Preview Newsletter
Opioid Litigation Daily Media Report - 1/18/2018
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Philadelphia sues opioid makers
Jan 17, 2018 | Associated Press
By Staff
Philadelphia has filed a lawsuit against drug companies that make prescription opioids, saying they've created "an unprecedented public health crisis." -
Philadelphia sues opioid makers in response to epidemic
Jan 17, 2018 | The Philadelphia Inquirer (PA)
By Mari A. Schaeffer
Philadelphia on Wednesday became the latest in a long line of communities that is suing pharmaceutical companies because of the opioid crisis. -
Philadelphia becomes the latest big city to sue opioid manufacturers
Jan 18, 2018 | Philadelphia Business Journal (PA)
By David T. Jones
'We are asking drug companies to stop pushing these drugs in Philadelphia.' -
Philadelphia Sues Opioid Makers in Response to 'Unprecedented Public Health Crisis'
Jan 18, 2018 | NBC 10 (PA)
By Dan Stamm
The City of Philadelphia is tackling the opioid epidemic killing hundreds of people in the city by targeting companies that make powerful painkillers. -
Philadelphia Joins Lawsuit Blaming Opioid Manufacturers For Health Crisis
Jan 17, 2018 | CBS Philly (PA)
By Pat Loeb
Philadelphia has joined a growing list of state and local governments suing opioid manufacturers for the costs of an addiction epidemic, charging “false and deceptive” marketing practices “created the public health and safety crisis.” -
Philadelphia files lawsuit against prescription opioid manufacturers
Jan 17, 2018 | Fox 29 (PA)
By Staff
The city of Philadelphia has filed a lawsuit against prescription opioid manufacturers alleging their sales and marketing tactics are ‘directly linked’ to the opioid epidemic plaguing the city. -
Philly Becomes Latest To Sue Drugmakers For Opioid Crisis
Jan 18, 2018 | Law360
By Dan Packel
The city of Philadelphia became the latest municipality to attempt to hold drug manufacturers responsible for the nation’s growing opioid crisis Wednesday, filing a state court lawsuit accusing Allergan, Purdue, Endo, Janssen and Teva of deceptive marketing. -
Phila. Engages Private Firms to Take on Pharma Over Opioid Crisis
Jan 17, 2018 | The Legal Intelligencer
By Max Mitchell
The opioid epidemic has come at a high cost to the Philadelphia region and city officials have sued several leading pharmaceutical companies in an effort to hold them accountable for their alleged role in the crisis. -
Philly targets big pharma in suit over opioid epidemic
Jan 17, 2018 | WHYY (PA)
By Anne Hoffman
Allergan. Johnson & Johnson. Cephalon. These are just three of the pharmaceutical companies Philadelphia has filed suit against in an effort to recoup its losses in the opioid epidemic that it’s termed “a public health nightmare.” -
Philly files lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies for opioid crisis
Jan 17, 2018 | Metro (PA)
By Sam Newhouse
In 2016, some 900 people lost their lives to drug overdoses, mostly heroin, in Philadelphia. In 2017, overdoses grew by one-third to some 1,200 overdose deaths. -
Philadelphia Suing Opioid Drug Manufacturers
Jan 17, 2018 | Chestnut Hill Patch (PA)
By Max Bennett
The City of Philadelphia has legally joined the fight against the opioid epidemic in the nation by filing a lawsuit against various prescription opioid manufacturers, some of which call the Philadelphia area home. -
Philly is suing drug companies for their part in the opioid crisis
Jan 17, 2018 | Billy Pen (PA)
By Michaela Winbergg
In response to the growing opioid crisis, the City of Philadelphia announced Wednesday morning its lawsuit against prescription opioid manufacturers. This lawsuit is in an attempt to hold pharmaceutical companies accountable for the part they played in the devastating epidemic sweeping through Philly, said City Solicitor Sozi Pedro Tulante. -
Champaign County suing drug makers, doctors over opiod risks
Jan 17, 2018 | WAND 17 (IL)
By Staff
The State of Illinois and Champaign County are suing drug companies that they say misled consumers and suppliers about the painkillers they produced. -
Boone County to sue more than 10 opioid manufacturers
Jan 17, 2018 | Rockford Register Star (IL)
By Susan Vela
The Boone County Board voted Wednesday to sue more than 10 pharmaceutical companies in response to an opioid crisis that has claimed several lives in Boone County and thousands across the country. -
Minnesota counties push against opioid manufacturers
Jan 17, 2018 | Sun Focus (MN)
By Jack Hammett
Minnesota counties are moving forward with their plans to take legal action against opioid manufacturers and distributors. John Choi, who was elected president of the Minnesota County Attorneys Association Dec. 17, will lead Ramsey County in its suit against these distributors for allegedly using marketing similar to that of tobacco companies. -
Cherokee sues opioid companies
Jan 18, 2018 | Smoky Mountain News (NC)
By Holly Kays
The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians has filed a federal lawsuit seeking damages from 23 companies that manufacture or distribute opioid drugs. Listing a total of seven counts, the suit alleges violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act as well as negligence, conspiracy, fraud and creation of a public nuisance. -
Fort Smith joins opioid lawsuit
Jan 18, 2018 | Greenwood Democrat (AR)
By Alex Golden
Fort Smith is joining other Arkansas cities in a lawsuit against opioid manufacturers and distributors after a Tuesday vote by the city’s Board of Directors. -
Towns sue pharmaceutical companies over opioid abuse
Jan 17, 2018 | Milford Mirror (CT)
By Staff
Bridgeport, Fairfield, Milford and Shelton are among 18 towns that together have filed a lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies, blaming opioid abuse on “aggressive and fraudulent marketing” of painkillers. -
Lawmakers Outline Legislation to Limit First-Time Opioid Prescriptions
Jan 18, 2018 | West Virginia Public Broadcasting (WV)
By Liz McCormick
On The Legislature Today, we bring you a special focus on West Virginia’s opioid epidemic. First, we take you to the small town of Kermit where the tragic toll of the epidemic has weighed heavily on residents, and then, host Andrea Lannom chats with two lawmakers who outline legislation addressing the issue on multiple fronts. -
To reduce the risk of opioid addiction, study suggests higher doses but fewer refills
Jan 17, 2018 | Los Angeles Times
By Karen Kaplan
Health experts have an intriguing suggestion for reducing opioid overdoses and deaths — asking doctors to prescribe bigger doses of the powerful painkillers. -
Where is Trump's emergency on opioids? (EDITORIAL)
Jan 18, 2018 | USA TODAY
By Editorial Board
Amid much fanfare last October, President Trump declared that the nation's opioid crisis was a “public health emergency” and spoke movingly of losing his older brother to alcohol addiction. That 90-day declaration is set to expire Tuesday. And while some promising plans are taking shape, the federal follow-through is falling far short of what is needed. -
Republicans figure out opioid crisis — it's the fault of Medicaid expansion! (Spoiler: They're wrong) (EDITORIAL)
Jan 18, 2018 | Los Angeles Times
By Michael Hiltzik
Washington tourists with time on their hands Wednesday could have popped into the Capitol to witness an ancient phenomenon: Senators doing their darndest to prove a partisan fantasy. -
NBC 10 News Today at 6a
Jan 18, 2018 | WCAU (NBC)
By Philadelphia, PA
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32121187?token=1b9525d8-da37-4ada-b5eb-a766e4e55b11 -
Good Day Philadelphia 7a
Jan 18, 2018 | WTXF (Fox)
By Philadelphia, PA
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32121149?token=1b9525d8-da37-4ada-b5eb-a766e4e55b11 -
Action News 6:00 AM
Jan 18, 2018 | WPVI (ABC)
By Philadelphia, PA
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32121175?token=1b9525d8-da37-4ada-b5eb-a766e4e55b11 -
News 8 Today at 6
Jan 18, 2018 | WGAL (NBC)
By Harrisburg, PA
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32121177?token=1b9525d8-da37-4ada-b5eb-a766e4e55b11 -
12 News This Morning 6:30AM
Jan 18, 2018 | WBNG (CBS)
By Binghamton, NY
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32121184?token=1b9525d8-da37-4ada-b5eb-a766e4e55b11 -
necn THIS MORNING
Jan 18, 2018 | NECN (NEWSENG)
By Boston, MA
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32121165?token=1b9525d8-da37-4ada-b5eb-a766e4e55b11 -
WAND News at 5
Jan 18, 2018 | WAND (NBC)
By Champaign, IL
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32121153?token=1b9525d8-da37-4ada-b5eb-a766e4e55b11 -
Morning Show
Jan 18, 2018 | WCIX (PBS)
By Champaign, IL
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32121164?token=1b9525d8-da37-4ada-b5eb-a766e4e55b11 -
40/29 News Sunrise
Jan 18, 2018 | KHBS (ABC)
By Ft. Smith, AR
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32121173?token=1b9525d8-da37-4ada-b5eb-a766e4e55b11 -
FOX 61 News at Ten
Jan 18, 2018 | WTIC (Fox)
By Hartford & New Haven, CT
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32121195?token=1b9525d8-da37-4ada-b5eb-a766e4e55b11
Philadelphia, PA Suit
Midwest (IL, MN)
Southeast (NC, AR)
Northeast (CT)
Commentary and FYIs
Broadcast Media Coverage
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Philadelphia sues opioid makers
Jan 17, 2018 | Associated Press
By Staff
Philadelphia has filed a lawsuit against drug companies that make prescription opioids, saying they've created "an unprecedented public health crisis."
It seeks to halt what the city calls deceptive marketing practices and force the drugmakers to pay for treatment costs and reimburse it for the money it has spent responding to the addiction epidemic.
Mayor Jim Kenney says the epidemic "has exacted a grim toll" on Philadelphia. The city says the number of fatal overdoses for 2017 is expected to reach 1,200, one-third more than 2016.
The defendants named in Wednesday's filing manufacture painkillers. The companies have said in similar lawsuits they don't believe litigation is the answer, but have pledged to help solve the crisis.
The city is joining a growing list of U.S. cities and states suing opioid manufacturers.
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Philadelphia sues opioid makers in response to epidemic
Jan 17, 2018 | The Philadelphia Inquirer (PA)
By Mari A. Schaeffer
Philadelphia on Wednesday became the latest in a long line of communities that is suing pharmaceutical companies because of the opioid crisis.
The suit filed in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court “seeks to halt deceptive marketing practices and pay treatment costs for residents suffering opioid addiction,” the city said in a press release. The suit also aims to recover costs the city has incurred responding to the epidemic.
Among the named companies: Allergan, Cephalon, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Endo Health Solutions and Endo Pharmaceuticals, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Johnson & Johnson, Perdue Pharmaceuticals LP, Perdue Pharmaceuticals Inc., and Perdue Frederick Company Inc.
“We need them to stop claiming these drugs are necessary for long-term chronic illness,” City Solicitor Sozi Pedro Tulante said. “ They clearly are not.”
In Philadelphia, drug overdose deaths in 2017 are expected to reach 1,200, city officials said.
“At the peak of the AIDS epidemic in 1984, there were 935 deaths in the city,” said Health Commissioner Thomas Farley.
Nationally, since 1999, there have been more than 165,000 deaths related to opioids. In 2016, there were 63,600 overdose drug deaths in the U.S.
One in four families has been touched by the prescription drug crisis and many believe the pharmaceutical companies bear some responsibility. In Philadelphia, one in three adults have received a prescription opioid in the past 12 months.
The city joins a growing list of municipalities nationwide that have filed suits against the manufacturers of addictive painkillers.
In September, Delaware County became the first county in the state to sue to try and recover tens of millions of dollars it has spent on treatment centers and medical services for addicted residents. The manufacturers named in Delaware County’s suit include locally-based Teva, Janssen, Endo, and the Stamford, Conn.-based Purdue Pharma. In October, New Jersey filed suit against Insys Therapeutics Inc., manufacturer of the fentanyl-based painkiller Subsys.
Families are also filing suits.
Last fall, the family of 39-year-old Joey Caltagirone, of Philadelphia, sued Cephalon and Teva alleging the drugmakers heavy marketing tactics were responsible for his addiction after a doctor prescribed 5,918 fentanyl lollipops from August 2005 to December 2011 for migraines, a condition for which it was not approved to treat. Caltagirone died three years later from an overdose of methadone.
More than 200 lawsuits against drug companies have been consolidated in a Cleveland federal court as part of a “multidistrict litigation.” The suits have been brought by municipalities across the country, including those in California, Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia. Suits of similar nature are consolidated to cut down on redundant filings that could delay the already long process.
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Philadelphia becomes the latest big city to sue opioid manufacturers
Jan 18, 2018 | Philadelphia Business Journal (PA)
By David T. Jones
'We are asking drug companies to stop pushing these drugs in Philadelphia.'
The remainder of this article is under paywall at: https://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/news/2018/01/17/philadelphia-suing-endo-teva-jnj-opioid-oxycontin.html
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Philadelphia Sues Opioid Makers in Response to 'Unprecedented Public Health Crisis'
Jan 18, 2018 | NBC 10 (PA)
By Dan Stamm
The City of Philadelphia is tackling the opioid epidemic killing hundreds of people in the city by targeting companies that make powerful painkillers.
On Wednesday, Mayor Jim Kenney, City Solicitor Sozi Pedro Tulante and city health officials accused major drugmakers, including some with U.S. headquarters in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, of “deceptive marketing of prescription opioids.”
“The epidemic currently plaguing the city has exacted a grim toll on Philadelphia residents and their families,” Kenney said. “And the cause can be directly linked to methods used by manufacturers to market and sell their products to doctors and the public. Those tactics have to end.”
The number of deadly overdoses in Philadelphia in 2017 is expected to reach 1,200, one-third more than 2016. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says Philadelphia suffered a higher rate of overdose deaths than any other major American city.
One in three Philadelphians has been prescribed an opioid painkiller in the past 12 months, the city estimates.
“The opioid crisis is the largest public health crisis this city has seen in a century, and it has been fueled by drug companies," Philly Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley said. “It’s well past time for those companies to stop pushing these drugs and start helping us cope with the human tragedy they have caused.”
The 172-page suit filed in Philadelphia Commons Pleas Court names several companies with local ties as defendants. Among them: Teva, an Israeli company which has its U.S. headquarters in Horsham; Cephalon, which was based in Frazer, and Endo Pharmaceuticals, an Irish company with U.S. headquarters in Malvern.
Also named as defendants were New Jersey’s Allergan/Actavis, Janssen Pharmaceutical and Johnson & Johnson; and Connecticut’s Purdue Pharma.
Some of the companies named in the suit have consolidated. Teva acquired Cephalon in 2011. And Allergen sold its Actavis Global Generics wing, which produces opioids, to Teva in 2016.
The suit seeks to halt what the city calls deceptive marketing practices and force the drugmakers to pay for treatment costs and reimburse Philadelphia for the money it has spent responding to the addiction epidemic. The epidemic is so bad the city has dedicated an EMS unit to drug overdose response.
“City agencies have incurred large, burdensome, unnecessary and avoidable costs to address the crisis,” City Solicitor Sozi Pedro Tulante said. “It is our duty to devote all resources we can to help protect the public from further perils and to finally put an end to the practices which are the root of this epidemic."
Drug companies have said in similar lawsuits they don't believe litigation is the answer, but have pledged to help solve the crisis. After the filing of the Philly suit, Teva, Allergen, Endo, Janssen and Purdue said they are committed to curbing illegal prescription drug use. Endo, Janssen and Purdue also denied the city’s claims.
The city is joining a growing list of U.S. cities and states, including New Jersey, suing painkiller manufacturers.
Earlier this month, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf declared a statewide disaster emergency that suspends regulations hindering access to addiction care.
NBC10 received theses responses from drug companies named in the Philly suit:
Teva Statement:
"Teva is committed to the appropriate use of opioid medicines, and we recognize the critical public health issues impacting communities across the U.S. as a result of illegal drug use as well as the misuse and abuse of opioids that are available legally by prescription. To that end, we take a multi-faceted approach to this complex issue; we work to educate communities and health care providers on appropriate medicine use and prescribing, we comply closely with all relevant federal and state regulations regarding these medicines, and, through our R&D pipeline, we are developing non-opioid treatments that have the potential to bring relief to patients in chronic pain. Teva also collaborates closely with other stakeholders, including providers and prescribers, regulators, public health officials and patient advocates, to understand how to prevent prescription drug abuse without sacrificing patients’ needed access to pain medicine."
Allergan Statement:
“It is important to put into perspective Allergan’s role regarding opioids. Allergan’s two branded opioid products – Norco and Kadian – account for less than 0.08 percent of all opioid products prescribed in 2016 in the U.S. These products came to Allergan through legacy acquisitions and have not been promoted since 2012, in the case of Kadian, and since 2003, in the case of Norco. Allergan has a history of supporting – and continues to support – the safe, responsible use of prescription medications. This includes opioid medications, which when sold, prescribed and used responsibly, play an appropriate role in pain relief for millions of Americans.”
Endo Statement:
"Endo is dedicated to providing safe, quality products to patients in need and we share the public concern regarding opioid abuse and misuse. We are committed to working collaboratively to develop and implement a comprehensive solution to the opioid crisis, which is a complex problem with several causes that are difficult to disentangle. Any serious solution must therefore be multifaceted and consider, among other things, the legitimate access needs of the millions of patients suffering from acute or chronic pain who rely on opioids to improve their quality of life.
"Toward that goal, Endo has taken meaningful action during the past year by voluntarily ceasing opioid promotion and eliminating its entire product salesforce. Endo also voluntarily withdrew Opana® ER from the market following FDA’s request despite having a statutory right to challenge that request, implemented additional anti-diversion measures and terminated its new opioid product development programs.
"It is Endo's policy not to comment on current litigation. That said, we deny the allegations contained in this lawsuit and intend to vigorously defend the Company."
Janssen Statement:
"Responsibly used opioid-based pain medicines give doctors and patients important choices to help manage the debilitating effects of chronic pain. At the same time, we recognize opioid abuse and addiction is a serious public health issue that must be addressed.
"We believe the allegations in the lawsuits against our company are both legally and factually unfounded. Janssen has acted in the best interests of patients and physicians with regard to its opioid pain medicines, which are FDA-approved and carry FDA-mandated warnings about possible risks on every product label. According to independent surveillance data, Janssen opioid pain medicines consistently have some of the lowest rates of abuse among these medications, and since 2008 the volume of Janssen opioid products always has amounted to less than one percent of the total prescriptions written per year for opioid medications, including generics. Addressing opioid abuse will require collaboration among many stakeholders and we will continue to work with federal, state and local officials to support solutions."
Purdue Statement:
“We are deeply troubled by the prescription and illicit opioid abuse crisis, and are dedicated to being part of the solution. As a company grounded in science, we must balance patient access to FDA-approved medicines, while working collaboratively to solve this public health challenge. 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. We vigorously deny these allegations and look forward to the opportunity to present our defense.”
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Philadelphia Joins Lawsuit Blaming Opioid Manufacturers For Health Crisis
Jan 17, 2018 | CBS Philly (PA)
By Pat Loeb
Philadelphia has joined a growing list of state and local governments suing opioid manufacturers for the costs of an addiction epidemic, charging “false and deceptive” marketing practices “created the public health and safety crisis.”
The city is seeking an injunction to stop the companies from spreading false information about the effectiveness and addictiveness of painkillers and require that they pay for treatment and public awareness programs.
“City agencies have incurred tremendous and avoidable costs trying to combat this crisis and because it is our duty to protect the public from further harm, I believe we have no other choice but to file this lawsuit,” said City Solicitor Sozi Tulante in announcing the filing.
Defendants include Allergan, Teva, Endo, Purdue, Johnson & Johnson and several others which those five have acquired.
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All issued statements saying they shared concerns about the opioid epidemic but distancing themselves from it, to varying degrees.
The 160-page lawsuit lays out a history of painkiller marketing since 1996, when use of the drugs shifted from relief for dying cancer patients to treatment for otherwise healthy individuals suffering back pain, arthritis and headaches.
“Defendants created a falsely favorable perception of prescription opioids through coordinated, sophisticated and highly deceptive marketing,” the suit states. “Defendants engaged in this deceptive conduct because they recognized that chronic pain patients could provide a much larger, and far more lucrative, market.”
Among the tactics the suit cites is the misrepresentation of a 1980 letter to the New England Journal of Medicine, “Citing it,” says Tulante, “as scientific support that opioids were safe and not addictive, as if it were an article presenting peer-reviewed study. It was not.”
Another is the creation of the concept of “pseudo-addiction,” the idea that withdrawal symptoms were actually a sign of undertreated pain, thus generating even more prescriptions.
“The defendants’ deceptive marketing practices led to an exponential rise in prescription opioid sales in the city of Philadelphia,” says Tulante. “This epidemic has taken a grim toll in our city and includes historically high rates of opioid use, addiction and opioid-related overdoses.”
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Health Commissioner Tom Farley says he expects the overdose death toll from last year to hit a record 1,200, the highest rate of any large U.S. city.
The costs associated with the epidemic, laid out in the suit, are myriad. Tulante said he didn’t know the total but the suit lays out areas where the city pays for addiction and related consequences, including:
— Addiction Treatment. The suit says 14,000 people received city-funded treatment in 2016 and 6,000 enrolled in methadone or similar maintenance programs, ranging in cost from $450-$1,000 per month.
— Care for infants born addicted, estimated at $60,000 per child for hospital costs alone.
— Treatment for Hepatitis C, an addiction-related disorder, estimated at $84,000 per person.
— Naloxone for treating overdoses.
— Autopsies for those who die from overdoses.
— The costs of first responders.
— Increased Criminal Justice costs for crime related to addiction, estimated at $30 to 40 million per year.
— Increased social services including foster care for the children of addicts, roughly $8,000 per year in payments to foster parents plus the cost of staff who manages care; also, the rising need for shelter and housing because of increased homelessness among addicts.
— Public Awareness to counteract the defendants’ marketing, on which the city is spending $1.9 million.
“This public health crisis has seriously disturbed the quality of life for all Philadelphia residents,” says Tulante.
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More than 100 government entities now have filed similar suits. The state of New York reached a settlement with Endo and Purdue but both those companies denied the allegations in Philadelphia’s suit and promised to fight it vigorously.
“Endo has taken meaningful action during the past year by voluntarily ceasing opioid promotion and eliminating its entire product salesforce,” it said in an emailed statement. The company, with U.S. headquarters in Horsham, noted it also “terminated its new opioid product development programs.”
Purdue’s emailed statement said it was “deeply troubled by the prescription and illicit opioid abuse crisis,” but added, “we must balance patient access to FDA-approved medicines, while working collaboratively to solve this public health challenge.”
Janssen, a subsidiary of New Brunswick-based Johnson & Johnson, emailed a statement saying, “We believe the allegations in the lawsuits against our company are both legally and factually unfounded. Janssen has acted in the best interests of patients and physicians with regard to its opioid pain medicines, which are FDA-approved and carry FDA-mandated warnings about possible risks on every product label. According to independent surveillance data, Janssen opioid pain medicines consistently have some of the lowest rates of abuse among these medications.”
Teva’s emailed statement did not deny the charges in the lawsuit but said, it “is committed to the appropriate use of opioid medicines… To that end, we take a multi-faceted approach to this complex issue; we work to educate communities and healthcare providers on appropriate medicine use and prescribing, we comply closely with all relevant federal and state regulations regarding these medicines, and, through our R&D pipeline, we are developing non-opioid treatments that have the potential to bring relief to patients in chronic pain.”
Allergan, again in an emailed statement, said its products “account for less than 0.08% of all opioid products prescribed in 2016 in the U.S. These products came to Allergan through legacy acquisitions and have not been promoted since 2012.”
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Philadelphia files lawsuit against prescription opioid manufacturers
Jan 17, 2018 | Fox 29 (PA)
By Staff
The city of Philadelphia has filed a lawsuit against prescription opioid manufacturers alleging their sales and marketing tactics are ‘directly linked’ to the opioid epidemic plaguing the city.
"The epidemic currently plaguing the City has exacted a grim toll on Philadelphia residents and their families," Mayor Kenney said Wednesday, "And the cause can be directly linked to the methods used by manufacturers to market and sell their products to doctors and the public. Those tactics have to end."
The lawsuit seeks to end deceptive marketing practices, as looks to force manufacturers to pay the costs of treatment for city residents suffering from opioid addiction. The lawsuit also aims to recover the costs the city has incurred responding to the epidemic in recent years.
The costs mentioned include funding first responders who treat opioids, funding public health and human service programs to treat addicted residents, and increased resources to fund Philadelphia’s criminal justice and prison systems.
Allergan/Actavis, Cephalon and Teva, Endo, Janssen and Johnson & Johnson, and Purdue are among the opioid manufacturers named in the lawsuit.
The defendants named manufacture OxyContin, Percocet and other painkillers. The companies have said in similar lawsuits they don't believe litigation is the answer, but have pledged to help solve the crisis.
The City's Health Department estimates that one in three adults in Philadelphia has received a prescription for opioids in the past 12 months and one in seven, or 168,000, are currently taking these drugs.
While the final tally of fatal overdoses in the city is not yet complete, the city believes the total will reach approximately 1,200 which would be a one-third increase over 2016.
In 2016 Philadelphia suffered a rate of overdose deaths per-capita that was fourth highest in the nation and higher than any other large city.
"The opioid crisis is the largest public health crisis this city has seen in a century, and it has been fueled by drug companies", said Dr. Thomas Farley, Health Commissioner for Philadelphia. "It's well past time for those companies to stop pushing these drugs and start helping us cope with the human tragedy they have caused."
The city alleges overwhelming scientific evidence has demonstrated that the marketing of opioids to treat chronic pain has been the principal causative factor driving the opioid addiction.
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Philly Becomes Latest To Sue Drugmakers For Opioid Crisis
Jan 18, 2018 | Law360
By Dan Packel
The city of Philadelphia became the latest municipality to attempt to hold drug manufacturers responsible for the nation’s growing opioid crisis Wednesday, filing a state court lawsuit accusing Allergan, Purdue, Endo, Janssen and Teva of deceptive marketing.
In a 156-page complaint, the city accused the companies
The remainder of the article is under paywall at: https://www.law360.com/articles/1002714/philly-becomes-latest-to-sue-drugmakers-for-opioid-crisis
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Phila. Engages Private Firms to Take on Pharma Over Opioid Crisis
Jan 17, 2018 | The Legal Intelligencer
By Max Mitchell
The opioid epidemic has come at a high cost to the Philadelphia region and city officials have sued several leading pharmaceutical companies in an effort to hold them accountable for their alleged role in the crisis.
The city of Philadelphia on Wednesday filed suit against five major drug companies, including Johnson & Johnson and Allergan, alleging that the companies used deceptive marketing tactics to increase sales of opioids, and failed to properly warn about the risks for addiction.
The suit, which was filed in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, asks that the drug companies be made to pay for detoxification treatment of residents suffering from opioid addiction attributable to prescription drugs, and seeks recovery of the money it has spent on municipal services to combating the opioid crisis, including emergency response, health and court services. The lawsuit also seeks an injunction to bar the companies from promoting opioid painkillers as a safe medication.
“This public health crisis harms public safety, order and economic productivity,” City Solicitor Sozi Pedro Tulante said in a statement to the press. “City agencies have incurred large, burdensome, unnecessary and avoidable costs to address the crisis. It is our duty to devote all resources we can to help protect the public from further perils and to finally put an end to the practices which are the root of this epidemic.”
The city Law Department is not acting alone in filing the lawsuit, which city officials stressed is different than the lawsuits several other municipalities have recently filed over the growing opioid crisis. Five Philadelphia law firms are working with the city to pursue the claims. Those firms are Berger & Montague, Dilworth Paxson, Sheller P.C., Sacks Weston Diamond, and Young Ricchiuti Caldwell & Heller. Temple University’s Beasley School of Law professor David Kairys is also representing the city in the case.
During a press conference Wednesday, Tulante said the firms are all working on a contingency fee basis, with the fee expected to be about 33 percent of the city’s total recovery. He said the firms brought a lot of experience to the case, and that the lawsuit was not the type of litigation the Law Department could handle on its own.
Philadelphia is not the first municipality to sue prescription opioid manufacturers for their alleged role in the growth of opioid addiction around the country. Cities like Chicago and Indianapolis have already done so.
But, according to city officials, this lawsuit is different because it focuses exclusively on the toll the epidemic has taken on Philadelphia, which, according to city Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley, has the highest rate of overdose deaths of any large city in the country. The lawsuit also focuses in part on the city’s nuisance laws and its fair practices ordinance.
Tulante said he has been in contact with officials in cities with suits already in progress, but there likely will not be any formal efforts to consolidate with any litigations already in progress.
A spokesman for Purdue Pharma said the company denies the allegations and looks forward to the opportunity to present its defense.
“We are deeply troubled by the prescription and illicit opioid abuse crisis, and are dedicated to being part of the solution,” spokesman John Puskar 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.”
The other defendants, Allergan, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Endo Pharmaceuticals and Cephalon, which was purchased by Teva, did not return requests for comment.
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Philly targets big pharma in suit over opioid epidemic
Jan 17, 2018 | WHYY (PA)
By Anne Hoffman
Allergan. Johnson & Johnson. Cephalon. These are just three of the pharmaceutical companies Philadelphia has filed suit against in an effort to recoup its losses in the opioid epidemic that it’s termed “a public health nightmare.”
During the peak of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, 935 people died from the disease. Last year, about 1,200 people died of drug overdoses — 80 percent of them related to opioids, said city solicitor Sozi Tulante in announcing the suit Wednesday.
The opioid manufacturers are directly implicated in the opioid crisis, he said.
“This epidemic can be traced back to the defendants’ false and deceptive marketing to doctors — and to the public — that these drugs were safe and effective for long-term daily treatment of chronic pain,” Tulante said.
“Defendants also fostered and handsomely rewarded a range of physicians as ‘key opinion leaders’ and used front groups who claim that addiction to prescription opioids is, and I quote, ‘distinctively uncommon,’ ” he said.
Thomas Farley, city health commissioner, agreed, saying that the surge in opioids, “didn’t just happen.”
He pointed to a pattern of behavior on the part of the opioid manufacturers.
“They systematically misled doctors, telling them that these drugs were effective for chronic pain,” Farley said. “They are not. They told doctors that they were safe, and that they were not addictive. In fact these drugs are risky, and they are highly addictive.”
The lawsuit, filed in state court, aims to begin changing that what the city calls aggressive and deceptive marketing tactics, Tulante said.
“We want the defendants to end their ongoing deceptive marketing practices, to communicate clearly to the doctors and to the public, just how risky these drugs are,” he said.
The city also wants the companies too help the city financially in light of its expenditures for first responders, public health programs and the prison system.
He said the opioid epidemic has cost the city “millions of dollars.”
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Philly files lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies for opioid crisis
Jan 17, 2018 | Metro (PA)
By Sam Newhouse
In 2016, some 900 people lost their lives to drug overdoses, mostly heroin, in Philadelphia. In 2017, overdoses grew by one-third to some 1,200 overdose deaths.
Now Philadelphia is laying the blame on several major drug companies that, in a new lawsuit announced on Wednesday, the city will demand help pay up for the ravages of the opioid epidemic.
The lawsuit was filed against Allergan/Actavis, Cephalon, Teva, Endo, Janssen, Johnson & Johnson and Purdue, which all make and sell prescription opioids, demanding they end deceptive marketing practices and reimburse the city for the costs it has incurred while fighting the opioid plague, they said.
“The epidemic currently plaguing the city has exacted a grim toll on Philadelphia residents and their families,” Mayor Jim Kenney said in a statement. “And the cause can be directly linked to the methods used by manufacturers to market and sell their products to doctors and the public. Those tactics have to end.”
The lawsuit specifies that Philadelphia wants to be reimbursed for costs of first responders who fight overdoses, public health and treatment programs, criminal justice and prison programs and any other city departments or programs that are impacted by opioid abuse.
Philly now joins a wave of cases filed against drugmakers by Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Washington state, and several cities and counties in states including California, Illinois and New York.
Philly has it particularly bad: In 2016, it was estimated by the CDC to have the fourth highest per-capita overdose rate in the nation, and the highest of any large city.
“The opioid crisis is the largest public health crisis this city has seen in a century, and it has been fueled by drug companies," Philly Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley said in a statement. “It’s well past time for those companies to stop pushing these drugs and start helping us cope with the human tragedy they have caused.”
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Philadelphia Suing Opioid Drug Manufacturers
Jan 17, 2018 | Chestnut Hill Patch (PA)
By Max Bennett
The City of Philadelphia has legally joined the fight against the opioid epidemic in the nation by filing a lawsuit against various prescription opioid manufacturers, some of which call the Philadelphia area home.
City officials announced the lawsuit Wednesday, Jan. 17 at a press conference in City Hall.
"The epidemic currently plaguing the City has exacted a grim toll on Philadelphia residents and their families," Mayor Jim Kenney said in a statement on the suit. "And the cause can be directly linked to the methods used by manufacturers to market and sell their products to doctors and the public. Those tactics have to end."
The suit alleges Allergan/Actavis in Parsippany, New Jersey; Cephalon and Teva in North Wales, Pennsylvania; Endo in Malvern, Pennsylvania; Janssen in Titsuville, New Jersey; Johnson & Johnson in New Brunswick, New Jersey; and Purdue in Stamford, Connecticut employed "deceptive marketing practices" regarding opioid drugs.
The suit also is seeking to force the companies to pay for the costs of treatment of City residents suffering from opioid addiction and opioid use disorder, and to recover costs the City itself has incurred responding to the epidemic, according to officials.
Those costs include first-responders and public health funding; human services programs that treat addicted City residents; increased resources to fund the City's criminal justice and prison systems; and expenditures to many other City departments and programs affected by the use and abuse of opioids.
The lawsuit also seeks to recoup costs the City spent through its self-funded health insurance plans to purchase opioids for City employees who were prescribed opioids by their doctors.
Specific drugs mentioned in the suit include fentanyl, oxycodone, morphine, and tramadol.
The entire suit is available to review online here.
"This public health crisis harms public safety, order, and economic productivity," City of Philadelphia Solicitor Sozi Pedro Tulante said in a statment. "City agencies have incurred large, burdensome, unnecessary and avoidable costs to address the crisis. It is our duty to devote all resources we can to help protect the public from further perils and to finally put an end to the practices which are the root of this epidemic."
The City's Health Department estimates that one in three adults in Philadelphia has received a prescription for opioids in the past 12 months and one in seven – or some 168,000 – is currently taking these dangerous drugs.
Some of those people become addicted, and every week some overdose on opioids.
The number of fatal overdoses continues to rise in the City, officials said, as the 2017 total is expected to reach 1,200, a roughly 33 percent increase from 2016, according to officials.
According to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2016 Philadelphia suffered a rate of overdose deaths per-capita that was fourth highest in the nation and higher than any other large city.
"The opioid crisis is the largest public health crisis this city has seen in a century, and it has been fueled by drug companies," Dr. Thomas Farley, Health Commissioner for Philadelphia, said. "It's well past time for those companies to stop pushing these drugs and start helping us cope with the human tragedy they have caused."
Overwhelming scientific evidence has shown that the marketing of opioids to treat chronic pain has been the principal causative factor driving the opioid addiction epidemic, the multi-year surge in non-prescription, illegal opioid use including the use of heroin, and the rapid spike in opioid-related overdose deaths, city officials said.
Effects of the crises in Philadelphia can also be seen among the historically high incidences of babies born with opiate withdrawal conditions, increases in new Hepatitis C infections caused by opiate injections, sharp increases in the level of opioid-related emergency room visits and hospitalizations; and the extensive amount of emergency services provided by the Fire Department and other City agencies in reviving and transporting overdose victims, according to city officials.
In addition to the City's Law Department, the City is represented in the case by David Kairys, and attorneys from Berger & Montague, P.C., Dilworth Paxson, LLP, Sheller, P.C., Sacks Weston Diamond, LLC, Young Ricchiuti, Caldwell & Heller, LLC.
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Philly is suing drug companies for their part in the opioid crisis
Jan 17, 2018 | Billy Pen (PA)
By Michaela Winbergg
In response to the growing opioid crisis, the City of Philadelphia announced Wednesday morning its lawsuit against prescription opioid manufacturers. This lawsuit is in an attempt to hold pharmaceutical companies accountable for the part they played in the devastating epidemic sweeping through Philly, said City Solicitor Sozi Pedro Tulante.
The city named the following defendants: Allergan/Actavis; Cephalon and Teva; Endo; Janssen and Johnson & Johnson; and Purdue — all of which are companies that make and sell prescription opioids.
The lawsuit attempts to cover the costs incurred by the surge in dangerously addictive drug use, which it identifies as including:Funding for first respondersIncreased public health and human services programsAdditional resources for the city’s criminal justice and prison systems
Thomas Farley, the city’s health commissioner, made the claim that the opioid epidemic in Philly was driven by “aggressive marketing” on behalf of pharmaceutical companies.
“This ultimately will solve this problem, but…it will take many years and cost us many billions of dollars,” Farley said. “To fix this, everyone must do his part, especially the drug companies that got us here in the first place.”
This isn’t the first lawsuit of its kind — last year, both Ohio and Mississippi attorney generals sued drug companies in response to the crisis. In May, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine is sued five opioid manufacturers — the same entities (minus one) that Philadelphia is suing now. In October, Mississippi also filed against Johnson & Johnson, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Endo Pharmaceuticals, among others.
The city projects that 1,200 people suffered fatal overdoses last year in Philadelphia — up from about 900 in 2016. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, between 8 and 12 percent of people prescribed opioids develop substance use disorder.
“None of this is going to bring back the thousands of people who already died from drug overdoses, but it will prevent others from experiencing the same tragedy,” Farley said.
The city will be represented by its law department, as well as attorneys from Berger & Montague, P.C., Dilworth Paxson, LLP, Sheller, P.C., Sacks Weston Diamond, LLC, Young Ricchiuti, Caldwell & Heller, LLC and Temple law professor David Kairys.
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Champaign County suing drug makers, doctors over opiod risks
Jan 17, 2018 | WAND 17 (IL)
By Staff
The State of Illinois and Champaign County are suing drug companies that they say misled consumers and suppliers about the painkillers they produced.
The suit was fired last week against Purdue Pharma, Abbott Laboratories, Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Cephalon Inc., Johnson & Johnson, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Ortho-McNeil-Janssen, Endo Health Solutions Inc., and doctors, Perry Fine, Scott Fishman, and Lynn Webster.
The suit claims those doctors were “instrumental in promoting opioids for sale and distribution nationally and in Champaign County.”
The suit goes on to say opioid-induced overdose deaths rose in Champaign County every year between 2013 and 2015. They did drop slightly in 2016.
An opioid overdose antidote, Noloxone, was administered by paramedics 95 times in 2012. By 2016, it was used around 300 times.
The county also claims it has had to pay millions for health care costs related to prescription opioid dependence caused by “deceptive marking campaigns.”
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Boone County to sue more than 10 opioid manufacturers
Jan 17, 2018 | Rockford Register Star (IL)
By Susan Vela
The Boone County Board voted Wednesday to sue more than 10 pharmaceutical companies in response to an opioid crisis that has claimed several lives in Boone County and thousands across the country.
Paul Hanly of Simmons Hanly Conroy of New York plans to file the lawsuit on behalf of Boone County. The firm has been gathering information from local law enforcement, medical providers and social services agencies.
The lawsuit will be filed against companies including Purdue Pharma of Connecticut, Johnson & Johnson of New Jersey, and Cephalon Inc. of Pennsylvania, among others.
Boone County will not have to pay the lawyers unless there’s victory in a Boone County courtroom. Any settlement dollars would go back to rehab and recovery efforts.
Hanly said his firm is spending up to $40 million to file similar suits on behalf of government bodies across the nation. So far, the firm has moved forward on litigation against Wisconsin, New York and some Illinois government bodies.
Rockford aldermen agreed Tuesday to hire the law firm of Goldenberg, Heller and Antognoli to represent Rockford in a planned joint lawsuit with Winnebago County against opioid drug manufacturers and distributors.
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Minnesota counties push against opioid manufacturers
Jan 17, 2018 | Sun Focus (MN)
By Jack Hammett
Minnesota counties are moving forward with their plans to take legal action against opioid manufacturers and distributors. John Choi, who was elected president of the Minnesota County Attorneys Association Dec. 17, will lead Ramsey County in its suit against these distributors for allegedly using marketing similar to that of tobacco companies.
Defendants include the Purdue Frederick Company, Cephalon, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Watson Laboratories, the McKesson Corporation and more.
In 2016, according to a report from the Department of Health, nearly 400 Minnesotans died from opioid overdoses. Common prescriptions like Percocet and Vicodin accounted for about half of these deaths.
Heroin caused about 150 Minnesotan deaths. Overall, according to numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 64,000 people died of drug overdoses overall, and 14,400 of those deaths were from prescription opioids.
Because the opioid impact varies in each community, Choi said county leaders will file individual suits in the coming weeks.
“Every county is going to have a different story to tell with respect to their claims against distributors and the manufacturers,” Choi said. “We are very much together, and we want to find solutions that are going to work for our communities.”
Mounds View Police Chief Nate Harder said he supports Ramsey County in its lawsuit.
“We’ve certainly had our fair share of opioid problems,” he said. “That’s one reason why we asked for the police referendum to be passed, and we carry Narcan kits in our cars, and we certainly support any proactive measures being done.”
In late 2017, as part of the ongoing battle against opioid overdose and death, Mounds View passed a referendum allowing one veteran officer from its police department to be added to VCET, or Violent Crime Enforcement Team, in Ramsey County. This spring, the officer’s priority will be to target career criminals distributing narcotics.
Last year, NACo’s National City-County Task Force on the Opioid Epidemic published a report covering strategies with which local leaders can combat opioid fatalities in their communities.
According to the report, health professionals wrote 76 million opioid prescriptions in the U.S. in 1991 and 219 million in 2011. It also stated Americans consume up to 80 percent of the world’s prescription opioids.
“As local government officials, we are privileged to speak to our constituents with the authority and legitimacy that comes with public office and the trust and empathy derived from living daily in the communities we serve,” the report said. “From this invaluable position, we must set the tone in conversations about opioids by breaking the silence and speaking candidly and compassionately about the crisis in our cities and counties. However, we must also highlight and uplift local efforts to prevent further abuse of opioids and the overdoses and deaths that result from such abuse.”
Washington County Attorney Pete Orput, who has been cited as the “emotional energy” behind the Minnesota lawsuits, said in a November press conference that he feared late-night phone calls because they are often calls about overdoses.
“We’ve had enough of the fraudulent marketing and negligent distribution of opioids,” Orput said. “All of us have been struggling with the devastating effect they’ve had on our communities. All of this has been done in the name of outrageous profits.”
Orput said pharmaceutical companies have failed to tell doctors and patients how dangerous their products are.
“We must hold these corporate schlockmeisters accountable,” he said.
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Cherokee sues opioid companies
Jan 18, 2018 | Smoky Mountain News (NC)
By Holly Kays
The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians has filed a federal lawsuit seeking damages from 23 companies that manufacture or distribute opioid drugs. Listing a total of seven counts, the suit alleges violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act as well as negligence, conspiracy, fraud and creation of a public nuisance.
“Defendants knowingly traded in drugs that presented a high degree of danger if prescribed incorrectly or diverted to other than legitimate medical, scientific or industrial channels,” the suit states. “Because of the severe level of danger posed by, and indeed visited upon the State and Plaintiff’s Community by these dangerous drugs, Defendants owed a high duty of care to ensure that these drugs were only used for proper medical purposes. Defendants chose profit over prudence and the safety of the community, and an award of punitive damages is appropriate as a punishment and a deterrence.”
No dollar amount is named in the suit, but the amount sought is likely in the tens of millions of dollars. In the suit, the tribe seeks relief for all the costs it has incurred to provide treatment, counseling, rehabilitative services, care for the children of addicted parents and law enforcement related to the drug epidemic.
This year, the tribe opened a $13 million treatment center in Snowbird, and a $35 million crisis stabilization unit is in the planning stages — both projects are directly related to the opioid crisis.
The 161-page complaint contains page after page of allegations against the companies, detailing how they supposedly conspired to allow “hundreds of millions of pills” to illegally enter the market, failed to report suspicious orders as required by law, and conducted a marketing scheme to convince doctors to prescribe opioids to a much broader group of patients than they were previously intended for.
“In connection with this scheme, each Manufacturer Defendant spent, and continues to spend, millions of dollars on promotional activities and materials that falsely deny or trivialize the risks of opioids while overstating the benefits of using them for chronic pain,” the suit says.
The suit deems these efforts “wildly successful,” with opiods now the most prescribed class of drugs, generating $11 billion in revenue for drug companies in 2010 alone.
The result, the suit claims, is a public health crisis of epic proportions nationwide — but North Carolina’s epidemic is worse than most of the country, and Cherokee’s is worse than most of North Carolina.
North Carolina has an opioid prescription rate of 96.6 per 100 people, the 13th highest in the country compared to the U.S. median of 82.5. Between 1999 and 2016, more than 12,000 North Carolinians died from opioid-related overdoses, with the 2015 figure of 1,567 overdose deaths up 14.5 percent from the 1,358 who died in 2014, the suit says.
It’s even worse on the Qualla Boundary. The Cherokee Indian Hospital Authority reports that 14 percent of their patients, and 10 percent of tribal members, received a diagnosis related to substance abuse in 2012. The 2010 overdose rate on the Qualla Boundary was 118 per 100,000 people, 10 times the U.S. all-races rate, the suit says.
The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is one of three governments in Western North Carolina to file a similar suit. Buncombe County brought similar allegations against a nearly identical list of companies in a suit filed Nov. 14, 2017, which has now been transferred to the Northern District of Ohio. Catawba County filed a suit in Jan. 11.
Several other Native American tribes are also suing opioid companies. In April 2017 the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma filed a lawsuit naming six companies, three of which are also named in the EBCI’s suit. The Rosebud Sioux Tribe, the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe and the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate, all of South Dakota, filed a suit Jan. 8 against 24 opioid manufacturers and distributors.
Numerous such lawsuits have been filed by governments across the nation.
Cherokee began the process toward filing its lawsuit in August 2017, when the Cherokee Tribal Council passed a resolution — introduced by Principal Chief Richard Sneed — declaring the opioid crisis a public nuisance. The resolution noted that Council had “received information that indicates that wholesale distributors of controlled substances in areas surrounding the Tribe’s Reservation may have violated Federal and or State laws and regulations that were enacted to prevent the diversion of legally produced controlled substances into the illicit market.”
After Sneed introduced the resolution, Tribal Council went into a brief closed session — possibly to discuss the potential for a future lawsuit — before resuming open session to unanimously pass the resolution.
That action was followed by an Oct. 16, 2017, decision to file a civil suit against opioid distributors and manufacturers. The August resolution was a necessary first step, Sneed said on that occasion, giving the EBCI standing to file civil action.
“Should we prevail in court, any settlement funds would be designated for rehabilitation, education and law enforcement,” Sneed told Tribal Council in October. “Once again, this would be the EBCI leading the way in Indian Country.”
Sneed went on to say that the tribe’s current annual costs for maintaining its existing drug-related programs, such as the needle exchange and treatment center, is $6 to $7 million.
“That number’s not going to come down in the foreseeable future. In fact the cost will probably increase year-over-year until we get a handle on it,” he said. “These drug companies need to be held accountable. This is a manufactured crisis.”
The Smoky Mountain News reached out to each of the companies listed on the lawsuit — the 23 names boil down to 10 parent companies. Of those 10 companies, four had returned a request for comment as of press time.
“We are deeply troubled by the prescription and illicit opioid abuse crisis, and we are dedicated to being part of the solution,” said John Puskar, director of public affairs for Purdue Pharma. “We vigorously deny these allegations and look forward to the opportunity to present our defense.
Responses from Endo and Janssen included similar statements, denying the allegations and outlining ways the companies have responded to the opioid crisis.
Heather Zoumas Lubeski, senior director of corporate affairs for Endo, said that the company has voluntarily ceased opioid promotion and eliminated its entire product salesforce. In addition, she said, Endo has implemented new anti-diversion measures and stopped developing new opioid products.
William Foster of Janssen, meanwhile, said that Janssen has acted “in the best interests of patients and physicians with regard to its opioid pain medicines” and that Janssen opiates “consistently have some of the lowest rates of abuse among these medications.”
A statement from Kaelan Hollon of Teva did not directly address the lawsuit but said that the company is “committed to the appropriate use of opioid medicines” and recognizes the harm caused by misuse of the drugs.
“To that end, we take a multi-faceted approach to this complex issue; we work to educate communities and healthcare providers on appropriate medicine use and prescribing, we comply closely with all relevant federal and state regulations regarding these medicines, and, through our R&D pipeline, we are developing non-opioid treatments that have the potential to bring relief to patients in chronic pain,” Hollon said.
John Parker of the Healthcare Distribution Alliance, which represents wholesale distributors including those named in the suit, responded to SMN’s request for comment by commenting that, while distributors understand the “tragic impact” of the opioid epidemic and are willing to be part of the solution, they “aren’t willing to be scapegoats,” as they aren’t responsible for making, marketing, prescribing or dispensing medicines.
“The idea that distributors are solely responsible for the number of opioid prescriptions written defies common sense and lacks understanding of how the pharmaceutical supply chain actually works and how it is regulated,” Parker said.
Other companies named in the suit are Cardinal Health, Normaco McKesson, AmerisourceBergan, Allergan and Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals.
The complaints
The lawsuit includes lists seven counts of alleged misconduct requiring relief. These allegations are summarized below.
Count I: Public nuisance
Residents of the Qualla Boundary have “a common right to be free from conduct that creates an unreasonable jeopardy to public health, welfare and safety, and to be free from conduct that creates a disturbance and reasonable apprehension of danger to person and property.” However, the defendants have “unlawfully and/or intentionally caused and permitted dangerous drugs under their control to be diverted such as to injure” members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.
Count II: Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act
The market for prescription drugs is a “closed system” regulated by the Controlled Substances Act, which limits the defendants’ ability to manufacture and distribute Schedule II substances like opioids. These laws prevented members of the Opioid Diversion Enterprise from achieving their “ever-increasing sales ambitions”, so they “systematically and fraudulently violated their duty” to prevent diversion of their drugs, report and halt suspicious orders and notify the Drug Enforcement Agency of suspicious orders.
Count III: Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act
The defendants “agreed and conspired” to violate federal racketeering laws, and conspiring to violate these laws is a crime.
Count IV: Negligence and negligent misrepresentation
The defendants had an obligation to exercise “reasonable” and “due” care in manufacturing, marketing, selling and distributing “highly dangerous opioid drugs,” and “reasonably prudent” manufacturers and distributors would have known that opioid addiction would “wreak havoc” on communities and that pushing these opioids for chronic pain would result in “the severe harm of addiction.” However, the defendants continued to sell “escalating amounts” of these drugs, misrepresented their compliance with the laws surrounding them, and misrepresented their addictive nature.
Count V: Negligence per se
The defendants “breached their duties to maintain effective controls against the diversion of dangerously addictive opioids,” and it was foreseeable that this breach of duty would result in “the economic damages for which the Plaintiff seeks recovery.”
Count VI: Civil conspiracy
Acting with “a common understanding or design to commit unlawful acts,” the defendants created a public nuisance and committed fraud and misrepresentation in their handling of opioids. They failed to act to prevent the diversion of these drugs and unlawfully marketed opioids.
Count VII: Fraud and fraudulent misrepresentation
The defendants knowingly made false statements regarding their compliance with laws outlining duties to prevent diversion and report suspicious orders, and falsely represented the facts regarding using opioids to treat chronic pain.
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Fort Smith joins opioid lawsuit
Jan 18, 2018 | Greenwood Democrat (AR)
By Alex Golden
Fort Smith is joining other Arkansas cities in a lawsuit against opioid manufacturers and distributors after a Tuesday vote by the city’s Board of Directors.
The city is simultaneously joining the Arkansas’ Municipal League’s legal defense program. At a cost of $107,761 for a year, the city will have access to lawyers and a “pot of money should things go badly” that it can use for litigation costs, Director of Legal Services Mark Hayes said at the board’s meeting. The program will cover costs that add up when there’s a lawsuit, such as depositions, transcripts, expert witnesses or travel. The city will continue to use Fort Smith law firm Daily & Woods for day-to-day legal services such as reviewing contracts or drafting ordinances and may still use its attorneys for lawsuits.
Cities typically use the program for “big-ticket items” such as lawsuits involving police, employment, taxation or land use, Hayes said by phone.
About 440 cities are a part of the legal defense program. About 100 of those cities, including Fort Smith, are joining the lawsuit against opioid manufacturers and distributors, although that number is growing, Hayes said. The Municipal League defense program, health benefit fund and workers compensation trust as well as the Arkansas Public Entities Risk Management Association and the Association of Arkansas Counties are coming together to sue entities that make and distribute opioids, in light of the epidemic — Arkansas is second in the nation for number of prescriptions per 100 people. A federal lawsuit has been filed, and a state lawsuit is planned to be filed by the end of January or in February, Hayes said. It’s unclear whether Fort Smith will have a role in the federal lawsuit that has already been filed.
“There is no intent to sue local doctors,” Hayes said at the meeting.
A goal of the lawsuit is for the manufacturers and distributors to pay money directly to cities, Hayes said by phone. Additionally, they would pay for programs designed to combat opioid addiction. Hayes gave some examples of how local governments are directly affected by the increase in opioid addiction. Police officers and firefighters often carry emergency medications to treat people who have overdosed.
“They didn’t have to do that before,” he said, adding that those medications cost money and cities use their resources to train first responders on how to use them. More opioid-related emergencies also mean more local resources going to the problem. People who have been addicted may need years of treatment.
The directors passed two resolutions — one to take part in the legal defense program and one to take part in the opioid litigation — each with a 6-1 vote with Ward 4 Director George Catsavis opposed.
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Towns sue pharmaceutical companies over opioid abuse
Jan 17, 2018 | Milford Mirror (CT)
By Staff
Bridgeport, Fairfield, Milford and Shelton are among 18 towns that together have filed a lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies, blaming opioid abuse on “aggressive and fraudulent marketing” of painkillers.
The action, filed in the Connecticut Superior Court in the Judicial District of Waterbury, also includes the towns of Naugatuck, Southbury, Woodbury, Beacon Falls, Oxford, West Haven, North Haven, Thomaston, Torrington, Bristol, East Hartford, Southington, Newtown and Tolland.
The municipalities seek “compensatory and punitive damages for the millions of dollars they spend each year to combat the public nuisance created by the drug companies’ deceptive marketing campaign that misrepresents the safety and efficacy of long-term opioid use,” according to a press release from the law firms Drubner Hartley & Hellman and Simmons Hanly Conroy.
The defendants in the lawsuit are Purdue Pharma L.P.; Purdue Pharma Inc.; The Purdue Frederick Company Inc.; Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc.; Cephalon Inc.; Johnson & Johnson; Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc.; Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc.; Janssen Pharmaceutica Inc.; Endo Health Solutions Inc.; Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc.; Dr. Perry Fine; Dr. Scott Fishman; and Dr. Lynn Webster.
This filing follows similar action filed by Drubner Hartley & Hellman and Simmons Hanly Conroy last year on behalf of the City of Waterbury against pharmaceutical manufacturers to address the opioid crisis.
“The defendants have profited significantly as a result of their self-serving marketing, with opioid prescription rates increasing fourfold since 1999,” said James Hartley, partner in Drubner Hartley & Hellman. “The large number of both large and small Connecticut municipalities that have joined together in this complaint underscores the significant detrimental impact that rising opioid-related deaths, opioid addiction rates and the costs associated with the opioid crisis has had on the State. Big Pharma has to be held accountable for its role in this horrendous opioid epidemic.”
“We are proud to stand with Drubner Hartley & Hellman as they seek justice for these municipalities,” said Simmons Hanly Conroy Shareholder Paul Hanly, lead co-counsel in the case. “This is an important step toward holding accountable those who have destroyed their communities. Together, we will work to ensure that all Connecticut residents across the state get justice.”
On Jan. 4, Hanly was appointed by a federal judge to be co-lead counsel overseeing all the federal litigation brought against pharmaceutical companies and physicians involved in the marketing of prescription opioid painkillers. Hanly, with experience in litigation against opioid manufacturers going back more than a decade, will work with his co-lead counsels to manage the federal lawsuits brought by nearly 100 other law firms representing plaintiffs in more than 200 docketed opioid cases.
The complaint alleges that increased misuse of opioids as a result of the defendants’ conduct has led to significant increases in the number of opioid-related emergency room visits, hospital stays, and deaths in Connecticut. Between 2012 and 2017, Connecticut rose from ranking 50th in drug overdose deaths to 12th in the nation.
In 2016 alone, there were 917 accidental drug overdose deaths in Connecticut, a majority of which were opioid-related, according to the law firms. This represents an increase of more than 250 percent over the number of drug overdoses that took place in Connecticut in 2012. The suit also contends that over the last several years, law enforcement and first responders in the municipalities filing the action have administered Naloxone, a medication used to block the effect of opioids, especially in overdose, hundreds of times.
Apart from the toll on human life, the crisis has financially strained the services the municipalities provide its residents and employees. The complaint alleges that as a direct and foreseeable consequence of the defendants’ egregious conduct, the municipalities have incurred substantial economic, administrative and social costs relating to opioid addiction and abuse, including payment for unnecessary and excessive opioid prescriptions, substance abuse treatment services, and emergency department services among others.
The lawsuit alleges the defendants sought to create a false perception in the minds of physicians, patients, health care providers and health care payors that using opioids to treat chronic pain was safe for most patients and that the drugs’ benefits outweighed the risks. This was allegedly perpetrated through a civil conspiracy involving a coordinated, sophisticated and highly deceptive (unbranded to evade the extensive regulatory framework governing branded communications) promotion and marketing campaign that began in the late 1990s, became more aggressive around 2006, and is ongoing. Specifically, the complaint details how the defendants allegedly poured significant financial resources into generating articles, continuing medical education courses and other “educational” materials, conducting sales visits to doctors, and supporting a network of professional societies and advocacy groups – all of which were successful in the intended purpose of creating a new and phony “consensus” supporting the long-term use of opioids.
The Connecticut lawsuit follows similar, ongoing action filed by Simmons Hanly Conroy on behalf of counties and parishes across the country. In addition to Connecticut, Simmons has also filed similar lawsuits in New York, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin.
About Drubner Hartley & Hellman
Founded in 1980, Drubner, Hartley & Hellman, LLC, focuses on representing plaintiffs in complex litigation and class actions. With over three decades of experience, the firm has successfully brought actions on behalf of thousands of individuals and businesses, as well as hospitals, state and local medical societies and municipalities.
About Simmons Hanly Conroy, LLC
Simmons Hanly Conroy LLC is one of the nation’s largest mass tort law firms. Primary areas of litigation include asbestos and mesothelioma, pharmaceutical, consumer protection, environmental, sexual abuse litigation and personal injury. The firm’s attorneys have been appointed to leadership in numerous national multidistrict litigations, including most recently the Prescription Opiates, Vioxx, Yaz, Toyota Unintended Acceleration and DePuy Pinnacle. The firm also represents small and mid-size corporations, inventors and entrepreneurs in matters involving business litigation. Offices are located in Alton, Ill.; Chicago; Los Angeles; New York City; San Francisco; and St. Louis. Read more at www.simmonsfirm.com.
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Lawmakers Outline Legislation to Limit First-Time Opioid Prescriptions
Jan 18, 2018 | West Virginia Public Broadcasting (WV)
By Liz McCormick
On The Legislature Today, we bring you a special focus on West Virginia’s opioid epidemic. First, we take you to the small town of Kermit where the tragic toll of the epidemic has weighed heavily on residents, and then, host Andrea Lannom chats with two lawmakers who outline legislation addressing the issue on multiple fronts.
Kermit, in Mingo County, was the first town in the country to file suit against large pharmaceutical companies for flooding their community with opioids. Reporter Jessica Lilly brings us this story.
House Health & Human Resources Committee Chairman Del. Joe Ellington and Sen. Ron Stollings, a member of the Senate Health & Human Resources Committee, join host Andrea Lannom to discuss epidemic and the legislation to combat it. Both Ellington and Stollings are also physicians.
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To reduce the risk of opioid addiction, study suggests higher doses but fewer refills
Jan 17, 2018 | Los Angeles Times
By Karen Kaplan
Health experts have an intriguing suggestion for reducing opioid overdoses and deaths — asking doctors to prescribe bigger doses of the powerful painkillers.
It may sound counterintuitive, but providing more pain relief to patients right away might allow them to stop taking the pills sooner. And reducing the total amount of time that patients are on opioids could ultimately reduce the risk of addiction and abuse, new research suggests.
A study published Wednesday in the BMJ finds that for every additional week a patient takes drugs like oxycodone and hydrocodone, the chance that he or she will wind up abusing the drug increases by 20%. And every time a prescription for opioid painkillers is refilled, the risk of abuse rises by 44%.
Those calculations were based on data from more than 1 million Americans who had health and pharmacy insurance through Aetna. All of them had some kind of surgery between 2008 and early 2016, and 56% of them filled a prescription for an opioid pain reliever after their procedure.
Insurance records showed that 5,906 patients (or 0.6% of the entire sample) wound up "misusing" opioids. That means they became dependent on the drugs, abused them, or had an overdose.
Rates of misuse increased over the course of the study. In 2009, the research team tallied 183 cases for every 100,000 person-years; by 2016, that had risen to 269 cases per 100,000 person-years.
This trend occurred in spite of the fact that the rate at which opioids were prescribed peaked early in the study period, remained relatively flat for several years, and then fell. The researchers also noted that as the years passed, doctors tended to prescribe lower doses of painkillers and spread them out over longer periods of time.
When the team analyzed all the data to see which factors were most closely aligned with risk of misuse, the one that stood out was the number of prescriptions filled after patients left the hospital or clinic.
"Overall rates of misuse were low, but rates grew rapidly with increasing opioid use," the study authors wrote. "The rate of misuse more than doubled among those with one refill … versus those with no refills."
After adjusting for things like the age and sex of patients, what kind of surgery they had, their daily dose of opioids and other factors, the researchers determined that each additional week of painkiller use increased the risk of misuse by 20%, and each additional refill increased the risk by 44%.
The dosage of painkiller prescriptions was only weakly related to the risk of misuse. For instance, among patients who took the drugs for less than two weeks, the rate of misuse was about the same for those who got the equivalent of 40 to 50 milligrams of morphine each day as for those who got three times as much.
"These findings suggest a more nuanced understanding of the relation between duration and dosage," the authors wrote. "Patients who require subsequent refills of opioid drugs are statistically more likely to have an episode of misuse, even years after the index surgery."
And that's why they say higher initial doses of opioids might be better in the long run — to make sure the pain is taken care of right away.
"Under-treatment of acute pain increases the risk of pseudoaddiction, chronic pain, and, potentially, overdose," they wrote.
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Where is Trump's emergency on opioids? (EDITORIAL)
Jan 18, 2018 | USA TODAY
By Editorial Board
Amid much fanfare last October, President Trump declared that the nation's opioid crisis was a “public health emergency” and spoke movingly of losing his older brother to alcohol addiction. That 90-day declaration is set to expire Tuesday. And while some promising plans are taking shape, the federal follow-through is falling far short of what is needed.
About 1,000 people in America are dying each week from this epidemic, and the time is long past for the president to mobilize “every appropriate emergency authority,” as he promised on Oct. 26.
Among the missing pieces:
►Key players. Can you name the nation's "drug czar" these days? Probably not, because there isn't one. The Office of National Drug Control Policy, a high-profile White House office that should coordinate a government-wide strategy, still has no permanent director, the person often known as the drug czar.
The office is run by an acting director, after Trump was forced to withdraw his first nominee. In part because the office has so many vacancies, a 24-year-old former campaign worker, with an inflated résumé and no obvious experience in drug policy, recently rose to be the deputy chief of staff, The Washington Post reported Sunday. The president initially called for slashing that office’s budget by 95% and resuscitated it only after a bipartisan uproar in Congress.
Meanwhile, the president hasn't nominated someone to run the Drug Enforcement Administration, the agency that enforces the nation's drug laws.
► More money. While the administration says it has spent or allocated more than $1 billion on the opioid crisis, huge chunks of the funding were provided under laws passed in 2016, before Trump took office.
For example, $485 million distributed last April under what the White House calls “the newly created State Targeted Response to the Opioid Crisis,” was authorized in the 21st Century Cures Act signed by President Obama in December 2016. As for fresh resources, the best a White House spokesman could offer was this: “We will continue discussions with Congress on the appropriate level of funding needed to address this crisis.”
That's not exactly the rallying cry for resources one expects in an emergency. Trump’s 2018 budget request to Congress for everything from prevention and treatment to law enforcement called for a paltry 1% increase over Obama's last budget for drug control.
► Promised initiatives. Trump promised “really tough, really big, really great advertising” to prevent people from abusing drugs in the first place. Nothing on that yet. Nor is there any noticeable movement on a key part of his Health and Human Services Department's five-point strategy, which touted targeting "the availability and distribution of overdose-reversing drugs.”
Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who headed Trump's opioid commission, told USA TODAY that his top priority was getting naloxone, the major overdose antidote, into the hands of every first responder in the nation. This week, HHS failed to answer repeated questions about what, if anything, is happening on that plan.
Health commissioners in cities and states hardest hit by the opioid scourge were optimistic about the emergency declaration, which some say gave the crisis the national visibility it has long needed. But the federal follow-through? Not so much.
“There has been no effect for those of us on the ground,” says Baltimore Health Commissioner Leana Wen, whose city lost 694 people to overdoses in 2016. One of her biggest needs: more naloxone. Public Health Commissioner Rahul Gupta of West Virginia, which has the highest rate of overdose deaths in the nation, also hoped for a “surge in resources” that has not materialized.
It's unclear whether the administration plans to extend the emergency declaration beyond Tuesday.
Trump said in October that under his administration's initiatives, the number of addicts "will start to tumble downward over a period of years," and that "it will be a beautiful thing to see."
We hope so, because so far the opioid epidemic continues to look very, very ugly.
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Jan 18, 2018 | Los Angeles Times
By Michael Hiltzik
Washington tourists with time on their hands Wednesday could have popped into the Capitol to witness an ancient phenomenon: Senators doing their darndest to prove a partisan fantasy.
In this case, the fantasy was that Medicaid expansion is to blame for the opioid crisis in the United States. The ringmaster was Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). Johnson has been flogging this notion for the better part of a year, or longer, despite the utter lack of evidence that it's true — and plenty of evidence that the opposite is true.
The venue Wednesday was a Senate hearing room, where as chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, Johnson presided over a session titled "Unintended Consequences: Medicaid and the Opioid Epidemic."
The witnesses included one anti-Medicaid ideologue, two local prosecutors who testified that they've seen a lot of addicts in their work and lots of them seem to be on Medicaid, and two experts who, tactlessly, pointed out that the causes of the opioid epidemic are many and complex, that it started years before Medicaid expansion, and that it involves patients and doctors in Medicare and private insurance as well as the uninsured.
Johnson has tried to color his campaign against Medicaid expansion as mere concern for ordinary Americans locked into "dependence on government," as he put it in a July 27 letter to Health and Human Services Inspector General Daniel Levinson. In the letter he asserted that "drug overdose deaths have risen at an alarming rate" since Medicaid expansion began on Jan. 1, 2014, and that "Medciaid expansion states have been hardest hit."
A couple of problems arise from this theory. Efforts to demonize Medicaid expansion because it was launched as the opioid crisis really took off confuse correlation with causation, David Hyman of the Georgetown University Law Center warned Johnson's committee. "Just because A precedes B doesn't mean that A causes B," he said. "That's statistics 101."
It's plain that the source of most of Johnson's concern actually derives from an ideological hostility to Medicaid generally and to Medicaid expansion particularly. That's made clear by the presence on his witness panel of Sam Adolphsen, a former Maine official who helped fight expansion in that state and now works with a right-wing think tank, the Foundation for Government Accountability, which has pumped out anti-Medicaid claims in the past. In his testimony, Adolphsen trotted out the familiar slap at Medicaid expansion as favoring "able-bodied adults," claimed "there is a robust black market of welfare funds being traded underground around the country," whatever that means, and asserted that Medicaid "creates barriers to work," which is flagrantly untrue.
Here's a more measured look at Medicaid and the opioid crisis:
First, while it's true as Johnson says that drug overdose deaths have risen at an alarming rate since Medicaid expansion began, they were rising at an alarming rate before Medicaid expansion began. The increase, in fact, began in the 1990s, when doctors began prescribing opioids such as oxycodone in the belief that they would effectively relieve chronic pain with minimal risk of addiction. As Andrew Kolodny of Brandeis Universitytold Johnson's committee, this was the product in part of the drug industry's "brilliant, multifaceted marketing campaign that changed the culture of opioid prescribing."
What really has happened since Medicaid expansion? The opioid crisis has expanded more rapidly than before, but largely because of a sharper rise in the abuse of non-prescription drugs such as heroin and fentanyl, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Overdose deaths involving commonly prescribed opioids, which would be those prescribed under Medicaid, have actually leveled out since about 2011, according to researchers at the University of Maryland and UC San Francisco.
Johnson acknowledged the weakness of his case at the outset of the hearing. "This epidemic began way before Medicaid expansion," he said. He said he was merely pointing out that the opioid crisis may have been an "unintended consequence" of expansion and that expansion may have been a "contributing factor."
Still, he continued to make the connection between Medicaid expansion and the opioid crisis, even when his own evidence undermined his case. A chart reproduced from a report he released Wednesday pinning the crisis on Medicaid fraud paired five Medicaid expansion states with neighboring non-expansion states, purporting to show much higher increases in opioid deaths in the expansion states from 2013 to 2015. Johnson didn't seem to notice that the 55% increase in Maine, one of his non-expansion states, actually exceeded the increase in three of his expansion states — Ohio (41%), Maryland (44%) and West Virginia (27%).
The Republican campaign against Medicaid could only make the opioid crisis worse. That's because Medicaid pays for a huge proportion of opioid treatments, covering fully one-third of those with addiction problems. Most of that spending is in expansion states — in fact, it's possible that the prevalance of opioid addiction in some states may have helped prompt them to accept expansion (another example of how the relationship between addiction and Medicaid may have been misread). The necessity of continuing Medicaid expansion to address the opioid crisis was made forcibly by Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, both Republicans, last year when congressional Republicans were working hard to eviscerate the program.
Johnson and his fellow Republicans in Congress seem determined to impose cuts on the program, even though the benefits it renders are crystal-clear. Wednesday's hearing did achieve one benefit, for all that: It showed how threadbare their arguments are.
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Jan 18, 2018 | WCAU (NBC)
By Philadelphia, PA
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32121187?token=1b9525d8-da37-4ada-b5eb-a766e4e55b11
Rough Transcript: expected to make a full recovery. >>> philadelphia's taking its fight against the opioid epidemic straight to the source. the city filed a lawsuityesterday against pharmaceutical companies that make and market addictive prescription drugs. the leaders say the companies used deceptive marketing that failed to explain how dangerous the drugs could be.
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Jan 18, 2018 | WTXF (Fox)
By Philadelphia, PA
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32121149?token=1b9525d8-da37-4ada-b5eb-a766e4e55b11
Rough Transcript: well philadelphia is joining dozens every communities suing the makers of opioids. >> good. >> the health commissioner says 1200 people died from overdoses in 2017. those named in the lawsuit are ten drug makers like johnson & johnson, and purdue pharmaceutical. they're accused of deceptive marking and sale of prescription opioids.
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Jan 18, 2018 | WPVI (ABC)
By Philadelphia, PA
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32121175?token=1b9525d8-da37-4ada-b5eb-a766e4e55b11
Rough Transcript: philadelphia is trying to a few tactic to battle the opioid epidemic, a lawsuit suing pharmaceutical companies to hat deceptive marketing practices and reinforcement for the money spent on addiction and enforcement. 1200 people in the city alone died of fatal overdoses last year.
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Jan 18, 2018 | WGAL (NBC)
By Harrisburg, PA
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32121177?token=1b9525d8-da37-4ada-b5eb-a766e4e55b11
Rough Transcript: we are asking the companies that sell these drugs to stop pushing these drugs in philadelphia. and to start helping us clean up the problems that they have caused. lori: right now the city of , philadelphia is suing companies that make opioids. the lawsuit accuses drugmakers of deceptive marketing. the city wants the companies to stop those taxes. and it also wants them to pay treatment costs, and reimburse the city for money it has spent responding to the opioid epidemic. the centers for disease control and prevention says philadelphia has a higher rate of overdose deaths than any other major american city.
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Jan 18, 2018 | WBNG (CBS)
By Binghamton, NY
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32121184?token=1b9525d8-da37-4ada-b5eb-a766e4e55b11
Rough Transcript: the opioid crisis is causing continuous damage to america -- and philadelphia has filed a lawsuit against drug companies that make prescription opioids.the city says they've created "an unprecedented public health 6:34 AMcrisis."it seeks to halt what the city calls deceptive marketing practices it also wants to force drugmakers to pay for treatment costsmayor jim kenney says the epidemic "has exacted a grim toll" on philadelphiathe city says the number of fatal overdoses for 2017 is expected to reach 1,200 walmart is getting involved in the fight against opioid abuse. the company is launching a new opioid-disposal product called dispose-r-x.when added to a pill bottle with warm water, dispose-r-x is supposed to separate the meds into a biodegradable gel.walmart pharmacies will provide it to patients filling certain new opioidprescriptions for free. the retail giant says the product is a safe and effective way to get rid of unused opioid medication. to fight the opioidepidemic governor andrew cuomo is proposing to create a surcharge for opioid manufactures.he is proposing that two cents per miligram will be paid by the manufacturer.which will go toward off-setting the cost of spending to fight opioid abuse. "i want to increase the cost of buying opioids -- and i want the doctors and the hositals and the nurses and the pharmasits to think twice before prescribing opioids" the governor says there are plenty of other drugs doctors can prescribe that are not as addictive ---and this is one small way to direction.
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Jan 18, 2018 | NECN (NEWSENG)
By Boston, MA
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32121165?token=1b9525d8-da37-4ada-b5eb-a766e4e55b11
Rough Transcript: the city of philadelphia today filed a lawsuit against prescription opioid manufacturers... seeking to halt deceptive marketing practices and pay treatment costs for residents suffering from opioid addiction. city health officials say they are taking several active measures to combat the opioid problem and it's draining them financially. "so today we're asking th companies that sell these drugs to stop pushing these drugs in philadelphia and to start helping us clean up the problems that they have caused." according to officials... philadelphia ranks at the top among the largest cities in america for opioid deaths.
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Jan 18, 2018 | WAND (NBC)
By Champaign, IL
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32121153?token=1b9525d8-da37-4ada-b5eb-a766e4e55b11
Rough Transcript: a champaign law firm filed a lawsuit law firm filed a lawsuit against a handful of drug companies. lawfirm koester and bradley filed the lawsuit on behalf of the state and the city of champiagn. the suit claims painkiler manufac turers misled consumers and medical providers. it states the companies knew about the risks of using opioids. companies include johnson and johnson, purdue pharma, and cephalon to name a few.
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Jan 18, 2018 | WCIX (PBS)
By Champaign, IL
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32121164?token=1b9525d8-da37-4ada-b5eb-a766e4e55b11
Rough Transcript: the state and champaign county are taking several drug companies and doctors to court. the lawsuit says the companies and doctors pushed opiods on people --without telling them the right way to use them.the opioid death rate in champaign county more than doubled from 2010 and 2015.the lawsuit wants the companies and doctors to pay for damages.
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Jan 18, 2018 | KHBS (ABC)
By Ft. Smith, AR
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32121173?token=1b9525d8-da37-4ada-b5eb-a766e4e55b11
Rough Transcript: the city of fort smith is joing other arkansas cities in a lawsuit against opioid manufacturers and distributors. the times record reports this, after a vote by the city's board of directors tuesday. fort smith also joined the arkansas' municipal league's legal defense program. this means that for nearly $108,000 for one year, the city will have access to lawyers and money if the lawsuit doesn't go in fort smith's favor.
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Jan 18, 2018 | WTIC (Fox)
By Hartford & New Haven, CT
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32121195?token=1b9525d8-da37-4ada-b5eb-a766e4e55b11
Rough Transcript: 18 conn committees announced they are suing several pharmaceutical giants bridgeport east hartford and tolland just some of the cities that joing forces to file suit. the climbing roughly a dozen big-name pharmaceutical companies including perdue farms use deceptive marketing that misrepresented the safety of opioids they're seeking millions of dollars in damages the student is now the fourth of its kind in the state waterbury and new haven and new britain all filed similar suits last year of perdue farms is just one of the companies named in the suit.
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