just blame the drug companies because the drug companies didn't hold a gun to patients' heads and doctors' heads to get them to start," Marrone said.
Marrone said the problem begins in the classroom with universities across Michigan doing a poor job of teaching students ways to manage and treat pain, other than with more drugs.
"Universities, the medical schools hire people to teach subjects that will be on the national board exams. So part of that problem is they're not asking pain and addiction problems," Marrone said.
Next comes the insurance companies.
"They would rather give you a prescription for narco or morphine than send you for eight weeks of physical therapy because it's easier and faster," Marrone said.
Marrone said the lawsuit in Genesee County is just scratching the surface.
"What Genesee County also needs to do is go back and look at their primary care providers and see who has been inefficient and led these patients down this path. And if Genesee County doesn't have the adequate addiction support in place to deal with a lot of people they'll try to get the money from the drug companies," Marrone said.
Marrone also said a big problem is the federal guidelines are written by regulators, not doctors, with close knowledge of addiction and pain.
He said for now he doesn't see the overdose deaths slowing down any time soon.
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Dec 6, 2017 | KOCO (ABC)
By Oklahoma City, OK
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31295634?token=460e0f5b-4f5f-4aa1-b2d9-9462bda438d5
Rough Transcript: right now in oklahoma. thousands of people plauged by opioid addiction. the state won a fight to keep their legal battle going. pharmaceutical companies tried getting a lawsuit against them thrown out. the state argues, they lied about the addictive nature of opioids. the companies say they're not responsible for the epidemic. >> they went in and had an active campaign saying you need to prescribe opioids more and they are not addictive, they are time released and so forth. that is what happened. jessica the trial could take : years to begin.
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Dec 7, 2017 | KOKI (Fox)
By Tulsa, OK
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31295442?token=460e0f5b-4f5f-4aa1-b2d9-9462bda438d5
Rough Transcript: the state's lawsuit against opioid makers can go to trial. a judge just made that decision this week. i told you about the lawsuit and a special investigation last month. oklahoma attorney eneral mike hunter blames drug companies for misleading doctors and consumeers about just how addictive painkillers are. >> they went in and had an active campaign saying we need to prescribe opioids more. they are not addictive. they are time released and so father. that is what happened. >> drug companies argue the fda requires them to market the drug according to specific guidelines. the state wants a trial date of may 2019.
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Dec 7, 2017 | KCAU (ABC)
By Sioux City, IA
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31295602?token=460e0f5b-4f5f-4aa1-b2d9-9462bda438d5
Rough Transcript: northwest iowa county is joing a federal lawsuit against the manufacturers of precription opioids. sioux county joins more than 100 counties in eight states in the legal action. the lawsuit alleges that five drug makers downplayed the risks of opioids-- have aggressively marketed them to doctors to precribe their patients -- and have failed to investigate suspicious orders of the drugs. sioux county and the others are seeking to recoup the costs local governments have faced due to the opioid cris.
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Dec 7, 2017 | WBAY (ABC)
By Green Bay, WI
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31295612?token=460e0f5b-4f5f-4aa1-b2d9-9462bda438d5
Rough Transcript: wisconsin attorney general brad schimel is defending his decision to hold of suing drug companies over the country's opioid abuse and overdose epidemics. nearly 50 wisconsin counties have filed a federal lawsuit alleging pharmaceutical companies set up the opioid problem by using deceptive marketing campaigns to sel the prescription painkillers. schimel says he hasn't joined that suit, because he's joined a 41-state coalition investigating the companies. he says the coalition has broader discovery powers than the counties alone.
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Dec 7, 2017 | WSAW (CBS)
By Wasau, WI
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31295616?token=460e0f5b-4f5f-4aa1-b2d9-9462bda438d5
Rough Transcript: the lawsuit-- filed by nearly 50 counties in the states--- blames the companies for the opioid overdose epidemic. it alleges pharmaceutical companies used deceptive marketing campaigns to sell prescription painkillers. when asked why the justice department hasn't filed a similar lawsuit-- the state attorney general said he has joined a 41-state coalition that's investigating the companies and the role they may have played in creating the epidemic. he says the coalition has broader discovery powers than the counties alone---
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Dec 6, 2017 | WCHS (ABC)
By Charleston, WV
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31295689?token=460e0f5b-4f5f-4aa1-b2d9-9462bda438d5
Rough Transcript: amid the opioid epidemic dozens of lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies consolidated. 64 suits will be adjudicated as one case. those suits claim opioid distributor and manufacturers overstated the benefit and down played the risks of drugs which were marketed to healthcare providers playing a crucial role in fuelling the epidemic. no word when the trial will take place.
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Dec 6, 2017 | WKRN (ABC)
By Nashville, TN
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31295698?token=460e0f5b-4f5f-4aa1-b2d9-9462bda438d5
Rough Transcript: now to a story we've been following all week. nashville is close to joining more than a hundred other cities and states... in suing the makers of prescription opioids. eric: but as our nick caloway reports-- the plan hit a snag... even with the majority of the metro council supporting it. nick: there is. last night the council voted 30 to 6... to approve hiring a law firm for this case. but a rarely used delay tactic was put in motion... and nashville's mayor is criticizing that move. nick caloway: at the historic courthouse tuesday night... the metro council voted overwhelmingly to approve hiring a law firm... to potentially file a lawsuit against makers of opioids. 11:05 PMbut seconds later... members of the minority caucus used a procedural maneuver... to force another vote on the issue... in two weeks time. mayor megan barry weighed in on the tactic on twitter... saying "we can't affor to let shenanigans keep us from addressing the opioid epidemic." at-large council member erica gilmore rejected that notion. she pushed the delay... because she wants more diversity in law firms representing the city. erica gilmore: 42:01 "to call it shenanigans, we don't look at it as that. we look at it as representing our constituents, and we take it very seriously. equity and inclusion is for all citizens." councilwoman kathleen murphy disagrees with the delay tactic. kathleen murphy: 46:17 "but to sideline a very important issue that is not only affecting us nationwide, but here at home, especially with the mayor's family, we need to be taking action and we need to do it now." the lawsuit against opioid makers... would seek compensation from big pharma... for the tens of millions of dollars spent by metro... battling the opiod crisis. kenny byrd is a partner with lieff cabraser heimann & bernstien... which the city will hire to handle the case. kenny byrd: 27:41 "thes corporations have placed this drug onto the market. it has created enormous burdens for families and taxpayers across this country. and the question is who is going to bear the burden of these costs. are we as taxpayers going to continue to have to pay for all this? or is it time to shift the burden to the people reaping all the profits?" nick: when the council re-visits this issue in two weeks... it should easily pass. as for a time frame on when that lawsuit could be filed... i'm told "thing are moving quickly."
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Dec 6, 2017 | WNEM (CBS)
By Flint, MI
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31295702?token=460e0f5b-4f5f-4aa1-b2d9-9462bda438d5
Rough Transcript: the opioid epidemic.. killing thousands of people.. tearing famlies apart. addictive drugs.. flooding mid-michigan. now, one county is taking its fight straight to the source. in genesee county tonight.. the chance to see a bigger picture of the cris across the area.. and the county's lawsuit against drug companies. good evening.. thanks for joining us.. i'm frank turner. and i'm meg mcleod. right now, the genesee county commissioner and other leaders are meeting with families to discuss the epidemic. that's where tv5's kate nadoslki joins us live -- kate? the battle to fight the opioid epidemic is ongoing. people in genesee county are taking their mission straight to one of the biggest suppliers. a new lawsuit looks to hold pharmaceutical companies responsible for the damage caused by the addictive drugs. there are one and a half times more prescriptions for opioids in genesee county than there are people. "there literally is nobody wh has not been touched by this opioid epidemic," said mark young, chairman for the genesee county board of commissioners. the county commissioners voted unanimously to hire a law firm to take legal action against the companies who make opioids. "there's some comparisons you can do if you look at lawsuits on state levels against the tobacco industry," youn said. the complaint is not written yet, so the exact nature of the lawsuit is not decided. young said he wants answers and transparency.
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Dec 6, 2017 | KXLHLD (CBS)
By Helena, MT
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/31295709?token=460e0f5b-4f5f-4aa1-b2d9-9462bda438d5
Rough Transcript: gallatin county commissioners are joing other counties in the fight against opioid manufacturers. the missouri river dr task force says the county has seen 58 opioid overdoses just this year. thpre tag for court services for those dealing with addiction -- $104- thousand dollars. if gallatin countyis awarded payment,d commissioners say they wouldput the money towards funding combat addiction programs, prevention, and law enforcement. the commissioners say the case may take years to finalize.
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