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Opioid Litigation Daily Media Report - 1/29/18
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Conference on possible opioid settlement coming this week
Jan 28, 2018 | Alabama.com (AL)
By Lawrence Specker
This week brings what could be a major development in a national legal war over opioid painkillers, as a federal judge gathers the parties together to talk about the settlement he'd like them to reach. -
Judge: Stop the legal fights and curb the opioid epidemic
Jan 29, 2018 | Clarion Ledger (MS)
By Jerry Mitchell
The federal judge overseeing about 200 lawsuits against opioid makers would rather curb the opioid epidemic than referee the litigation. -
Gaston County leaders to discuss lawsuit against opioid manufacturers
Jan 29, 2018 | WSOC (NC)
By Staff
The Gaston County Board of Commissioners will discuss on Monday its decision to file a lawsuit against the manufacturers and distributors of opioids. -
Gaston County to address lawsuit against opioid distributors
Jan 29, 2018 | WBTV (NC)
By Staff
The Gaston County Board of Commissioners is expected to discuss their decision to file a lawsuit against the manufacturers and distributors of prescription narcotics Monday. -
Louisiana governments, lawyers file lawsuits against drug companies for rise of opioid cases
Jan 27, 2018 | The Advocate (LA)
By Tyler Bridges
Governments throughout Louisiana — led by the state Department of Health and the cities of Baton Rouge and Covington — are joining a national stampede to file civil lawsuits alleging that drug companies have saddled taxpayers with huge medical and law enforcement costs by recklessly creating opioid addicts. -
City of Covington joins lawsuit against drugmakers to combat opioid crisis
Jan 26, 2018 | WWLTV (LA)
By Ashley Rodrigue
Every day, upwards of 150 people walk into the doors of the main clinic for Florida Parishes Human Services Authority. -
Pasco County takes step toward opioid litigation
Jan 26, 2018 | Bay News 9 (FL)
By Sarah Blazonis
The Pasco County Board of County Commissioners gave County Attorney Jeffrey Steinsnyder approval to retain special counsel for litigation regarding the local opioid epidemic. -
State to investigate makers of opioids
Jan 28, 2018 | Northwest Arkansas (AR)
By John Moritz
Attorney General Leslie Rutledge announced this week that she will "ramp up" her office's efforts to combat the state's opioid epidemic by investigating the companies that manufacture prescription painkillers. -
More Washington cities sue drugmakers over opioid crisis
Jan 26, 2018 | Associated Press
By Staff
Skagit County and three cities located within it are the latest jurisdictions in Washington state to sue drugmakers over the opioid crisis. -
Skagit County, cities file suit against pharmaceutical companies
Jan 27, 2018 | GoSkagit (WA)
By Kera Wanielista
Skagit County and the cities of Burlington, Mount Vernon and Sedro-Woolley filed a lawsuit Thursday against three of the country’s top pharmaceutical companies for their roles in contributing to an opioid crisis throughout the country. -
Board of Health urges Clallam County opioid lawsuit
Jan 28, 2018 | Peninsula Daily News
By Rob Ollikainen
Clallam County is being asked to file a lawsuit against drug manufacturers that are fueling the opioid epidemic. -
City joins lawsuit against opioid makers, distributors
Jan 26, 2018 | New Castle News (PA)
By Nancy Lowry
New Castle has joined the surge of cities, counties and states suing opioid drug manufacturers and distributors. -
Boonville mayor: opioid lawsuit will not cost taxpayers
Jan 26, 2018 | Tristate (IN)
By Staff
The City of Boonville joined more than 70 other cities and towns across Indiana that are suing opioid manufacturers and distributors. -
AG joins Walmart to introduce free prescription, opioid home disposal kits
Jan 26, 2018 | Red Dirt Report (OK)
By Heide Brandes
In America, 45 percent of citizens have left over prescription drugs in their medicine cabinets at home, and 70 percent of opioid and heroin users started by stealing from friends’ or family’s medicine cabinets. -
Purdue faces uphill battle to overcome opioid controversy
Jan 28, 2018 | Stamford Advocate (CT)
By Paul Schott
A growing number of prosecutors and politicians accuse Purdue Pharma of fueling the national opioid crisis. The maker of the maligned opioid OxyContin says there is another side to the story. -
Attorney General Jeff Sessions to visit Pittsburgh to discuss opioid epidemic, violent crime
Jan 26, 2018 | Tribune Live (PA)
By Renatta Signorini
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions will discuss the opioid epidemic and violent crime during a stop in Pittsburgh on Monday, the Department of Justice announced Friday. -
McCaskill: Pharmaceutical Companies Should Not Get Tax Deductions For Ads
Jan 29, 2018 | Missourinet (MO)
By Alisa Nelson
U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri, says banning pharmaceutical companies from deducting drug advertisements on their taxes would have a very positive impact on the nation’s opioid crisis. She is investigating ways that addictive prescription drugs are being marketed by companies. -
Mark Murphy: Opioid epidemic: A national, local crisis (EDITORIAL)
Jan 27, 2018 | SavannahNow (GA)
By Mark E. Murphy
I was running through the hills of Seattle when the news came across my phone. -
Philly right to go after drugmakers (EDITORIAL)
Jan 26, 2018 | The Philadelphia Inquirer (PA)
By Staff
Philadelphia is buckling under the weight of the opioid crisis. No big city has as many opioid deaths per capita as this city. About 1,200 Philadelphians died of a drug overdose last year. That was a 30 percent jump over 2016; more are expected in 2018. -
Opioid lawsuit makes sense (EDITORIAL)
Jan 27, 2018 | Daily Independent (KY)
By Staff
We applaud Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear for his decision to join other states in a lawsuit against a San Francisco-based drug firm the attorney general is convinced helped fuel the opioid epidemic that continues to plague this state by shipping far more prescription pain pills to communities than it should have known were needed. -
After Surgery in Germany, I Wanted Vicodin, Not Herbal Tea (EDITORIAL)
Jan 27, 2018 | New York Times
By Firoozeh Dumas
I recently had a hysterectomy here in Munich, where we moved from California four years ago for my husband’s job. Even though his job ended a year ago, we decided to stay while he tries to start a business. Thanks to the German health care system, our insurance remained in force. This, however, is not a story about the benefits of universal health care. -
Eyewitness News at 10pm
Jan 29, 2018 | WHT (ABC)
By Evansville, IN
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32303929?token=fee326dc-0bc1-499b-bf3a-3c5877d75256 -
The Morning Show
Jan 29, 2018 | KBTV (Fox)
By Beaumont, TX
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32304477?token=fee326dc-0bc1-499b-bf3a-3c5877d75256 -
KIMT News 3 DayBreak
Jan 29, 2018 | KIMT (CBS)
By Rochester, MN
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32304480?token=fee326dc-0bc1-499b-bf3a-3c5877d75256 -
WCCB News Rising
Jan 29, 2018 | WCCB (CW)
By Charlotte, NC
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32304484?token=fee326dc-0bc1-499b-bf3a-3c5877d75256 -
Eyewitness News Daybreak 6:00
Jan 29, 2018 | WSOC (ABC)
By Charlotte, NC
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32304490?token=fee326dc-0bc1-499b-bf3a-3c5877d75256 -
First
Jan 28, 2018 | WHYY (PBS)
By Philadelphia, PA
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32304500?token=fee326dc-0bc1-499b-bf3a-3c5877d75256 -
Eyewitness News Weekend at 8am
Jan 27, 2018 | WWL (CBS)
By New Orleans, LA
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32304661?token=fee326dc-0bc1-499b-bf3a-3c5877d75256 -
Good Morning Arizona Saturday
Jan 27, 2018 | KTVK (KTVK)
By Phoenix, AZ
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32304686?token=fee326dc-0bc1-499b-bf3a-3c5877d75256
MDL
Southeast (NC, LA, FL, AR)
Northwest (WA)
Northeast (PA)
Midwest (IN)
Commentary and FYIs
Broadcast Media Coverage
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Conference on possible opioid settlement coming this week
Jan 28, 2018 | Alabama.com (AL)
By Lawrence Specker
This week brings what could be a major development in a national legal war over opioid painkillers, as a federal judge gathers the parties together to talk about the settlement he'd like them to reach.
Meanwhile, several more suits filed by Alabama jurisdictions have been folded into the multi-district proceeding named "In Re: National Prescription Opiate Litigation."
U.S. District Judge Dan A. Polster made headlines Jan. 9 when he said he wanted to see a settlement rather than a protracted trial, because the national opioid epidemic was killing people and more would die as the case dragged on. Numerous cities, counties and states, along with other governmental entities and healthcare institutions, have filed suits against opioid manufacturers and distributors. They charge that the companies irresponsibly fed a growing epidemic of opioid addiction, saddling the plaintiffs with a variety of expenses; the companies have denied wrongdoing.
Since Polster's initial statements, the case has generated relatively little news. But a recent review of court filings shows some significant developments on the way to a hearing set for Wednesday, Jan. 31.
According to the minutes of the pretrial conference on Jan. 9, the hearing coming up on Wednesday will feature representatives of several groups, including governmental plaintiffs, hospitals, senior executives of drug manufacturing and distribution companies and insurers. The court said it also intended to invite representatives of the FDA, the DEA and state attorneys general.
A document filed Jan. 10 added more suits to the combined multi-district action being overseen by Polster. Among them were suits previously filed in Alabama by Houston County, the cities of Greenville and Opp and the town of Cherokee.
In Jan. 11 filing, Polster identified three "special masters" who will help manage discussions in the case: David R. Cohen of Cleveland, Francis McGovern of Houston and Cathy Yanni of San Francisco. It may be significant that he picked three, because there has been talk of breaking the case into three "tracks," one for each group of defendants - manufacturers, distributors and some doctors.
However, Polster's order does not set specific regions of responsibility for each of the three. It says that "the Special Masters shall organize their activity to ensure non-duplication of effort and appropriate attention to the various groups of interested parties and counsel."
A document filed Jan. 17 folded another wave of cases into the scores being addressed in the Cleveland proceedings. Among them was one filed by the city of Mobile. (Birmingham filed early and has been a part of the consolidated action for some time; other, more recently filed suits have yet to be combined as so-called "tag-along" actions.)
In an order filed Jan. 24, Polster made clear that the upcoming conference will not be open to the public. Another order clarified that state attorneys general did not have to attend, but that the court "invites their participation because it is essential if there is to be any resolution." The order added that this would be just "the first of numerous opportunities they will have to provide input" in the proceedings.
On Friday, lawyers representing the distributors, the manufacturers and the plaintiffs jointly filed an agenda for the Wednesday gathering. After introductions, several representatives for plaintiffs will make presentations of about 15 minutes each, followed by several representatives of "other groups" - attorneys general, insurers, and the FDA and/or DEA. Representatives of distributors and manufacturers will then speak. According to a footnote on the agenda, "The Physician Defendants to not plan to make a formal presentation."
Those presentations should all be finished by about 12:30 p.m., according to the agenda. It does not specify a structure for the rest of the day, though Polster's initial order says that "the afternoon will be devoted to preliminary settlement discussions."
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Judge: Stop the legal fights and curb the opioid epidemic
Jan 29, 2018 | Clarion Ledger (MS)
By Jerry Mitchell
The federal judge overseeing about 200 lawsuits against opioid makers would rather curb the opioid epidemic than referee the litigation.
“About 150 Americans are going to die today, just today, while we’re meeting,” U.S. District Judge Dan Polster of Cleveland, Ohio, told the parties earlier this month. “And in my humble opinion, everyone shares some of the responsibility, and no one has done enough to abate it.”
He sees no value in depositions and trials, he said. “People aren’t interested in figuring out the answer to interesting legal questions like pre-emption and learning intermediary, or unraveling complicated conspiracy theories.”
Instead, “my objective is to do something meaningful to abate this crisis and to do it in 2018,” the judge said. “I’m confident we can do something to dramatically reduce the number of opioids that are being disseminated, manufactured and distributed. Just dramatically reduce the quantity and make sure that the pills that are manufactured and distributed go to the right people and no one else.”
Opioid litigation, which started as a trickle, reached a flood last year when about 250 cities, counties and states sued opioid makers, wholesalers, distributors and marketers.
The lawsuits accuse the companies of misleading health care professionals and the public by marketing opioids as rarely addictive and a safe substitute for non-addictive pain medications, such as ibuprofen.
The companies deny the claims and say litigation should be halted until the Food and Drug Administration-ordered studies on the long-term risks and benefits of opioids are completed.
Experts say the sheer number of opioid lawsuits could lead some companies to settle.
"The litigation costs must be killing them," said Richard Ausness, a professor at the University of Kentucky College of Law. "The problem is that a settlement with some plaintiffs will only cause more plaintiffs to sue."
Only a global settlement could prevent this, he said. "I am not sure that this would be feasible, although the Florida Legislature did it in connection with lawsuits against gun manufacturers."
Bloomberg has reported that Purdue Pharma, whose drug OxyContin jump-started the opioid epidemic, is proposing a global settlement in an attempt to end litigation. Purdue would not comment.
A new wave of litigation from Detroit and other Michigan cities and counties accuses companies of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a law created to fight the mob and organized crime.
The litigation alleges Purdue and other opioid makers “pushed highly addictive, dangerous opioids, falsely representing to doctors that patients would only rarely succumb to drug addiction.”
“We are deeply troubled by the opioid crisis, and we are dedicated to being part of the solution,” Purdue responded in a statement. “We vigorously deny these allegations and look forward to the opportunity to present our defense.”
Paul Hanly, whose New York City law firm, Simmons Hanly Conroy, is involved in 150 lawsuits, said governments “are learning that litigation may be the only avenue for them to recover some of the massive increased expenses related to the epidemic,” including the costs connected to emergency medical services, mental health, the judicial system, law enforcement, child services and rehabilitation.
With each new lawsuit, governments that have not sued are “taking a hard look at their rights and their obligations to their taxpayers,” he said.
Some hospitals are suing, too.
Hospital officials say they have been forced to treat patients for opioid addiction and overdoses as well as babies born with opioid addiction — treatment that is often lengthy and uncompensated.
In the latest wrinkle, several West Virginia cities have filed litigation against the Joint Commission, which accredits and certifies health care organizations and programs in the United States, alleging the nonprofit spread “misinformation” to health care professionals about the risks of opioid addiction.
In 2001, the commission began requiring hospitals to assess all patients for pain on a scale of 1 to 10, which some said caused more doctors to prescribe opioids.
Purdue gave the commission a grant to produce a pain assessment and management manual, which told health care providers, “There is no evidence that addiction is a significant issue when persons are given opioids for pain control.”
Commission officials have denied that change encouraged doctors to prescribe more opioids, blaming drug trafficking as well as diversion and abuse by individuals.
Earlier this month, the commission released new pain management standards, which require hospitals to have leaders responsible for “pain management and safe opioid prescribing.” Those hospitals also must identify high-risk patients and make prescription drug monitoring programs available to those prescribing opioids.
In addition to litigation, congressional investigations are underway, examining such questions as how drug wholesalers sold more than 780 million painkiller pills in six years to a single pharmacy in Kermit, West Virginia, where fewer than 400 people live.
Every state attorney general has either filed a lawsuit against opioid makers or is involved in investigating whether these drugmakers misled health care providers about the addictiveness to opioids. Their offices have issued subpoenas for records from those companies.
On Oct. 26 — the same day President Donald Trump declared that the opioid epidemic was a public health emergency — Justice Department officials announced the arrest of John Kapoor, the founder of Insys Therapeutics.
They accused him of using kickbacks to get doctors to prescribe Subsys, a fentanyl spray for cancer patients suffering from excruciating pain, to patients who didn’t have cancer.
Ausness, who has written about the opioids litigation, said the growing problem of overdose deaths and the publicity surrounding them “may be increasing public concern and thereby putting pressure on state and local officials to do something about it.
“Lawsuits, as presently underwritten by personal injury lawyers, are a cheap response and, if successful, may provide some extra funding for drug treatment programs at the state and local level.”
He believes personal injury lawyers are hoping for a repeat of the litigation against cigarette makers, which ended with a $206 billion settlement in 1998.
Ausness pointed out that “compliance with safety standards is only evidence that the product is not defective. It is not conclusive; however, some states have enacted laws that create a presumption that prescription drugs that are approved by the FDA are not defective.”
Those types of claims usually apply to warnings and design claims, he said. (The label for OxyContin declared, “ 'Addiction’ to opioids legitimately used in the management of pain is very rare.”)
He doubts that FDA approval would provide much protection against fraud claims or negligent marketing claims based on failure to monitor distributors and retail sellers.
He also doubts any lawsuit against the FDA, which approved the drugs, would succeed because the drug approval process falls “within the ‘discretionary function’ exception to the Federal Tort Claims Act, which insulates decisions by federal officials that involve elements of judgment or choice.”
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Gaston County leaders to discuss lawsuit against opioid manufacturers
Jan 29, 2018 | WSOC (NC)
By Staff
The Gaston County Board of Commissioners will discuss on Monday its decision to file a lawsuit against the manufacturers and distributors of opioids.
The complaint claims manufacturers have spent millions on promotions that both deny the risk of opioids and overstate the benefits of the drugs.
In Gaston County alone, there were 57 opioid-related deaths in 2016, according to officials.
Earlier this month, Channel 9 reported that Mecklenburg County is working with attorneys to build a case against drug companies blamed for the opioid crisis.
The county is working with three different national law firms to investigate.
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Gaston County to address lawsuit against opioid distributors
Jan 29, 2018 | WBTV (NC)
By Staff
The Gaston County Board of Commissioners is expected to discuss their decision to file a lawsuit against the manufacturers and distributors of prescription narcotics Monday.
"We are taking this action against the fundamental cause of the opioid crisis – the manufacturers’ and distributors’ failure to follow well-understood laws surrounding the marketing and distribution of highly addictive narcotics," Gaston County Attorney Charles Moore said.
The complaint claims drug manufacturers have spent millions of dollars on promoting opioids that deny the drugs' risks and overstate their benefits.
"Opioids are now the most prescribed class of drugs with sales exceeding $8 billion in revenue annually since 2009," county officials say.
The complaint alleges the drug distributors failed to report suspicious orders the government.
There were 57 opioid-related deaths last year, according to the NC Department of Public Health, representing a 375% increase as compared to 1999.
“According to the CDC, in 2016 the number of opioid prescriptions distributed in Gaston County exceeded the total county population, more than every man, woman and child, with an estimated 119 opioid prescriptions dispensed per 100 people which is nearly double the national average of 66.5," attorney Garry Whitaker said.
County officials are expected to address the 160-page complaint in a news conference at the Gaston County Courthouse at 11 a.m.
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Louisiana governments, lawyers file lawsuits against drug companies for rise of opioid cases
Jan 27, 2018 | The Advocate (LA)
By Tyler Bridges
Governments throughout Louisiana — led by the state Department of Health and the cities of Baton Rouge and Covington — are joining a national stampede to file civil lawsuits alleging that drug companies have saddled taxpayers with huge medical and law enforcement costs by recklessly creating opioid addicts.
Thirteen sheriffs, mostly from rural parishes, have also filed suits against opioid manufacturers and distributors.
Besides the sheriffs, representatives of practically every governmental entity in Louisiana — mayors, parish presidents, police juries, district attorneys, state agencies and the like — are deciding whether to go to court.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys, meanwhile, are racing across the state to sign them up as clients with the potential of huge fees, usually at a 25 percent contingency rate, in the offing.
“In addition to the seriousness of the issue, everybody is looking to get any dollars they can get,” said Pete Adams, executive director of the Louisiana District Attorneys Association, which in the next month will receive presentations from trial lawyers on whether its members ought to sue.
In short, billions of dollars are at stake for everyone involved in a gold rush that analysts liken to the 1990s lawsuits against Big Tobacco. Those historic suits resulted in colossal payouts to state governments across the country and helped lead to a dramatic reduction in smoking rates. They also made a number of lawyers extremely wealthy.
The action in Louisiana includes a Mississippi attorney who played a key role in initiating those lawsuits in 1994. His name is Mike Moore, and he was the attorney general of Mississippi at the time. These days, Moore is a trial lawyer. He said he'll be working for an hourly rate of about $400 per hour but said the potential of a bonanza is not what moves him.
“I’m involved to try to find a solution to the opioid epidemic,” Moore said. More than 42,000 people lost their lives in 2016 from opioid overdoses, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in December, the most ever and 1,000 more than died from breast cancer.
Louisiana has ranked among the top 10 states for opioid prescriptions on a per capita basis in recent years, according to the state’s lawsuit, and has spent $677 million since 2007 “for treatment of opioid use and dependence.”
Any money the Department of Health collects in the opioid lawsuit would go to the state Medicaid program, said Matthew Block, the governor's executive counsel.
Louisiana is one of 14 states that have filed suits so far, Moore said, adding that he expects the number to reach 30 by year’s end.
Attorney General Jeff Landry has hired Moore to represent Louisiana in its lawsuit. But Moore remains on the sidelines for now because Gov. John Bel Edwards wants to control the potentially lucrative case. He has instead hired a politically active New Orleans law firm, Sher Garner Cahill Richter Klein & Hilbert, to represent the Department of Health.
The governor and the attorney general tried to resolve their dispute through private talks but failed, and they are now battling it out in court. In the meantime, Landry has sidelined the Sher Garner law firm by refusing to authorize its contract. The Attorney General’s Office did not respond to requests for information.Political irony
The latest legal standoff has created a delicious irony: Landry, a sharply partisan Republican, wants to hire Moore, a Democrat, while Edwards, a Democrat, wants to hire attorney James Garner, a Republican who during the 2015 governor’s race served as the sharp-elbowed attorney for then-U.S. Sen. David Vitter, Edwards’ Republican opponent.
It should be noted that Garner quickly made up with Edwards after the election by raising $15,000 for his transition team and tens of thousands more for a major fundraising dinner in September 2016 organized for Edwards’ re-election campaign by lobbyist Dan Robin Sr. The Garner firm also hired Robin, who is perhaps Edwards’ biggest fundraiser, to represents its clients’ interests in Baton Rouge.
Garner declined to discuss the opioid lawsuit, instead referring questions to Block.
“The governor’s not making any decisions based on whose side anybody is on,” Block said in an interview. “He’s making decisions based on who can get the best decisions for the state. Sher Garner is an experienced litigation firm that can get a great result for the Department of Health.”
Earlier this month, Garner won a state court ruling for his clients in a major case over who was at fault for the Bayou Corne sinkhole in Assumption Parish.
Garner struck out with Plaquemines Parish, however, when the Parish Council there last fall declined to authorize an opioid lawsuit sought by Parish President Amos Cormier III that Garner was to handle.
“We felt like it was a rush to judgment,” said Kirk Lepine, a council member.
One political figure who did not strike out was state Rep. Ted James, D-Baton Rouge. He will serve as co-counsel in the lawsuit filed on Tuesday by East Baton Rouge Parish.
“I thought it was important that we have both diversity and a good lawyer who could help us with the local agencies getting the documents. That’s Ted’s role,” said Burton LeBlanc, the lead attorney, who heads the Baton Rouge office of Dallas-based Baron & Budd. LeBlanc, a former president of the Louisiana Association for Justice, the trial lawyers’ trade group, said he has gotten to know James through that entity.
James, who is an African-American ally of Mayor Sharon Weston Broome, did not return a phone call.
Among other big government entities, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu is trying to decide among three law firms that have been short-listed after the city in October requested proposals, said Craig Belden, a mayoral spokesman.
St. Tammany Parish is also weighing its options. “Our legal department is doing our due diligence on how we will proceed and whether we will file suit,” Pat Brister, the parish president, said in a statement.
Jefferson Parish Sheriff Joe Lopinto said he has had a few inquiries from law firms but has “not decided either way yet.”Big payday possible
Trial lawyers don’t like to admit it, but a big payday could mean millions of dollars for individual attorneys.
“I’ve been inundated by lawyer friends who wanted to get involved,” said one government lawyer who was not authorized to speak publicly about the topic.
State law does not allow either Edwards or Landry to hire attorneys on a contingency basis without specific approval from the Legislature. Garner would work for $225 per hour for the Department of Health, or about half the standard rate for attorneys at big New Orleans commercial law firms. The Legislature could authorize a bigger payday.
The dispute over which lawyers to hire mirrors another long-running argument between the two rivals: Edwards wants to hire a team of lawyers for a lawsuit against energy companies alleging their role in the loss of coastal wetlands — an effort Landry has blocked by refusing to authorize their contracts.
In the opioid lawsuits, attorneys representing other governmental entities — such as parishes and cities — can work on a contingency fee, which, trial lawyers note, means they can incur huge costs that they have to absorb if they don’t win money in court or through a settlement.
“There’s a risk-reward situation,” said Joel Friedman, a Tulane law school professor.
Melissa Landry heads the Louisiana Lawsuit Abuse Watch and is typically quick to criticize trial lawyers, who she believes benefit from what she sees as overly friendly state laws that prove costly to the businesses they sue.
But with the opioid lawsuits, Landry was more measured in her words, though she isn’t exactly a fan of the suits.
“If it is regulations that have enabled these drugs to exist in the market and perhaps have unintentionally allowed this situation to develop, it is at least fair to question whether we should look first at the regulations,” she said. “It is certainly fair to acknowledge that there is a significant financial incentive for the personal-injury lawyers involved in these lawsuits.”National phenomenon
What’s happening with the opioid lawsuits in Louisiana appears to mimic what’s happening nationally.
Case after case throughout the country — 313 and counting — is being consolidated under what’s called a multi-district litigation, to be handled by a federal judge in Cleveland. It’s similar to what has occurred in other huge cases involving mass torts against companies accused of causing harm.
While many compare the opioid lawsuits to the cases against Big Tobacco, others say the more apt comparison is with the profusion of lawsuits against BP following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill off the coast of Louisiana. That case prompted lawsuits by local government entities, labor unions and healthcare networks, along with state governments.
Walter Leger Jr., whose son Walt represents New Orleans in the state House, was among the trial attorneys who sued both Big Tobacco and BP, and he has a piece of the opioid lawsuits as well, teaming with the Laborde Earles law firm in Lafayette. Leger, David Laborde and Derrick Earles made a pitch to sheriffs at a meeting of the Louisiana Sheriffs Association in September in Monroe.
It went well. So far, sheriffs from 13 parishes have signed up with Laborde Earles. They are from Allen, Avoyelles, Calcasieu, East Carroll, Evangeline, Jefferson Davis, Lafayette, Ouachita, Rapides, Sabine, Vernon, Washington and West Carroll parishes.
Laborde expects also to represent Indian tribes in Louisiana, which he noted are sovereign entities.
“The litigation is in infancy, but a lot is happening,” Laborde said. “There’s a huge burden on public entities. There is a cost of medical care for both employees of public entities and pre-trial detainees who are detained because of opioid abuse. There’s a high insurance cost for the public employees to cover opioid abuse and medication, which we believe should have never occurred. There’s a huge cost on law enforcement dealing with the opioid epidemic. There’s an unfunded rehab liability that society has to bear that we believe was solely caused by the defendants we’ve sued.”
Distributors of the pain reliever medicine say they are not to blame.
“As distributors, we understand the tragic impact the opioid epidemic has on communities across the country,” John Parker, senior vice president of the Healthcare Distribution Alliance, said in a statement. “We are deeply engaged in the issue and are taking our own steps to be part of the solution — but we aren’t willing to be scapegoats.
“Distributors are logistics companies that arrange for the safe and secure storage, transport and delivery of medicines from manufacturers to pharmacies, hospitals, long-term care facilities and others based on prescriptions from licensed physicians. We don’t make medicines, market medicines, prescribe medicines or dispense them to consumers.”
Leger said he hopes for a quick resolution to the opioid cases.
“You could smoke for 15 to 30 years before getting a tobacco-related disease and die,” he said. “With this, some people are dying instantly. They’ll rehab, relapse and suffer from an overdose. It’s an epidemic affecting every level of society.”
Covington Mayor Mike Cooper said he decided to move quickly after two law firms pitched him during the holidays. He recommended the firm of Porteous, Hainkel & Johnson. The City Council authorized the hire, with local partner William Lozes to represent the town.
“We want to try to recover costs from our medical and law enforcement response,” said Cooper, who added that Lozes would receive a 20 percent contingency fee.
Lea Anne Batson, the city-parish attorney for Baton Rouge, recommended Baron & Budd because, as she wrote in an email to council members, “They are one of the largest national firms with the resources to handle what is certain to be expensive and protracted litigation.”
In his filing, LeBlanc said 92.1 opioid prescriptions were dispensed in 2016 in East Baton Rouge Parish for every 100 people, compared with the national average of 66.5 prescriptions per 100 people. The 2015 rate was even higher at 96.1 prescriptions per 100 people.
“We’d love to see an income stream dedicated to addiction,” LeBlanc said in an interview. “We can’t arrest our way out of this problem.”
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City of Covington joins lawsuit against drugmakers to combat opioid crisis
Jan 26, 2018 | WWLTV (LA)
By Ashley Rodrigue
Every day, upwards of 150 people walk into the doors of the main clinic for Florida Parishes Human Services Authority.
A third of the appointments are for addiction treatment, with one thing becoming the most common source.
"There's definitely been a market uptick in the amount of people coming in for opioid treatment over the past and that trend existed prior to me being here," said Executive Director Richard Kramer, who's held the position for the last year. "The data shows it's continuing and it's speeding up a bit."
That's why the City of Covington has gotten involved in asking the courts to hold pharmaceutical companies accountable for the countless deaths from their products. Last year, 74 people died from overdoses in St. Tammany Parish. Seventy-five percent of those were opioid-related.
The suit, which includes other governmental agencies from Florida to New York and Texas to Minnesota, calls for a reimbursement of all of the costs associated with fighting opioid addictions and overdoses.
Covington was first on the Northshore to make opioid-reversing drug, Narcan, available to its law enforcement officers.
"We wanted to be on the forefront because we recognize the problem here and we're probably ahead of the curve when it comes to recognition of the problem that we're having," said Covington Mayor Mike Cooper. He says there's no cost to be part of the litigation.
The City of Covington may seem like a small player in a big game, but leaders there say the experiences they see every single day qualifies them to be in the lineup.
"For example, last night we had an overdose in Covington," said Police Chief Tim Lentz. "We administered two doses of Narcan to bring the person back. There's a cost to that Narcan. We put them in an ambulance. Bring them to the hospital. Ambulance has a cost to it, the hospital has a cost to it. So yea, I think at the end of the day, the manufacturers of these opioids are responsible and they should be made to pay."
And regardless of legal outcome, city leaders hope to at least see the action put people before profits.
The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America has said in a prior statement to Eyewitness News, regarding lawsuits like this, that it is part of an effort to accelerate the development of non-opioid pain medications. The organization also said it supports policies limiting the supply of opioids to seven days for acute pain.
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Pasco County takes step toward opioid litigation
Jan 26, 2018 | Bay News 9 (FL)
By Sarah Blazonis
The Pasco County Board of County Commissioners gave County Attorney Jeffrey Steinsnyder approval to retain special counsel for litigation regarding the local opioid epidemic.
"This is a health epidemic that got put upon law enforcement, on our shoulders. Those costs should not be put on taxpayers, they should be put upon these companies that created the greed and created the death," said Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco.
Nocco spoke before the commissioners in support of litigation. He said he's also appeared before the board in the past to make a different type of request related to the financial strain the epidemic has placed on his office.
"There's so many indirect costs that it's huge," Nocco said. "That's why, moving forward with this lawsuit, what we're told from the commissioners is that whatever firm they use, they're going to be bringing in specialists to look to see what the direct costs were, what the indirect costs were."
According to board documents, Steinsnyder plans to retain the firm Levin Papantonio.
Terms offered by the county specify that special counsel won’t be paid if the county doesn't recover any money. About 200 cases nationwide have been identified as Multi District Litigation (MDL) seeking damages from drug manufacturers or distributors.
Sheriff Nocco said Pasco County saw 122 opioid-related fatal overdoses last year, nearing the peak numbers from the prescription drug crisis it experienced in 2010.
"We're seeing less deaths than other counties from opioids specifically, but we know that there's a huge addicted population," said Monica Rousseau, coordinator for Pasco Alliance for Substance Abuse Prevention. "We’re seeing hepatitis rise – hepatitis B and C -- largely from needle sharing."
Board Chairman Mike Wells said in addition to recovering funds lost fighting the epidemic, which he estimates to be in the tens of millions of dollars, the goal of any legal action is to send a message.
"Folks need to understand that, as a county, we're not going to put up with it, and we are going to do everything we can do to hold them accountable for what's happened in Pasco County," Wells said.
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State to investigate makers of opioids
Jan 28, 2018 | Northwest Arkansas (AR)
By John Moritz
Attorney General Leslie Rutledge announced this week that she will "ramp up" her office's efforts to combat the state's opioid epidemic by investigating the companies that manufacture prescription painkillers.
Flanked by printed graphics depicting Arkansas as one of the states hardest hit by the epidemic, Rutledge said the probe could last several months to several years, though its outcome is not guaranteed to result in litigation.
Fatal overdoses quadrupled in Arkansas over a 15-year period, Rutledge said, with more than 400 deaths in 2016. She pointed to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that found Arkansans had the second-highest prescribing rate in the country.
"This opioid epidemic knows no boundaries, and I believe the lengths to which the state will go to stop this epidemic should also know no boundaries," Rutledge said.
For now, Rutledge said, her investigation will focus only on the drugmakers, not pharmaceutical distributors or doctors who prescribe the drugs. She did not rule out investigating whether "deceptive trade practices" were used to market and sell the drugs.
In addition to state attorneys who will be assigned to the investigation, Rutledge said, the state has contracted with several law firms, including Little Rock's Dover, Dixon & Horne. The other firms, in Washington, Mississippi and South Carolina, are involved in opioid-related lawsuits filed by Mississippi, Ohio and Louisiana.
While Rutledge said her office did not have a definitive list of the companies that would be targets of the investigation, one poster displayed at her news conference listed several brands such as Oxycontin, Vicodin and Percocet.
"Some of these companies may have profited substantially from the sale and distribution of opioid within Arkansas, and those that have should be held accountable," Rutledge said. "We must remedy this crisis."
A spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, an industry group, declined to comment specifically on Rutledge's investigation but said the organization was committed to finding a solution to a "multifaceted challenge."
According to a copy of the attorney-services agreement provided by the attorney general's office, the outside counsel is under contract until March 31, 2023, unless terminated or reappointed by the attorney general (Rutledge is up for re-election this year).
Rutledge said hiring outside counsel was necessary to keep state attorneys free to continue their day-to-day work. The contingency-fee contract with the outside firms entitles them to a certain percentage of whatever award the state may receive from a successful lawsuit, as outlined in Arkansas Code Annotated 25-16-714.
Dover, Dixon & Horne referred a request for comment to Rutledge's office.
Local officials also have been involved with their own, separate claims against drugmakers.
The Arkansas Association of Counties recently filed a federal lawsuit against several pharmaceutical companies to recoup payments made to a health insurance fund for members' opioid prescriptions. That suit will remain unrelated to Rutledge's investigation. Colin Jorgensen, an attorney for the association, said at least 61 Arkansas counties are also planning a state-level suit against pharmaceutical companies and their distributors.
Standing on the sidelines of Rutledge's news conference Wednesday was Perry County Sheriff Scott Montgomery, president of the Arkansas Sheriffs' Association. While he didn't give a public speech, he told a reporter afterward that he was enthusiastic about the attorney general's investigation.
"In my opinion, in Perry County, it's one of the worst problems we've got," Montgomery said of his west Arkansas county with a little more than 10,000 people.
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More Washington cities sue drugmakers over opioid crisis
Jan 26, 2018 | Associated Press
By Staff
Skagit County and three cities located within it are the latest jurisdictions in Washington state to sue drugmakers over the opioid crisis.
Mount Vernon, Burlington and Sedro Woolley joined the county in filing a federal lawsuit in Seattle Friday against Purdue Pharma, Endo and Janssen, three of the primary manufacturers of prescription painkillers.
The cities of Everett and Tacoma have also filed federal lawsuits against the drug companies, but those cases have been transferred to U.S. District Court in Cleveland, Ohio, which is overseeing dozens of similar cases.
Seattle and Washington state have also sued the companies, but in state court.
Skagit County Chief criminal deputy prosecutor Rosemary Kaholokula says the companies provided false information to doctors and patients about the safety of the drugs. She notes that more than 125,000 opioid prescriptions were written in Skagit County in 2014 - more prescriptions than there are residents of the county.
The drug companies have disputed the allegations. -
Skagit County, cities file suit against pharmaceutical companies
Jan 27, 2018 | GoSkagit (WA)
By Kera Wanielista
Skagit County and the cities of Burlington, Mount Vernon and Sedro-Woolley filed a lawsuit Thursday against three of the country’s top pharmaceutical companies for their roles in contributing to an opioid crisis throughout the country.
“The opioid crisis has become a public health emergency of unprecedented levels,” reads the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle. “Opioids have reshaped daily reality in Skagit County and in these cities in numerous ways.”
The lawsuit names Purdue pharmaceuticals, Endo pharmaceuticals and Janssen pharmaceuticals — a division of Johnson & Johnson — as the primary defendants.
About 250 similar lawsuits have been filed nationwide, including in Snohomish, King and Pierce counties, Skagit County Prosecuting Attorney Rich Weyrich said.
The city of Anacortes and several Skagit County school districts are expected to sign onto the lawsuit as well, which Weyrich said he believes would make this the largest group of plaintiffs suing the companies.
“Too many people are getting (opioids),” Weyrich said. “Too many people then don’t have a place to turn when they get off of them — when they’re addicted — and they turn to things such as heroin.”
The lawsuit claims that in 2015 and 2016 there were more than 86,000 opioid-related deaths nationwide.
“Which is significantly more than died in the whole Vietnam War,” Weyrich said.
Skagit County has felt the impact of the epidemic in a variety of ways, he said.
The lawsuit claims Skagit County has 11.2 opioid-related deaths per 100,000 residents each year — higher than the state average of 9.6.
In 2014, more than a quarter of the county’s population was prescribed opioids — 125,436 prescriptions were dispensed to 31,839 residents, the lawsuit claims. The county’s estimated population that year was 119,500.
During an about four-month period in 2016, more than 255,000 needles were collected from drop sites in Skagit County, Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Rosemary Kaholokula said.
The opioid crisis also contributes to the increasing mental health and homeless issues in the county, Weyrich said.
“We need to rein in the abuse,” he said.
The lawsuit claims that responding to the epidemic has been costly for the county and the cities on many levels — from purchasing emergency overdose medication and providing treatment for those in the county jail, to hiring additional staff and training government staff on how to properly handle and dispose of drug paraphernalia.
“We find needles in toilet tanks,” Sedro-Woolley City Supervisor and Attorney Eron Berg said of the city’s public restrooms. “It really has impacted all levels of what we do. It’s expensive.”
The city has had to take extra precautions to avoid having city employees exposed to drug paraphernalia on the job, Berg said.
“The community results are just so clear, not only in the loss of lives but in the loss of young lives,” Berg said. “It feels like it’s just become woven into the fabric of everyday life. Not just here but everywhere. This is a new reality that we have to deal with.”
Parks and green spaces are also places where the impacts of opioids are felt, city officials say.
“It used to be when you took your children to the park, you were afraid they’d pick up a cigarette butt,” Burlington Mayor Steve Sexton said. “Now when you take children to the park, you’re afraid they’re going to pick up a heroin needle. And that is wrong. That is so wrong in our society.”
Sexton said needle deposit containers have had to be installed in all of the city’s public buildings.
“We as cities and the county are left to bear the brunt of those (pharmaceutical company’s) effects,” he said.
Mount Vernon Mayor Jill Boudreau said the opioid epidemic has hit her city hard, especially through the homeless issue.
“When the issue is a clear case of extreme greed and wrongdoing, to us it’s essential that we fight that. And we’re doing it through litigation.”
The lawsuit is being handled by Seattle-based law firm Keller Rohrback, which also represents the city of Tacoma and King County in similar lawsuits.
“Part of what we want to do is hurt business and compensate Skagit County,” Kaholokula said.
Should there be any financial restitution from the lawsuit, Weyrich said he would like to see it go toward programs that can help those who are addicted and to prevent further addiction.
“This is money we want to put into solving the problem, not paying back costs of incarceration,” he said. “We want it to be used for a good purpose.”
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Board of Health urges Clallam County opioid lawsuit
Jan 28, 2018 | Peninsula Daily News
By Rob Ollikainen
Clallam County is being asked to file a lawsuit against drug manufacturers that are fueling the opioid epidemic.
The three county commissioners on Monday are expected to discuss a Board of Health recommendation to retain a Seattle law firm to sue major pharmaceutical companies, distributors and pill mills to recover costs associated with the opioid crisis.
Similar lawsuits have been filed by hundreds of jurisdictions nationwide, including King County and the city of Tacoma, a Seattle attorney told the Clallam County Board of Health on Jan. 16.
“We haven’t filed cases yet for Skagit and Pierces (counties),” said Dan Mensher of the Keller Rohrback firm.
“They are going to be filed very soon.”
Mensher and colleague David Ko pitched the litigation to Clallam County officials because Clallam County has the highest opioid-related death rate in the state.
In 2016, the county’s opioid-related death rate was about 16 per 100,000, said Dr. Christopher Frank, Clallam County health officer.
“It’s not hard to get pretty fired up about and passionate about this particular case,” Mensher told the Clallam County health board.
“This is having, as you all know probably better than we do, a pretty dramatic effect across our state, and counties are really on the front line.”
Should Clallam County policymakers decide to sue, Keller Rohrback would work on a contingency fee basis, collecting money only if the county collects damages.
Commissioners will consider the health board’s unanimous recommendation to retain Keller Rohrback and file suit against opioid manufacturers such as Purdue Pharma, distributors and pill mills — doctors and clinics where highly-addictive prescription painkillers are dispensed without a legitimate medical purpose.
“It’s very clear that they knew — they’ve known for a long time — that they were causing harm through their very deceptive marketing practices, and they need to be held accountable,” Frank said in a Friday interview.
“I think it’s clear that the pharmaceutical manufactures are a big part of this problem, and they created it knowingly and they did it to make money.
“So I think that trying to recoup costs, both now and into the future, to try to deal with the problem that they caused makes a lot of sense,” Frank added.
Health board member Don Lawley made the motion to pursue litigation at the Jan. 16 meeting.
“We’re going to watch another 15 die (from opioids) this coming year, ” said Lawley, a Forks Community Hospital commissioner.
“We owe it to those people who have already died because of this issue. We owe it to our citizens who are dying, or who already are addicted.
“That’s who I feel we owe it to.”
If the three commissioners proceed with litigation, a survey will be sent to county department heads asking how the opioid epidemic is affecting their work.
Examples of county departments impacted by the crisis are the Sheriff’s Office, Juvenile and Family Services and Health and Human Services, Frank said.
David Alvarez, Clallam County Chief Civil Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, told the health board that the proposed litigation was “worthwhile.”
“I think it’s one of the only ways you can hold these corporations accountable for their lies,” Alvarez said.
“If Clallam County becomes a named plaintiff, then the money will go right to your general fund and you can decide where it should go.”
Clallam County Commissioners Mark Ozias, Randy Johnson and Bill Peach also serve as voting members of the Board of Health.
Jefferson County has not been asked to file a lawsuit against drug makers, Frank said.
While Jefferson County’s opioid problem is “still significant,” it pales in comparison to the Clallam County epidemic in terms of death rate and impacts, Frank said.
The litigation being filed by many cities and counties is being consolidated in federal court.
U.S. District Judge Dan Polster of Cleveland is presiding over more than 200 cases filed by local governments against drug manufacturers and distributors.
A conference on the settlement is scheduled for Wednesday in Cleveland.
“The judge is really pushing this thing fast,” Ko told the Clallam County health board.
“I think he’s really interested in trying to get some sort of global resolution.”
The proposed litigation is separate from the lawsuit that state Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed against Purdue Pharma last September.
Ferguson’s lawsuit accuses the Oxycontin maker of fueling the opioid problem in Washington.
“Maybe some of that will trickle down to Clallam County, but for Clallam County to be compensated for the damages that it is suffering, it really needs to bring its own case,” Mensher said.
“Each jurisdiction that thinks it’s been harmed has to come to the table via filing a lawsuit and take part in the litigation there.”
Mensher and others at the Board of Health meeting compared the proposed opioid litigation to lawsuits that were filed against tobacco companies for deceptive marketing.
“Counties really didn’t participate as players in the tobacco litigation, and a lot of counties sort of feel that they got the short end of the stick in the tobacco settlement,” Mensher said.
“Some states got a pretty handsome war chest, and it’s probably benefited counties in some ways, but the counties themselves didn’t get any of that money directly.”
On Friday, Skagit County and three cities located within it — Mount Vernon, Burlington and Sedro Woolley —filed a federal lawsuit in Seattle Friday against Purdue Pharma, Endo and Janssen, three of the primary manufacturers of prescription painkillers.
Skagit County Chief criminal deputy prosecutor Rosemary Kaholokula said the companies provided false information to doctors and patients about the safety of the drugs. She said that more than 125,000 opioid prescriptions were written in Skagit County in 2014 — more prescriptions than there are residents of the county.
The drug companies have disputed the allegations.
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City joins lawsuit against opioid makers, distributors
Jan 26, 2018 | New Castle News (PA)
By Nancy Lowry
New Castle has joined the surge of cities, counties and states suing opioid drug manufacturers and distributors.
City council on Thursday unanimously approved a resolution to be represented by the Philadelphia law firm of Levin Sedran & Berman in legal action against pharmaceutical companies and individuals responsible for damages resulting from their misrepresentations regarding opioids and their failure to disclose the addictive nature of the drugs.
"There is a known correlation between the proliferation of opioids on the market and opioid addiction," said city solicitor Jason Medure, adding that individuals addicted to the painkillers often go on to use heroin when opioids become unavailable. "There is also a correlation in the expenses municipalities face due to increased need for manpower, police, first responders, Narcan administered to overdose victims and expenses of the criminal justice system."
To recover some of these costs, Medure said, municipalities across the country are holding opioid manufacturers accountable for flooding the market with addictive drugs.
Noting that most of the lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies and distributors have been filed by states, Medure said New Castle is one of the first cities in Pennsylvania to join the campaign to hold drug manufacturers accountable and to go after them to recover costs of battling opioids.. Philadelphia was the first to act and New York City this week filed suit alleging that the opioid crisis was caused by deceptive marketing by drugmakers and distributors, causing the city to spend millions of dollars on substance abuse treatment programs, hospital services, emergency medical services and law enforcement.
He added that although the legal firm has been retained by the city "there will be no cost to the city, no economic impact," he said. 'If there is no recovery, there is no fee. the law firm will cover the costs."According to the New York Times, the campaign on opioids began with states, following in the lead of states and attorneys who took on the tobacco industry. In 1998, tobacco companies paid out more than $200 billion in settlements for selling addictive, harmful drugs.
The resolution unanimously approved by council states the city is facing a crisis from the sale and use of opioids and has been forced to bear costs of healthcare, pharmaceutical care, services and costs resulting from the crisis and forced to bear additional costs to the criminal justice system and emergency services.
Entering the lawsuit, officials said, is an effort to recover some of these costs
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Boonville mayor: opioid lawsuit will not cost taxpayers
Jan 26, 2018 | Tristate (IN)
By Staff
The City of Boonville joined more than 70 other cities and towns across Indiana that are suing opioid manufacturers and distributors.
Friday night, Mayor Charlie Wyatt joined the class action lawsuit.
Wyatt said there is no downside and no cost to taxpayers.
According to the Indianapolis-based law firm leading the litigation, the Warrick County opioid prescription rate peaked at 101 prescriptions per 100 people in the county.
Purdue Pharma and Johnson & Johnson are on the list of defendants.
The law firm said companies must be held accountable for their roles in creating the opioid epidemic.
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AG joins Walmart to introduce free prescription, opioid home disposal kits
Jan 26, 2018 | Red Dirt Report (OK)
By Heide Brandes
In America, 45 percent of citizens have left over prescription drugs in their medicine cabinets at home, and 70 percent of opioid and heroin users started by stealing from friends’ or family’s medicine cabinets.
Yet safe disposal of prescription drugs, including opioid pain medication, presented challenges ranging from where to dispose of the drugs and environmental concerns with flushing them down the toilet or just throwing them away.
Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter joined officials with Walmart and DisposeRx on Friday to demonstrate Walmart’s new opioid disposal solution. Last week, Walmart became the first national retail pharmacy to partner with DisposeRx to offer a free, in-home prescription disposal program at all 4,700 pharmacies.
“This is a national problem,” said Dennis Wiggins, CFO of DisposeRx. “It starts in our homes, but there is a second issue that Walmart is addressing – environmental contamination of the drinking water and our children’s and our children’s children’s drinking water. By improperly disposal, 24 of the nation’s 40 largest public drinking sources have measurable amounts of prescription drugs in it. This is providing a solution at the source of the problem – which is the home.”
Jennifer Roberts, clinical services manager for Walmart Pharmacies in Central Oklahoma, demonstrated how the DisposeRx home kit worked. Pill bottles
“We are here to talk about a new resource in the fight against the opioid epidemic, and that’s an issue that many families in Oklahoma face and across the nation,” she said. “Be sure that the bottle is less than a third full. Fill it up with lukewarm water. Add the DisposeRx packet and shake it up and just throw it away.”
The kits are offered free to the public at the Walmart pharmacy, Roberts said. Walmart announced last week it would carry and distribute the opioid disposal solution, known as DisposeRx, in all of its 4,700 pharmacies nationwide, free of charge. Additionally, pharmacists have been trained to help educate customers on how to safely and effectively use the product.
DisposeRx is a powder that when mixed with warm water in a pill bottle, creates a gel that can responsibly be thrown out with household trash.
“We wanted to do our part to help curb one of the issues contributing to this deadly epidemic – unused prescriptions in our medicine cabinets,” said Walmart Market Health and Wellness Director Robyn Janaway.
“Providing an easy, free, responsible and convenient way to dispose of unused medicine will make an impact and help prevent misuse.”
In Oklahoma over the last 15 years, drug overdose deaths have increased by 91 percent. Between 2015 and 2016 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported overdose deaths in the state increased by 13.2 percent.
As part of the program, patients filling Class II opioid prescriptions at Walmart pharmacies now receive a DisposeRx packet and an opioid safety brochure. Additionally, patients can request a free DisposeRx packet at any time.
“The way out of the current crisis will take innovative thinking, combined with the collaboration of local businesses, community leaders and local and state governments,” said Wiggins. “We all have a role to play, whether through public policy, or community partnerships, but as long as we are working together in a systematic way, we will ensure the next generation will be a better place.”
For more information on DisposeRx, visit: disposerx.com.
As Attorney General, Hunter has been aggressive in his plan to address opioid abuse in Oklahoma.
Earlier this week, Hunter and members of the Oklahoma Commission on Opioid Abuse released its findings and recommendations on ways to combat the opioid epidemic in Oklahoma, a plan that also includes taxing opioid manufacturers, distributors and wholesalers.
The commission created 31 recommendations to address opioid abuse, overdoses and irresponsible prescribing, including mandating the use of electronic prescriptions; criminalizing the trafficking of fentanyl and its equivalent; passing a Good Samaritan Law; requiring medical clinic owners to register with the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs and instituting a tax on manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors of opioids, and use the money as a funding mechanism for opioid addiction treatment and more.
“Since the commission’s formation in April, members have demonstrated and advocated the need for changes to reverse this nightmarish epidemic,” said Hunter.
Hunter also announced his office acted on the commission recommendation to participate in the First Responder Overdose Program, through the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services.
“This morning, I signed a memorandum of understanding with the department of mental health to have agents in the Attorney General’s Office trained to carry Naloxone,” Attorney General Hunter said. “We hope leading by example, will send a message to other law enforcement agencies to get involved with this program.”
Hunter has taken an aggressive stance against opioid manufacturers as well. The state, along with other states and tribal governments, have filed lawsuits against opioid manufacturers, and in January, a Cleveland County District Judge set a trial date for Oklahoma’s lawsuit against Purdue Pharma, Allergan, Teva and Janssen Pharmaceuticals.
Oklahoma’s lawsuit is the first to receive a trial date.
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Purdue faces uphill battle to overcome opioid controversy
Jan 28, 2018 | Stamford Advocate (CT)
By Paul Schott
A growing number of prosecutors and politicians accuse Purdue Pharma of fueling the national opioid crisis. The maker of the maligned opioid OxyContin says there is another side to the story.
Amid an avalanche of Oxy-related lawsuits in recent months, the Stamford-based pharmaceutical company has mounted several major campaigns aimed at showing a commitment to combatting the epidemic of opioid abuse. But many medical professionals and public officials are responding to the PR push with deep skepticism, saying the company needs to do much more to back up its claims.
“It strikes me as very hypocritical that these companies that have made billions off selling opioids and have been involved in the overmarketing of these drugs for years now say they want to be part of the solution,” said Dr. Jeff Gordon, immediate past president of the Connecticut State Medical Society. “However, if they are being serious, I welcome them now coming on board. But one has to be very realistic about what their past is.”
Major campaigns
Last month, Purdue ran a full-page ad across print and digital platforms in The Hill, The New York Times, Politico, Roll Call, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and Hearst Connecticut Media’s daily newspapers.
\The ad says the company has made its opioids more difficult to abuse, worked on non-opioid pain medications, and distributed to prescribers and pharmacists federal prescribing guidelines. It also says there are too many prescription opioid pills in medicine cabinets and expresses support for initiatives that limit the length of initial opioid prescriptions. In addition, it calls for doctors to check prescription drug monitoring programs before writing prescriptions.
“No one solution will end the crisis, but multiple, overlapping efforts will. We want everyone engaged to know you have a partner in Purdue Pharma,” the ad says. “This is our fight, too.”
The company also includes a pop-up link to the letter on its website’s homepage.
Similar ads are scheduled to run in the first quarter of this year, according to Purdue officials. They declined to disclose the cost of the campaign. Several estimates peg the cost of such ads in publications like The New York Times at more than $150,000.
“It’s an advertising technique that is trying to reframe their image in the community and their association with the opioid crisis,” said Debbie Danowski, an associate professor of communications and media arts at Sacred Heart University. “From what I can see in this ad, it’s kind of a lot of talk and not any real concrete action. Imagine the number of people they could be helping by using the money they’re spending on those ads on treatment centers for those who have become addicted to their drugs.”
Among other recent campaigns, the company teamed last fall with the public-private agency The Governor’s Prevention Partnership to launch a series of spots about the opioid crisis on iHeartRadio stations.
The partnership marked the latest chapter in a two-decade alliance between Purdue and The Governor’s Prevention Partnership, which focuses on education about youth issues, including substance abuse. In addition to a base of $50,000 Purdue contributed last year to the Partnership, the company paid approximately $250,000 for the PSA spots.
“We’ve done our due diligence and have been in a relationship with them for 20 years,” Jill Spineti, president and CEO of The Governor’s Prevention Partnership, said in an interview last year. “We know they use a scientific approach to prevention. They’ve put a lot of resources into prevention to do the right thing.”
Last June, Purdue and the National Sheriffs’ Association announced the second round of a program that gives officers across the country overdose kits and training for the naloxone drug, which can reverse opioid overdoses.
NSA officials credit the Purdue-funded initiative with helping to save some 120 lives since its late 2015 pilot-phase launch. In the first stage, NSA officers distributed 500 naloxone kits to 12 local law enforcement agencies in several states.
But other groups, like the Connecticut State Medical Society, said they have not received much support from Purdue and other opioid makers.
“The ball is in their court,” Gordon said. “If they want to reach out to us physicians in Connecticut to find ways to work with us and reach out to the public, I think we would welcome that opportunity. I think it would be a plus all around. It’s a team approach.”
Despite the increased PR, Purdue executives continue to shy away from speaking beyond prepared statements about the opioid crisis. The company has not made CEO and President Craig Landau available for an interview with Hearst Connecticut Media since he started in the position last June.
Legal pressure continues
So far, the PR initiatives have not stanched the torrent of litigation the company faces from local and state prosecutors across the country for alleged deceptive marketing and irresponsible distribution of OxyContin.
New York City last week sued the company and several other pharmaceutical firms, seeking $500 million in damages. Earlier this month, 18 Connecticut municipalities — including Bridgeport, Fairfield and Newtown — filed a similar lawsuit.
“If successful, the (ad) campaign could soften the hardest positions against Purdue,” said Robert Bird, a professor of business law in the University of Connecticut’s business school. “And softening public sentiment may reduce public pressure on the folks who are aggressively pursuing this litigation.”
But Ohio Attorney Gen. Mike DeWine said he was unmoved by the full-page ads. He cited his disappointment in the company’s response to the lawsuit he filed last May.
“They can put as many ads as they want to out there, but that’s not dealing with the problem,” DeWine said in an interview last week. “They’ve refused our invitation to come forward and talk. I find that really speaks for itself. Why don’t we take this opportunity to start talking and try to reach an agreement, so that Purdue Pharma can be part of the solution instead of just being the creator of the problem?”
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Attorney General Jeff Sessions to visit Pittsburgh to discuss opioid epidemic, violent crime
Jan 26, 2018 | Tribune Live (PA)
By Renatta Signorini
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions will discuss the opioid epidemic and violent crime during a stop in Pittsburgh on Monday, the Department of Justice announced Friday.
Sessions' remarks will begin at 3:05 p.m. at the federal courthouse in Pittsburgh, according to a news release.
Pittsburgh is home to a new violent-crime task force Sessions established late last year, one of two nationwide. The task force allows for equipment and overtime funding for Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and participating agencies tasked with addressing violent crimes in Allegheny and several adjacent counties.
The ongoing drug epidemic killed nearly 2,500 people between 2014 and 2016 in Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Indiana, Somerset and Westmoreland counties, according to data from Overdose Free PA.
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McCaskill: Pharmaceutical Companies Should Not Get Tax Deductions For Ads
Jan 29, 2018 | Missourinet (MO)
By Alisa Nelson
U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri, says banning pharmaceutical companies from deducting drug advertisements on their taxes would have a very positive impact on the nation’s opioid crisis. She is investigating ways that addictive prescription drugs are being marketed by companies.
“Right now, all these pharmaceutical companies are spending more on sales and marketing than they are on research,” says McCaskill. “We all know how often we see ads for prescription drugs on television.”
During a stop on Friday in Columbia, she says her investigation underway has uncovered some “jaw-dropping discoveries”, including a company whose sales slogan is “Start them high and hope they don’t die.”
McCaskill says she will be putting out a report soon that shines the bright light on abuses of pain management businesses, including some 501c3 organizations.
“We have not only a treatment issue. We have not only an emergency medicine issue. We have a prescribing issue and we have a pharmaceutical drug industry issue. We need to be all hands on deck on all four issues,” she says.
She wants President Donald Trump’s public health emergency declaration about the opioid epidemic to have more teeth.
“We have not seen the rolling out of resources that we believe should occur for this crisis,” she says.
McCaskill also says there’s not enough attention on stopping drugs coming through the nation’s ports. She says the number of port officers has been reduced and the technology to find drugs traveling through ports must be upgraded.
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Mark Murphy: Opioid epidemic: A national, local crisis (EDITORIAL)
Jan 27, 2018 | SavannahNow (GA)
By Mark E. Murphy
I was running through the hills of Seattle when the news came across my phone.
“Rocker Tom Petty rushed to hospital in critical condition,” the message said. I stopped running, shocked.
Tom Petty died that day. His cause of death was initially listed under the vague heading of “cardiac arrest.” Recently, the real cause of Petty’s death was finally revealed: an unintentional overdose of the opioid Fentanyl and several other drugs. Rapper L’il Peep (age 21) and prolific rock and roll performer Prince (57) died of opioid overdoses last year, as well — and there are suggestions that the recent death of Irish singer Dolores O’Riordan may have been Fentanyl-related.
Narcotic-related deaths have skyrocketed in recent years. The number of overdose deaths in the U.S. has quadrupled since 1999. The CDC estimates that half a million people died of drug overdoses between 2000 and 2015 — and the overwhelming majority of these deaths were related to opioid use. In 2016 alone, over 64,000 people died of drug overdoses in this country. That’s 175 drug overdose deaths per day—more than automobile crashes, AIDS or gun-related deaths ever caused in a single year in this country, and more deaths than the total from the Vietnam and Iraq wars combined.
Drug overdose is now the number one cause of death among people in the United States under the age of 50.
So what exactly are “opioids,” and why are they dangerous?
Opiates are drugs derived from the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum. The latex derived from this plant has been used for medicinal and ritual purposes for thousands of years. Poppy seed capsules have been found at 6000-year-old European Bronze Age burial sites, and trade in opium poppy seed pods dates back to the time of the Sumerians, ancient Egyptians, Phoenicians and ancient Greeks. Recreational opium use was widespread in the Middle East as far back as the 1400s. Medicinal use of opium as the preparation “laudanum” (also called “tincture of opium”) was touted as a remedy for everything from menstrual cramps to diarrhea beginning in the 1500’s. Many in the Victorian era became addicted to it, including Samuel Taylor Coleridge, whose famous poem “Kubla Khan” was written after an intense laudanum-induced dream. Heinrich Emanuel Merck, who owned a family pharmacy in Darmstadt, Germany, began the commercial sale of morphine in 1827. Merck’s family business, still based in Darmstadt, is today a multinational pharmaceutical corporation with over $15 billion in annual sales.
Collectively, opioid drugs are termed “narcotics.” They include drugs like morphine, heroin, codeine, oxycodone, meperidine (Demerol), fentanyl, carfentanyl, hydromorphone and methadone, and are most often used in the control of pain. Opiates are among the most heavily regulated medications under the auspices of the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, with prescribers requiring a medical degree and a license number from the DEA.
While opiates have real medical value as pain relievers, they also have some very dangerous side effects. Chief among those side effects is their tendency to make people stop breathing. That, obviously, is a significant problem — especially for a class of drugs that have been shown to have substantial propensity for causing addiction.
Many medical historians trace the modern opioid epidemic to a single letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1980. In that letter, Dr. Hershel Jick, a physician at Boston University Medical Center, described his review of patient records at his hospital and concluded that “despite widespread use of narcotic drugs in hospitals, the development of addiction is rare in medical patients with no history of addiction” (http://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJM198001103020221). That letter has since been cited hundreds of times, and has been used repetitively by pharmaceutical companies to promote the use of narcotics as pain relievers. “Pain control” became a trendy medical watchword during the 1990’s. In 1999, the VA Medical System even began advocating the measurement of pain control as the “fifth vital sign.”
Spurred by misleading pharmaceutical industry marketing and industry-funded “research” which emphasized the advantages and downplayed the risks of narcotics, doctors in the late 1990’s began prescribing more and more narcotic pain relievers. Five drug manufacturers were particularly active in promoting increased narcotic prescriptions for pain control: Purdue, Endo, Teva, Johnson and Johnson and Allergan. An Endo-sponsored website, PainKnowledge.com, claimed in 2009 that “people who take opioids as prescribed usually do not become addicted.” Similarly, Janssen (a subsidiary of Johnson and Johnson) approved and distributed a patient education guide in 2009 that attempted to counter the “myth” that opioids are addictive, claiming that “many studies show that opioids are rarely addictive when used properly for the management of chronic pain.” Purdue sponsored a publication from the American Pain Foundation, an organization heavily funded by opioid companies, suggesting that pain was undertreated and opioids were necessary. This publication even advocated the use of chronic narcotic pain medications in children.
The increasing demand for opiates resulted in the propagation of so-called “pill mills,” where unscrupulous doctors would write narcotic prescriptions in exchange for cash, further increasing the scope of prescription drug abuse. The end result of all of this? An entire generation of narcotic addicts.
Today, the U.S. is by far the world’s leader in narcotic prescriptions, with more than five times the per capita number written for patients in Great Britain. The proliferation of prescription narcotics, and the number of addicts created as a result, has caused a skyrocketing demand for the illicit sale of synthetic opioid-type drugs such as fentanyl and heroin—drugs far more potent than morphine, and far more deadly. As a result, the number of drug overdose deaths in this country has more than tripled since 1999. It’s a deadly spiral—and it must be stopped.
So what can we do about it?
The CDC estimates that there are at least 2.1 million narcotic addicts in this country. It has recently issued strict narcotic prescribing guidelines for physicians, and multiple states — including Georgia — have tightened regulatory requirements for narcotic prescriptions. As a result of these sorts of measures, the number of opioid prescriptions has fallen steadily in this country since 2010. But this only addresses part of the problem. Narcotic-addicted individuals will find their drugs wherever they can get them—and since narcotics are less readily available from their doctors these days, addicted patients will often procure the more lethal street versions of these drugs. The problem is that these street drugs are, of course, illegal — and the resultant criminalization of narcotic addiction keeps addicts from seeking the help they need.
Here are some suggestions which have been made for combatting this epidemic:
1. Limit new cases of addiction by restricting the use of narcotic prescriptions by physicians. In some respects, this is already happening. As mentioned previously, the CDC issued guidelines limiting the use of narcotics for chronic pain. The FDA also placed narcotics on a more strict regulatory schedule, and law enforcement has been more aggressive in addressing the “pill mills” that helped start the crisis in the first place. In 2011, the state of Georgia passed a law making it illegal for anyone to own a pain clinic in Georgia if they were not licensed to practice medicine in this state, closing a loophole which allowed out-of state doctors to operate “pill mills.” One of those “pill mills” was raided right here near Savannah (https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdga/pr/another-pill-mill-doctors-sentenced-over-decade-federal-prison). The Georgia state legislature also recently made the state’s prescription drug monitoring program more robust, allowing ready identification of doctors who are over-prescribing narcotics and patients who are “doctor-shopping” to get multiple narcotic prescriptions.
2. Focus on the treatment of narcotic addiction, not its criminality. The most essential way to get rid of an addiction is treatment—but often, the street versions of narcotics are cheaper and more accessible than the treatment would be. In addition, the fear of criminal prosecution leads many people to shy away from treatment, choosing instead to continue to feed their addiction. It’s been definitively shown that medication-assisted treatments with drugs like methadone, Suboxone and naloxone can help addicts break their addictions safely. A 2017 study published in the British Medical Journal showed that medication-assisted narcotic addiction treatment cuts opioid mortality rates in half (http://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j1550). These sorts of programs need to be made more readily available. In addition, measures like Georgia’s Good Samaritan Law, signed in 2014, prevents criminal prosecution for anyone seeking medical attention for a person experiencing a drug or alcohol-related overdose. The law also provides more access to Naloxone (Narcan), an agent which reverses the deleterious effects of narcotics. Savannah-Chatham County policemen now carry a nasal spray version of Narcan with them at all times, and the narcotic-reversal agent is now available in Georgia (and 40 other states) over the counter without a prescription. Universally, narcotic addiction needs to be treated less like a criminal act and more like the disease it is. Otherwise, the addicts simply won’t elect to seek help—and more people will die.
Another issue? Treatment for narcotic addiction doesn’t come cheap. Many narcotic addicts are young people (ages 18-25) without health insurance. As a result, only 10 percent of people with a narcotic addiction history ever undergo formal medication-based therapy in order to kick the habit for good. Success in combatting the current epidemic will therefore only come when significant public funds are used to provide that therapy. The 2016 Federal Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act allocates $181 million a year to this effort, and the bipartisan 21st Century Cures Act allocated another $1 billion over two years (fiscal years 2017 and 2018) to combat the opioid epidemic. The State of Georgia recently funded the Georgia Opioid State Targeted Response Program at an annual level of about $12 million — but these measures are a mere drop in the proverbial opioid addiction bucket.
Dr. Andrew Kolodny, the co-director of Opioid Policy Research at Brandeis University’s Heller School for Social Policy and Management, has estimated that fully addressing the opioid crisis in this country could cost upwards of $60 billion over the next 10 years.
Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? Well, the White House Council of Economic Advisors recently estimated in a November 2017 report that the opioid epidemic costs the country over $500 billion a year. Some of the funding for opioid addiction treatment could come from legal action against the drug companies who exploited these medications for profit.
The Ohio Attorney General is suing several major pharmaceutical companies over this issue, citing their intentionally misleading marketing about the safety of prescription narcotics. Ohio had over 4000 deaths from drug overdoses in 2016—and the numbers are expected to be even higher for 2017.
We all recognize the tragedy when a celebrity such as Tom Petty dies prematurely, but it is intensely more personal when it is one of our own — a child or a friend.
On average, there were two overdose deaths in Savannah per month in 2016, and a staggering six deaths in January 2017 alone. In June, 2017, Navicent Medical Center in Macon identified 40 overdose patients in a single two-week period which stemmed from the use of fake “Percocet” pills which were being illegally sold in that area.
This sort of thing is merely the tip of the iceberg. The opioid epidemic is right here in Georgia. As a community, we cannot afford to simply stick our collective heads in the sand and allow more of our young people to die. That would be a tragedy of epic proportions—and an inexcusable one, primarily because it would have been preventable.
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Philly right to go after drugmakers (EDITORIAL)
Jan 26, 2018 | The Philadelphia Inquirer (PA)
By Staff
Philadelphia is buckling under the weight of the opioid crisis. No big city has as many opioid deaths per capita as this city. About 1,200 Philadelphians died of a drug overdose last year. That was a 30 percent jump over 2016; more are expected in 2018.
The city estimates that 140,000 residents are addicts but only 10 percent of them are in treatment. Officials worry that more people could become addicts because about a third of the city’s adults have been prescribed highly addictive painkillers in the past year, according to the city’s health commissioner, Thomas Farley. Add to that the thousands of addicts from around the region who come to the city to buy drugs and inevitably overdose.
The city didn’t make this mess, and it shouldn’t have to clean it up alone. The cost in human suffering and the millions of tax dollars Philadelphia has spent fighting this epidemic are compelling reasons the city this week rightly joined the growing list of communities suing five drug manufacturers — including Allergan/Actavis; Cephalon and Teva; Endo; Janssen and Johnson & Johnson; and Purdue Pharma — for their roles in the crisis.
Very significantly, the city is not just seeking monetary damages but also is seeking to stop the companies’ aggressive marketing of drugs.
This lawsuit may seem long overdue, but consider that this crisis knocked communities off their feet and they are only now getting up and fighting the root causes.
For decades, drug companies used misleading pitches to persuade physicians to prescribe painkillers for managing even minor back pain. They downplayed the drugs’ addictive properties.
Famously, some cited the well-regarded New England Journal of Medicine as proof that opioids weren’t dangerous.
But the magazine only published a letter to the editor decades ago that said there were few hospital inpatient cases of addiction. It wasn’t a full study or article, which would have required real research, fact-checking and perspective.
For the record: Opioids are highly addictive. According to a real study, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in March, one out of five people prescribed opioids for over 10 days is susceptible to addiction.
This is a deadly problem that starts but is not limited to prescription drugs; when access to those drugs is no longer possible, many turn to street drugs, including heroin.
Communities have put enormous stress on their resources to deal with the consequences. Philadelphia treats roughly 14,000 addicts a year. There aren’t enough ambulances to take dying addicts to hospitals, so fire department equipment is used. In just one year, Philadelphia spent $370,000 to administer naloxone, the life-saving opioid antidote, to 10,000 addicts.
The cost of fighting drug-related crimes is up to $40 million a year when factoring in costs for the police, the district attorney, public defender, the courts and prisons.
Drug companies have to help pay for the problem they played such a major role in creating. They’re not alone. The doctors who didn’t bother to check out the research and overprescribed these substances should pay, too. But the victims, their loved ones, and taxpayers have already paid enough.
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Opioid lawsuit makes sense (EDITORIAL)
Jan 27, 2018 | Daily Independent (KY)
By Staff
We applaud Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear for his decision to join other states in a lawsuit against a San Francisco-based drug firm the attorney general is convinced helped fuel the opioid epidemic that continues to plague this state by shipping far more prescription pain pills to communities than it should have known were needed.
If Beshear can prove his arguments in court, then McKesson Corporation, the drug company, should be held accountable and be forced to pay a portion of the millions of dollars the abuse of prescription pain pills have cost this state, particularly our region.
Unfortunately, because the state Finance and Revenue Cabinet has three times found fault with the contract the attorney general’s office has with the outside law firm handling the suit against McKesson Corporation, Kentucky may be forced to sit on the sidelines while other states pursue the suit. That could be costly if the suit is successful and the state misses out in getting its share of the financial awards.
Beshear said he is confident the contract is valid and will be upheld. Let us hope he is right and the questions raised by the Cabinet are not a result of the state’s Republican governor’s constant political bickering with Beshear, the highest ranking elected Democrat in Frankfort. The opioid epidemic has been too devastating for this lawsuit to fall victim to partisan politics.
According to Beshear, between 2010 and 2016, McKesson distributed enough opioid doses to Floyd County to supply every man, woman and child in the county 477 pills. In fact, opioids have so flooded the eastern Kentucky county “with grossly excessive amounts” that traces have been detected in public water supplies, said Beshear.
Beshear accuses the drug company of “knowingly and intentionally” distributing far more opioid doses than could have been required — “with total disregard for our health and safety.”
Floyd County Judge-Executive Ben Hale called the drug company’s lack of concern over the impact of their drug products on families in eastern Kentucky “infuriating.”
“For their corporate profits to rank as a higher priority than human life is the most unforgivable motive,” Hale said.
Such allegations would have to be proven in court, but there is no question that drug companies fueled the drug epidemic by supplying pain pills to “pain clinics” and doctors who were little more than drug pushers getting rich off the deadly habits of area residents.
Beshear said McKesson “chose profits over the lives of Kentuckians” when it failed to notify the federal government and state of Kentucky of the “suspicious” number of opioid doses flowing into Kentucky. If that can be proven – and Beshear is hardly alone in thinking that it can be – then the drug companies must be held accountable.
This region deserves nothing less.
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After Surgery in Germany, I Wanted Vicodin, Not Herbal Tea (EDITORIAL)
Jan 27, 2018 | New York Times
By Firoozeh Dumas
I recently had a hysterectomy here in Munich, where we moved from California four years ago for my husband’s job. Even though his job ended a year ago, we decided to stay while he tries to start a business. Thanks to the German health care system, our insurance remained in force. This, however, is not a story about the benefits of universal health care.
Thanks to modern medicine, my hysterectomy was performed laparoscopically, without an overnight hospital stay. My only concern about this early release was pain management. The fibroids that necessitated the surgery were particularly large and painful, and the procedure would be more complicated.
I brought up the subject of painkillers with my gynecologist weeks before my surgery. She said that I would be given ibuprofen. “Is that it?” I asked. “That’s what I take if I have a headache. The removal of an organ certainly deserves more.”
“That’s all you will need,” she said, with the body confidence that comes from a lifetime of skiing in crisp, Alpine air.
I decided to pursue the topic with the surgeon.
He said the same thing. He was sure that the removal of my uterus would not require narcotics afterward. I didn’t want him to think I was a drug addict, but I wanted a prescription for something that would knock me out for the first few nights, and maybe half the day.Continue reading the main story
With mounting panic, I decided to speak to the anesthesiologist, my last resort.
This time, I used a different tactic. I told him how appalled I had been when my teenager was given 30 Vicodin pills after she had her wisdom teeth removed in the United States. “I am not looking for that,” I said, “but I am concerned about pain management. I won’t be able to sleep. I know I can have ibuprofen, but can I have two or three pills with codeine for the first few nights? Let me remind you that I am getting an entire organ removed.”
The anesthesiologist explained that during surgery and recovery I would be given strong painkillers, but once I got home the pain would not require narcotics. To paraphrase him, he said: “Pain is a part of life. We cannot eliminate it nor do we want to. The pain will guide you. You will know when to rest more; you will know when you are healing. If I give you Vicodin, you will no longer feel the pain, yes, but you will no longer know what your body is telling you. You might overexert yourself because you are no longer feeling the pain signals. All you need is rest. And please be careful with ibuprofen. It’s not good for your kidneys. Only take it if you must. Your body will heal itself with rest.”
I didn’t mention that I use ibuprofen like candy. Why else do they come in such jumbo sizes at American warehouse stores? Instead, I thought about his poetic explanation of pain as my guide, although his mention of “just resting” was disturbing. What exactly is resting?
I know how to sleep but resting is an in-between space I do not inhabit. It’s like an ambiguous place that can be reached only by walking into a magic closet and emerging on the other side to find a dense forest and a talking lion, a lion who can guide me toward the owl who supplies the forest with pain pills.
“I do have another question,” I said. “Stool softeners — certainly, you prescribe those? That’s pretty standard with anesthesia throughout the modern world, I believe.”
“You won’t need those,” he answered in his calm voice. “Your body will function just fine. Just give it a day or two. Drink a cup of coffee, slowly. And whatever you do, do not get it in a to-go cup. You must sit in one place and enjoy this cup, slowly.”
His gentle suggestion to trust my body almost brought me to tears. It reminded me of the poster in my doctor’s waiting room, the one informing us that herbal tea is the first remedy to try when we have a cold. The first remedy I try is the decongestants I bring with me from the United States. I can’t find those in Germany, nor can I find the children’s cough medicine that makes my child drowsy. I also import that.
Come to think of it, I bring a lot of medicine with me from the United States, all over the counter, all intended to take away discomfort. The German doctors were telling me that being uncomfortable is O.K.
My first night home after surgery, I didn’t sleep well because of the pain from the carbon dioxide pumped into my body for the laparoscopy. Had I had something to knock me out, I would have taken it.
In the morning, my husband propped me up in bed and brought me a pot of tea. I was tired and uncomfortable, and I was bored. An entire day lay ahead of me. I was dreading it.
I took two ibuprofens that first day. In hindsight, I didn’t need them, but I felt like I should take something. What I really needed was patience pills, and a few distractions. The hardest part of my recovery was lingering in bed, or on the sofa, feeling the discomfort and boredom as time ticked by slowly. I didn’t feel like reading or doing much of anything. I watched a few movies and many episodes of “Antiques Roadshow.”
Every day, my body felt a little better. I drank mint tea. I drank fennel tea. I drank homemade chai with ginger, cardamom and pepper. I drank coffee slowly, enjoying every sip. I lingered in that in-between space.
After a week, I took the tram to the doctor’s office to have my stitches removed. My doctor, with her usual cup of chamomile tea in hand, remarked on my progress. “I rested,” I told her. Normally, I would have said, “I did nothing,” but I didn’t say that. I had been healing, and that’s something.
I did say that this story is not about the benefits of universal health care, but for the sake of accuracy, let me add that this hysterectomy was not without cost. After my surgery, I had to pay $25 for the taxi ride home.
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Jan 29, 2018 | WHT (ABC)
By Evansville, IN
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32303929?token=fee326dc-0bc1-499b-bf3a-3c5877d75256
Rough Transcript: boonville joins more than 70 other cities and towns across indiana suing opioid manufacturers and distributors.as we first reported this week as part of our community in pain series.tonight we learn why mayor charlie wyatt joined the class-action lawsuit.he says there is no downside and no cost to taxpayers.the law firm representing the cities says the warrick county opioid prescription rate peaked at 101 prescriptions per 100 people in the county."they're your friends, they're my friends, they're family, whatever. it doesn't spare anybody. to me it's a scourge. i've said that for years, drugs is a scourge of our age... so got trying to be proactive about it."brad-- purdue pharma and johnson & johnson are on the list of defendants.the law firm says companies must be held accountable for their roles in creating the opioid epidemic.
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Jan 29, 2018 | KBTV (Fox)
By Beaumont, TX
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32304477?token=fee326dc-0bc1-499b-bf3a-3c5877d75256
Rough Transcript: opioid manufacturers and distributors 9:24 AMspent over $100,000 to partially sponsor this meeting in san francisco. >> that was really something else, the opening dinner last night. >> reporter: last year the dinner at this georgia resort had top corporate donors getting preferred seating with the attorney generals. and at this hotel last spring two opioid companies that gave the democratic ag association a combined $65,000, got to speak on a panel. and told a group they were not responsible for the opioid crisis according to several attendees. while there are nationwide rules for congressional lobbyists, there aren't any when it comes to lobbying state ags. they don't have to say how much they are being paid or who they are meeting with. >> there are real questions about whether that money ended up influencing how the ag conducted their settlement. >> both the republican and democratic ag association told us it is important they hear from a wide variety of voices including advocacy groups. purdue pharma declined our request for an on-camera interview but says they are committed to working collaboratively to solve the opioid crisis.
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Jan 29, 2018 | KIMT (CBS)
By Rochester, MN
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32304480?token=fee326dc-0bc1-499b-bf3a-3c5877d75256
Rough Transcript: worth county officials will be disscussing whether to join the iowa state counties association board's lawsuit against opioid manufacturers . the discussion is set to take place at the board of supervisors meeting later this morning at 9 aám. 36 other iowa counties have joined the lawsuit. earlier this month a similar measure was discussed in floyd county... and the board of supervisors declined to join the lawsuit.
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Jan 29, 2018 | WCCB (CW)
By Charlotte, NC
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32304484?token=fee326dc-0bc1-499b-bf3a-3c5877d75256
Rough Transcript: gaston county leaders will talk about their fight against the opioid cris during a public news conference. the county is joining hundreds of other counties around the united states to sue prescription drug manufacturers and distributors. according to the north carolina department of public health, there were 57 opioid-related deaths in gaston county in 2016. the news consider -- conference begins at 11:00 at the gaston county courthouse.
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Jan 29, 2018 | WSOC (ABC)
By Charlotte, NC
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32304490?token=fee326dc-0bc1-499b-bf3a-3c5877d75256
Rough Transcript: gaston county leaders will discuss its lawsuit against the big drug companies vying for the opioid cris. improperly marketing and claiming distributors did not properly report prescriptions to the federal government. hired lawyers from across the country and say they will not be paid unless money is won in this suit. they say no taxpayer dollars will be spent. >>> county leaders will hold a news conference at 11:00 this morning. in gaston county, there were 57 opioid-related deaths in 2016, which is a 375% increase compared to 1999.
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Jan 28, 2018 | WHYY (PBS)
By Philadelphia, PA
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32304500?token=fee326dc-0bc1-499b-bf3a-3c5877d75256
Rough Transcript: delaware attorneyl matt denn filed a lawsuit generl matt denn filed a lawsuit against drug companies, distributors, and two drug store chains for their role in delaware's epidemic of opioid overdose deaths. he's also joined an effort by 2:38 PMattorneys general in 22 other states to stop the rollback of states to stop the rollback of net neutrality rules. he joins us now as this week's first person. last year, you call the epidemic of opioidaddiction in delaware a human tragedy. a disaster for the criminal justice system. you have filed a lawsuit against some of the makers of these drugs and distributors. take us through that decision, the goal of that tactic. a.g. denn: this has been an ongoing priority for us on the law enforcement front, in terms of dealing with -- in terms of the dealing aspect. on the treatment front, the law enforcement portion is critical, but certainly not a long-term solution. we need to deal with the demand withside. we have been involved in getting the number of opioid prescriptions down. those have all been priorities. all of those things are incredibly costly. there is a human tragedy part that you mention, which was first and foremost, but there is also a real crushing economic cost to the state in terms of health care cost, law 2:39 PMenforcement cost posed by this opioid epidemic. thisside. lawsuit alleges the company's have a lot to do with -- companies have a lot to do with manufacturing this crosses, they offset the cost. it includes a number of national corporations, and it will take some time to resolve. we thought it was important to have them help the state bear the cost of this. mark: you outlined steps -- $4 million for the state to improve treatment space. how have the things you laid out -- i think it is september -- how are we doing it? a.g. denn: the legislature is back now. we hope they will implement it. our suggestion is every year, the state puts about $10 million into economic development, into a strategic fund to incentivize businesses to come here. our proposal is, let's take $4 million of that money and use it to specifically incentivize people to create new treatment facilities in delaware. there is a real gap in terms of long-term treatment for people with addiction issues. we have a number of detox facilities, but they only offer a limited range of treatment. most people who are caught up in this addiction crisis require a lot more than 7 to 10 days of intensive treatment. we don't have the facilities in delaware that are adequate enough. let's use this economic development money to generate those facilities, which will also create jobs, in an area that we really need.
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Eyewitness News Weekend at 8am
Jan 27, 2018 | WWL (CBS)
By New Orleans, LA
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32304661?token=fee326dc-0bc1-499b-bf3a-3c5877d75256
Rough Transcript: so far the cities of baton rouge have filed lawsuit and expect any government level at any level in louisiana to file suit. >> even what would they hope to achieve or get out of a lawsuit like that? >> their argument is that the manufactures and distributors of opioid recklessly addicted their residents and has that driven up cost for medicaids for prisons, health costs across the board. so they are suing -- some begun to sue and will be suing for damages. >> i'm assuming those cost will go help pay for those things. has the city put a price tag on what it has cost them so far? >> yeah. in louisiana millions and millions of dollars. and also again here in louisiana including sheriffs are filing against these companies. >> is there a precedent anywhere else in the country for these lawsuits? or is thing? >> a lot of people are comparing this to the of the 19 oil -- in the 1990s for big tobacco.
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Jan 27, 2018 | KTVK (KTVK)
By Phoenix, AZ
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/32304686?token=fee326dc-0bc1-499b-bf3a-3c5877d75256
Rough Transcript: drug makers... and distributors... will be in federal court. they're facing hundreds of lawsuits... from 14 states... accusing them of fueling the opioidcris. right now... arizona.. is not one of those states. but there are several legal battles over opioids.. here at home. we first told you back in november... the city of phoenix is looking into a possible lawsuit ...against opioid drug manufacturers . they say.. calls about drug overdoses... are sometimes more common than house fires... and first responders are going through boxes of pricey overdose- reducing drugs. the city council... voted to hire an outside attorney... to try and get drug manufacturers to pay them back. an arizona-based pharmaceutical company is facing at least one lawsuit... over fentanyl. we told you back in october... the founder of "insys therapeutics" w arrested in the valley. 'john kapoor' pleaded not guilty to bribery and conspiracy charges. he's accused of recruiting doctors... helping design a scheme offering kickbacks to illegally prescribe a fentanyl spray. then in december... the state of north carolina filed a lawsuit against the company.. making similar claims. the opioid crisis is a story weve been following closely for months.
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