Preview Newsletter
Opioid Litigation Daily Media Report - 3/7/18
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Large U.S. cities see big jump in deadly opioid overdoses, CDC data shows
Mar 7, 2018 | NBC News
By Corky Siemaszko
The opioid epidemic is fast becoming a big city problem -
A Small Town Louisiana Lawsuit Could Pose A Major Threat To Opioid Manufacturers
Mar 6, 2018 | Huffington Post
By B.E. Mintz
Facing a national opioid crisis showing few signs of abating, victims of the epidemic and government officials have increasingly sought to bring direct legal against opioid manufacturers. An ongoing federal lawsuit in Ohio has grabbed national headlines, but a small county filing in Louisiana made possible in part by the state’s unique civil code could have long-term consequences for the drug producers in the state and beyond. -
Pain study: Opioids no better than common painkillers
Mar 6, 2018 | Bloomberg
By Robert Langreth
Doctors and patients have long assumed that opioids are uniquely powerful medicines for chronic pain, despite their risks. But it turns out that this reputation may be a myth. -
White House too focused on commerce side of opioid crisis, says public health expert
Mar 7, 2018 | Infosurhoy
By Denis Bedoya
The White House hosted a summit on March 1 to update Americans on the ways the Trump administration is fighting the opioid epidemic. -
Opioid crisis spurs Medicaid funds push
Mar 7, 2018 | The Hill
By Rachel Roubein
Doctors, governors and health-care advocates are pressing Congress to lift a decades-old rule that greatly restricts Medicaid from being used to fund care for opioid addiction. -
FDA Chief Wants to Increase Package Inspection to Combat Opioid Crisis
Mar 7, 2018 | Associated Press
By Matthew Perrone
The head of the Food and Drug Administration wants to more than double the number of packages his agency inspects for illicit drugs, an effort to stem a deadly flow of opioids that increasingly runs through the international mail supply. -
This Ohio Judge May Have the Key to Curbing the Nationwide Opioid Crisis
Mar 6, 2018 | Brit & Co
By Kat Armstrong
The ongoing opioid crisis has put to tragic rest any notion that class, race, or age mitigate the effects of addiction. Opioid deaths are not slowing down in the US and the center of the battle seems to be the Midwest — where hundreds of people overdose every day. -
DOJ Will Share Prescription Sales Data in Opioid Lawsuits
Mar 6, 2018 | Legalscoops
By Jacob Maslow
The U.S. Department of Justice will share some data on prescription painkiller sales. The data will aid in settlement talks between local governments and drug companies targeted by hundreds of lawsuits over the opioid epidemic. -
Scott County files suit against prescription opioid manufacturers, distributors
Mar 6, 2018 | Lebanon Democrat (TN)
By Staff
Scott County recently filed a lawsuit against prescription opioid manufacturers and distributors to recover taxpayer money spent to combat the opioid epidemic wreaking havoc on the Scott County community. -
Scott, Campbell counties hop on board Big Pharma racketeering lawsuit train
Mar 6, 2018 | Knox News (TN)
By Jamie Satterfield
Two East Tennessee counties are now on board to join a growing and fast-moving national effort to use federal racketeering laws to hold drug makers, distributors and dispensers accountable for creating and fostering the opioid epidemic in the United States, records show. -
Into the fight: Scott County joins opioid legal battle
Mar 7, 2018 | Independent Herald Oneida (TN)
By Staff
Scott County has officially joined the growing legal battle that is centered around America’s opioid epidemic. -
Spartanburg County opioid suit: ‘Blockbuster profits’ at public’s expense
Mar 6, 2018 | GoUpstate (SC)
By Bob Montgomery
A lawsuit filed by Spartanburg County against drug makers, pharmacies, distributors and doctors claims the county spends millions of dollars each year in healthcare costs and services related to deceptive practices and addictive effects of opioid painkillers like OxyContin and Percocet. -
Greenville Co. sues pharmaceutical companies over drug epidemic
Mar 7, 2018 | WSPA (SC)
By Eryn Rogers
Greenville County filed a lawsuit Monday targeting big pharmaceutical companies in an effort to hold them accountable for their role in the growing drug epidemic. -
2 South Carolina counties sue over opioid abuse
Mar 7, 2018 | Associated Press
By Staff
Two more South Carolina counties have sued major drug companies because of opioid abuse cases. -
Richmond County joins legal fight against opioid manufacturers
Mar 6, 2018 | Richmond County Daily Journal (NC)
By Gavin Stone
The Richmond County Board of Commissioners voted to join a wide-reaching lawsuit against the manufacturers of prescription opiates Tuesday, seeking damages relating to the increased opioid addiction and mortality rates associated with over-prescribing the drugs. -
Piedmont City Council agrees to enter opioid lawsuit
Mar 6, 2018 | The Anniston Star (AL)
By Patric MCCreless
City leaders agreed on Tuesday to enter a cross-jurisdictional lawsuit filed to fight the nationwide opioid epidemic. -
Whitfield County, other north Georgia governments file lawsuit against makers of opioid painkillers
Mar 6, 2018 | Union-Recorder (GA)
By Charles Oliver
Claiming that "manufacturers aggressively promoted and pushed highly addictive, dangerous opioids, falsely representing to doctors that patients would rarely succumb to drug addiction," Whitfield County has joined Chattooga County, Floyd County and the cities of Cartersville and Rome in a federal lawsuit against approximately 20 makers of opioid painkillers. -
PBC to select legal team for possible lawsuit in opioid fight
Mar 6, 2018 | Palm Beach Post (FL)
By Wayne Washington
Three teams of law firms have emerged as the finalists to represent Palm Beach County if the county files suit against drug makers or sellers as part of its fight against the opioid epidemic. -
For all their risks, opioids had no pain-relieving advantage in a yearlong clinical trial
Mar 7, 2018 | Los Angeles Times
By Karen Kaplan
For years, doctors turned to opioid painkillers as a first-line treatment for chronic back pain and aches in the joints. Even as the dangers of addiction and overdoses became more clear, the drugs' pain-relieving benefits were still thought to justify their risks. -
Pittsburgh, Allegheny County to hire law firm to study suing opioid makers
Mar 6, 2018 | Trib Live (PA)
By Theresa Clift
Allegheny County has hired a South Carolina law firm to explore whether the county should file a lawsuit against prescription opioid manufacturers, distributors and prescribers to recoup public money spent as a result of the opioid crisis. -
Amherst Sues Big Pharma Over Opioid Epidemic
Mar 7, 2018 | WBEN (NY)
By Tom Puckett
The Town of Amherst has filed its lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies over the opioid epidemic. The town's attorney says marketing changes have contributed to the crisis around the country. -
Hartford City to join in on class action lawsuit
Mar 7, 2018 | The News Times (IN)
By Pat Hughes
Members of the Hartford City Common Council agreed last month to join in a class action lawsuit against drug makers and distributors of opioids. -
Cleveland files lawsuit against drug companies over opioid epidemic
Mar 7, 2018 | Cleveland.com (OH)
By Eric Heisig
Following the lead of almost all of Ohio's large cities, the city of Cleveland on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against drug manufacturers and distributors in an attempt to recover the costs the city incurred a result of the nation's opioid epidemic. -
Q13 News This Morning
Mar 7, 2018 | Seattle, WA
By KCPQ (Fox)
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/33375086?token=95b328c6-e080-4243-806e-05d7aee49f57 -
Eyewitness News Daybreak 6:00
Mar 7, 2018 | Charlotte, NC
By WSOC (ABC)
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/33375105?token=95b328c6-e080-4243-806e-05d7aee49f57 -
WFXG FOX 54 News NOW
Mar 6, 2018 | Augusta-Aiken, GA
By WFXG (Fox)
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/33375119?token=95b328c6-e080-4243-806e-05d7aee49f57 -
Pittsburgh's Action News 4
Mar 7, 2018 | Pittsburgh, PA
By WTAE (ABC)
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/33375128?token=95b328c6-e080-4243-806e-05d7aee49f57 -
FOX8 News at 5:00P
Mar 7, 2018 | Greensboro, NC
By WGHP (Fox)
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/33375134?token=95b328c6-e080-4243-806e-05d7aee49f57 -
WALB News at Noon
Mar 7, 2018 | Albany, GA
By WALB (NBC)
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/33375146?token=95b328c6-e080-4243-806e-05d7aee49f57
Commentary and FYIs
MDL
Southeast (TN, SC, NC, AL, GA, FL)
Northeast (PA, NY)
Midwest (IN)
Broadcast Media Coverage
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Large U.S. cities see big jump in deadly opioid overdoses, CDC data shows
Mar 7, 2018 | NBC News
By Corky Siemaszko
The opioid epidemic is fast becoming a big city problem.
There was a 54 percent increase in overdoses from July 2016 through September 2017 in the major metro areas of 16 states surveyed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — a chunk of the country that includes Chicago, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio.
Nationwide, the scourge that President Donald Trump has vowed to defeat shows no sign of abating, with a 30 percent increase in opioid overdoses reported during that same period, the data released Tuesday shows.
Anne Schuchat, the CDC's acting director, said the grim new arithmetic, which came from emergency room statistics, confirmed some suspicions.
"We're currently seeing the highest drug overdose death rates ever recorded in the United States," Schuchat said in a Q&A session with reporters.
Asked specifically about the rise in urban opioid overdoses, Schuchat said health officials suspect a "change in the toxicity" of drugs on the street.
Urban heroin dealers have been boosting profits by cutting their drugs with fentanyl, which is 25 to 50 times more powerful. That combination was why Columbus was averaging one fatal overdose per day in the first half of last year.
"The issue of cutting heroin with fentanyl is a very major problem right now," Schuchat said. "What you are seeing in Columbus is for sure occurring in other areas."
Daniel Raymond, deputy director of the Harm Reduction Coalition, said that initially the opioid overdose rates "were primarily driven by prescription painkillers — they weren't concentrated in urban areas."
"But the recent rises are mostly driven by heroin, and particularly fentanyl, and the latter seems particularly prevalent in urban drug markets," said Raymond, whose organization is based in New York City. "That's certainly true in places like Ohio and Philadelphia, which are seeing a lot of fentanyl-involved overdose deaths. That doesn't mean the problems have waned in smaller cities and rural areas, which are also seeing fentanyl, but we are seeing increasing vulnerability in major urban centers."
The only bright spot — and it's a dim one at that — was that the CDC found decreases in opioid overdoses in states like West Virginia, New Hampshire and Kentucky that have been leading the nation in the category.
"We hope this is a positive sign," said Schuchat, who credited leadership, particularly in West Virginia, with taking bold steps to combat the crisis. "But we have to be cautious in the areas that have reported decreases."
"Sometimes places that have had such high rates have no place to go" but down, she added.
The new CDC "Vital Signs" report was released a week after Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a "statement of interest" in support of local governments that are suing the big pharmaceutical makers and distributors, accusing them of swamping many states with prescription painkillers and turning millions of Americans into junkies.
Skeptics said Sessions' move — like Trump's much-hyped opioid commission — is all talk and not much action.
The new CDC numbers come from analysis of emergency room data from 16 states, including some hardest hit by the plague — Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maine, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
The CDC found:
Emergency rooms in half of the states surveyed reported "substantial" increases in opioid overdoses, with mammoth jumps in Wisconsin (109 percent), Delaware (105 percent), Illinois (66 percent), Indiana (35 percent), Maine (34 percent) and North Carolina (31 percent).
The Midwest, in particular, saw a 70 percent increase in opioid overdoses.
The only state with a "statistically significant decrease" was Kentucky (15 percent). "The decrease in Kentucky may reflect some fluctuations in drug supply," Schuchat said.
"Nonsignificant" decreases of 10 percent or less were reported in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and West Virginia.
The highest rate of increases were in large metro areas, which the CDC defines as a population of 1 million or more "and covering a major city."
Every demographic group saw a substantial increase in overdose rates, including men (30 percent), women (24 percent), people ages 25 to 34 (31 percent), 35 to 54 (36 percent), and 55 or older (32 percent).
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A Small Town Louisiana Lawsuit Could Pose A Major Threat To Opioid Manufacturers
Mar 6, 2018 | Huffington Post
By B.E. Mintz
Facing a national opioid crisis showing few signs of abating, victims of the epidemic and government officials have increasingly sought to bring direct legal against opioid manufacturers. An ongoing federal lawsuit in Ohio has grabbed national headlines, but a small county filing in Louisiana made possible in part by the state’s unique civil code could have long-term consequences for the drug producers in the state and beyond.
Four years ago, Tyler M. Roach and his wife were injured when their car was rear-ended. Roach’s wife was prescribed and became addicted to opioid-based painkillers due to her injuries, according to their attorney Scott Bickford.
Their child, born during this period, was diagnosed at birth with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome, or NAS, Bickford said. According to a court filing, the newborn spent several painful days detoxing in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and will likely suffer from developmental issues for the remainder of her life.
Babies exposed to opioids in vitro can develop an addiction to the drug, according to National Institutes of Health research. A diagnosis after birth of NAS often includes immediate withdrawal symptoms ― such as excessive crying, heavy sweating, diarrhea, tremors, convulsions, seizures, vomiting, difficulty sleeping, loss of appetite and pain as soon as 24 hours to 10 days after birth.
But newer studies suggest that NAS can also have long-term side effects, including Attention Deficit Disorder, cognitive deficits, growth delays, depression, behavioral problems, life-long infertility and an inability to function independently.
Facing the reality of their own child’s battle with NAS, the Roachs’ in late fall reached out to a local lawyer recommended by friends. On Feb. 26, their new legal team filed a class action petition listing Tyler Roach “natural tutor for Baby K.E.R.” as the lead plaintiff. The filing details allegedly fraudulent activity by a local pharmacy as well as the drug manufacturers and distributors. Unspecified damages are requested.
The Roaches are hardly alone in having a child with an NAS diagnosis: Experts estimate that anywhere from one to just under six out of every 1000 births every year involves a woman who took prescription opioids during pregnancy, according to Kanwaljeet J.S. “Sunny” Anand, a professor of pediatrics who specializes in pain medicine at Stanford University’s School of Medicine and who is participating in the lawsuit.
“On average, one infant with NAS is hospitalized every hour in the U.S.,” he said.
With so many other infants and young children also affected, the potential size of this class action lawsuit is enormous. In a Feb. 27 press conference about the case, Bickford invited all Louisiana children suffering from NAS to join the class suit.
If the litigants are successful, pharmaceutical companies will be forced to contend with a second front ― on top of the consolidated, federal suit out of Ohio ― that could cost them hundreds of billions of dollars in additional damages.
Not surprisingly, the defendants don’t think that there is much merit to either case.
“The misuse and abuse of prescription opioids is a complex public health challenge that requires a collaborative and systemic response that engages all stakeholders,” said John Parker, a spokesman for Healthcare Distribution Alliance, a national trade association representing wholesale distributors including McKesson, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen. “Given our role, the idea that distributors are responsible for the number of opioid prescriptions written defies common sense and lacks understanding of how the pharmaceutical supply chain actually works and is regulated.”
But that’s not the position of the Drug Enforcement Administration, which has held that distributors are responsible for the number of opioid prescriptions and fined members of the trade group almost $200 million for questionable distribution in the last three months alone.
The Mega Lawsuit In Ohio
Over the past two years, more than 350 lawsuits have been filed against corporations that manufacture, distribute and retail opioids. Early on, the plaintiffs were individuals. But criminal investigations, like the DOJ’s case that yielded record fines of mega-distributor McKesson, provided hard facts necessary to support civil actions. Soon, public awareness and pressure on elected officials meant that whole states like Oklahoma and South Carolina, along with large cities like Seattle and Chicago, filed their own grievances.
That’s a lot of different lawyers trying to subpoena the same documents and depose the same witnesses. So to prevent that bureaucratic pileup, the courts chose to pause all of the various proceedings and consolidate the individual suits into one giant lawsuit known as a Multidistrict Litigation (MDL).
“If nothing else, the MDL creates one center for handling all of the documents and exchange of information,” said Johnny Denenea, an attorney with expertise on MDL. The consolidation will create a single discovery process, determine which “test cases” will be tried first and provide infrastructure for the division of any settlement.
The MDL landed in the first jurisdiction to file ― Cleveland, Ohio ― and in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Daniel Polster, a 20-year veteran of the bench with a track record of brokering settlements, including a 2016 dispute about protests at the Republican National Convention and a 1999 conflict over ownership of the San Francisco 49ers.
Polster is attempting to bring mediation to the MDL. In most situations, an elaborate tango begins at the start of a case, Denenea explained. The opposing counsels will typically file a series of motions and counter-motions aimed at prolonging the process with the hopes of draining the other party’s war chest. Attorneys will exploit any potential loopholes that could result in a summary judgement.
However, in what Denenea described as a highly irregular move, Polster on Jan. 9 forbade both sides from moving forward with such legal maneuvers. Instead, Polster ordered all parties involved to attend a summit with the aim to “educate the Court and each other on supply-chain dynamics and other issues relevant to resolving this MDL, and to pursue further settlement discussions.” Then, sensing that some parties might prefer the court of public opinion, Polster issued a gag order on Feb. 7.
“This is an unusual case,” he later told Bloomberg News. “The problem is urgent, life-threatening and ongoing. I took this step because I thought it would be the most effective path.”
A Local Issue
That’s where the Louisiana suit comes in. By filing the complaint in rural St. Tammany Parish (population 25,000) and naming citizens of the state of Louisiana as plaintiffs, the case is so far able to stay out of the aggregated-mega suit ― and the gag order.
That’s because Louisiana operates under a unique legal system that still heavily relies upon portions of the Code Napoleon, the French civil code created by Napoleon Bonaparte that governed the state during its colonial days as a French territory. Under that colonial civil code, plaintiffs who file in the state have the right to a trial with a jury who are also subject to the code.
The plaintiffs hope that the state’s unique laws, as well as the infant distinction, will keep the case out of Polster’s court, but ultimately that decision rests solely with the powerful federal judge.
The Louisiana lawsuit begins with a seven page historic explanation of the Louisiana Civil Code, and entire sections of the text are even written in French. Additionally, several subsections detail the history of the Louisiana Bar and “Twinning” agreements between the Supreme Court of Louisiana and the Court of Cassation ― France’s high court. The lengthy civics lesson in the suit is intended to keep the litigation in state — and out of Polster’s attempt at arbitration.
The team representing the Roach family is known for extracting money from corporations that ends up going into state coffers. Jack Harang, noted for a $1.06 billion environmental pollution dollar judgement against Exxon Mobil, and Warren Perrin, famed for soliciting an apology from Queen Elizabeth II for the expulsion of Acadians from Nova Scotia, are among the lawyers filing.
The plaintiffs believe that keeping the matter in the state will keep any potential settlement in the pockets of the victims. The local jurisdiction will also result in a larger cut of any reimbursed legal fees for the lawyers.
A state-level judgement in the plaintiffs’ favor could total billions of dollars and set an important precedent. Denenea explained that when cases like these are lumped into a federal MDL, damages are distributed very differently. The bulk of the funds from such settlements typically land with state governments. Theoretically, this revenue would be used to fund medicare for victims as well as treatment and prevention campaigns. But the Louisiana litigants believe that smaller entities, like municipalities, are better equipped to administer these programs.
The theory is well supported by experts in the field. “Within the public health sector, we often say, ‘Public health starts locally,’” said Olivia Carter-Pokras, a professor at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Health. “If you want to make a change, you must begin at the bottom.”
To that end, the parties behind the class action suit described themselves as a “legal-medical partnership.” While a victory would present a windfall in legal fees, the plaintiffs’ representatives are publicly focused on creating solutions to the opioid crisis.
The lawyers have attended dozens of meetings with public health professionals, victims and doctors over the last three months. Denenea described plans for detoxification programs and public health services with a focus on protracted, long-term care.
“The damages could be driven by police costs and bail costs, but the solution is public health,” he said.
Overwhelming consensus opinion among legal experts is that opioids cases filed against pharmaceutical giants are standing on very solid ground. But it’s still not clear how long these cases could take, or in what jurisdictions they will ultimately end up.
What is clear is that a new chapter is beginning for a large, yet neglected group of victims.
“It is high time that the medical and legal communities stand up to demand comprehensive treatment and care for the most needy and vulnerable citizens of our great country,” said Anand, the professor of pediatrics participating in the suit.
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Pain study: Opioids no better than common painkillers
Mar 6, 2018 | Bloomberg
By Robert Langreth
Doctors and patients have long assumed that opioids are uniquely powerful medicines for chronic pain, despite their risks. But it turns out that this reputation may be a myth.
A government-funded study published Tuesday is among the first long-term studies to compare opioids like oxycodone and morphine to common painkillers such as acetaminophen in patients with chronic back pain and arthritis, researchers said.
After a year of treatment, opioids weren’t any better at improving pain related to daily functioning, such as ability to sleep and work, the study found. The opioids were also slightly inferior at controlling pain intensity, and patients on them reported many more side effects, according to the results published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
“The fact that opioids did worse is really pretty astounding,” said Roger Chou, an internist at Oregon Health & Science University and a co-author of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines on opioid use for chronic pain, who was not involved in the recent study. “It calls into question our beliefs about the benefits of opioids.”
The findings run counter to years of medical practice in the U.S., where more so than in other countries, opioids have been prescribed to millions of patients for chronic pain over the years — even though data on their long-term effectiveness was lacking. While doctors are pulling back now, a surge in opioid use and abuse has led to an overdose crisis that kills tens of thousands of Americans each year.
The study is also another blow for opioid manufacturers, such as Purdue Pharma LP, that are already facing hundreds of lawsuits filed by U.S. cities and counties over their role in the opioid crisis. More than 300 lawsuits are on hold as the drugmakers engage in settlement talks ordered by the federal judge in Cleveland who is overseeing the litigation.
In the study, lead author Erin Krebs and her colleagues at the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Health Care System randomly assigned 240 patients with chronic back pain, or hip or knee arthritis, to be treated either with opioid painkillers like morphine and oxycodone, or nonopioid medicines including standard anti-inflammatory drugs like naproxen, or topical analgesics such as lidocaine.
After a year, about 60 percent of patients in each group experienced significant improvements in their ability to perform daily functions without pain interfering. But pain intensity improved significantly in just 41 percent of patients in the opioid group, compared with 54 percent in the nonopioid group, said Krebs, a primary care doctor at the Minneapolis VA. And patients taking opioids reported experiencing twice as many side effects.
If anything the study should have been biased in favor of the opioids, researchers said, because patients knew what drugs they were getting, and many went into the study believing that opioids were better.
The results “will be surprising for a lot of people,” Krebs said. “Opioids have this reputation as powerful painkillers and I don’t think it is well deserved, at least for chronic pain.”
While opioids provide potent relief for acute pain, that doesn’t necessarily translate to a chronic pain situation, where the pain often becomes disassociated from the original injury. Long-term studies haven’t been required for regulatory approval of their sales, and drugmakers have had no incentive do any.
The 2016 CDC chronic pain guidelines co-authored by Chou, the Oregon university internist, found that most controlled studies of opioids lasted less than six weeks. The government agency concluded there was “insufficient evidence” for their long-term benefits, but plenty of evidence for harm.
“This the first randomized trial that demonstrates you do not need opioids for these common chronic pain conditions, that common drugs are as good,” said Gary Franklin, a neurologist and occupational health researcher at the University of Washington who did early studies linking prescription opioid use to fatal overdoses. “That is why this is so important.”
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White House too focused on commerce side of opioid crisis, says public health expert
Mar 7, 2018 | Infosurhoy
By Denis Bedoya
The White House hosted a summit on March 1 to update Americans on the ways the Trump administration is fighting the opioid epidemic.
Dessa Bergen-Cico is an associate professor in the Department of Public Health and coordinator of the Addiction Studies program at Syracuse University’s Falk College. Bergen-Cico’s initial observation is that the White House is focused on “downstream” aspects of the problem that has to do with the pharmaceutical “commerce” aspects of the issue because these efforts are being headed by the Energy and Commerce Committee, rather than a health and preventive focus.
Bergen-Cico says:
“The upstream roots causes of addiction that need to be addressed are not unrelated to what needs to be done to address our country’s pervasive mental health problems that are at the root of violence and suffering. There is a palpable uncivil tension in our society and people are looking for an accessible and reliable way to deal with it – unfortunately the quickest and easiest ‘solutions’ are narcotics and alcohol.
“Under the Energy and Commerce Committee, the emphasis is on drug development partnerships with the private sector to develop new pharmaceutical treatment for overdose, medically assisted treatment and non-opioid pain management. Whereas these are important in responding to the immediate crisis – it falls short of addressing what needs to be done ‘upstream’ in prevention.
“On the one hand, it is good to see that they appear to be holding opioid manufacturers accountable for their culpable role in the etiology of this crisis when the pharmaceutical industry falsely stated that opioids pain medications were not addictive. However, at the same time they are chastising the pharmaceutical companies and pharmaceutical distribution centers for the proliferation of opioid drugs they are also giving them the priority role in dealing with the crisis they created through new opportunities to make money on new drugs for overdose, medically assisted treatment and new pain management drugs.”
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Opioid crisis spurs Medicaid funds push
Mar 7, 2018 | The Hill
By Rachel Roubein
Doctors, governors and health-care advocates are pressing Congress to lift a decades-old rule that greatly restricts Medicaid from being used to fund care for opioid addiction.
Lifting the limits could help thousands of people — but could cost as much as tens of billions of dollars over a decade, a daunting sum to try to pay for.
Lawmakers are nonetheless talking about including at least a partial lifting of the limits in broader opioid legislation that could come to the House floor by Memorial Day.
While conservatives are not dismissing the idea, saying they recognize the need to fight the opioid epidemic, any discussion of ways to pay for the expensive change would be challenging.
“We’re always concerned with additional spending,” said Rep. Mark Walker(R-N.C.), chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee. But he did not slam the door on the idea either.
“If you can draw me a straight line that this stems the tide of what we’re seeing … I’m not going to sit there and say ‘Hey, count me out,’ ” Walker said.
The idea of bolstering Medicaid to help people with an opioid addiction comes as the GOP has been discussing reforms to the program aimed at lowering its cost. At the state level, Republican governors and legislatures have pushed to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients.
Additional Medicaid spending would be a departure from Republican proposals last year to reduce spending on the program.
Daniel Raymond, policy director of the advocacy group Harm Reduction Coalition, said he was worried that the new Medicaid funding for opioid addiction, if approved, might be offset with cuts to other Medicaid spending.
“I would hate for those offsets to be pulled out of the Medicaid program itself,” he said.
Combating the opioid epidemic has been a bright spot of bipartisanship in recent years, as lawmakers in both parties have faced pressure to come up with solutions. Overdose deaths increased nearly 28 percent from 2015 to 2016.
The change being pursued would provide access to treatment facility beds to more people.
It would lift limits that prevent Medicaid from paying for care at treatment facilities with more than 16 beds, known as the Institutions for Mental Diseases exclusion. This restriction was put in place decades ago to prevent the warehousing of people with mental health disorders in large institutions, but is now widely seen as an outdated barrier.
President Trump’s opioid commission last year called waiving the restrictions “the single fastest way to increase treatment availability across the nation.”
The National Governors Association pressed for the change in January, saying the current limits are an “arcane federal policy” limiting treatment.
The American Medical Association, the leading doctors’ group, wrote to lawmakers last month calling for lifting the limits, saying it is “essential that treatment capacity be increased as expeditiously as possible.”
A top Republican on the committee overseeing the issue said lawmakers should try to find a way to get past the obstacle of cost.
“As I understand it, that exclusion is years old, and the world’s a different place today, and it does interfere with being able to treat the number of people who need to be treated,” said Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas), the Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee chairman.
“There’s obviously a cost associated with it, and that’s kind of been the stumbling block,” Burgess added. “We’re smart people; we’ll work on that.”
The Trump administration is already taking some actions on its own, speeding up the process for states to apply to waive the limits.
One possibility for Congress to lower the cost is to lift the limits some, but not all, of the way and to focus the spending on opioid treatment rather than on mental health.
Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.), the No. 2 Senate Democrat, has proposed allowing federal Medicaid dollars to pay for addiction services at treatment facilities with less than 40 beds. He says he’ll push to include that language in the opioid package that lawmakers are crafting. The bill has both Republican and Democratic co-sponsors and a companion in the House.
Durbin’s office hasn’t received an official score from the Congressional Budget Office on how much the bill would cost. But his office believes it would be “a fraction of the figures that have been tossed out” for a full repeal — a conclusion based off of recent state and federal actions and existing information and models, wrote Emily Hampsten, a spokeswoman for Durbin.
Some, such as Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), argue that a change could actually save money elsewhere, by decreasing emergency room visit costs.
Others note that while the change would be helpful, it won’t by itself curb the epidemic.
Chuck Ingoglia, the senior vice president of public policy and practice improvement for the National Council for Behavioral Health, said making sure other types of care are available to the community is also necessary.
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FDA Chief Wants to Increase Package Inspection to Combat Opioid Crisis
Mar 7, 2018 | Associated Press
By Matthew Perrone
The head of the Food and Drug Administration wants to more than double the number of packages his agency inspects for illicit drugs, an effort to stem a deadly flow of opioids that increasingly runs through the international mail supply.
FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Monday he needs more staffers to intercept opioids that are being disguised as other drugs and supplements.
“We’re finding an increasing number of opioids coming in through those facilities,” said Gottlieb, in an interview with The Associated Press. “In some ways the FDA is the last line of defense.”
At a time of massive growth in shipments of packages from China as a result of e-commerce, the FDA, the U.S. Postal service and other government agencies are struggling to intercept shipments of opioids such as fentanyl to U.S. buyers.
International shipments processed by the postal service nearly doubled in just three years, to 275 million in fiscal year 2016 from 150 million in 2013, according to federal records.
Gottlieb says opioid producers often turn synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, which is cheap and extremely potent, into pills and tablets that resemble other prescription drugs, such as antidepressants. Fentanyl can be up to 50 times more potent than heroin, according to federal authorities.
He wants FDA staff to have the manpower to inspect 100,000 packages per year that have been flagged as suspicious by customs agents, up from its current capacity of roughly 40,000. That would require more than doubling FDA staff, which now consists of 23 staffers dispersed between the nation’s nine international mail facilities, according to the agency. That number has tripled since September, when the agency had just seven full-time staff assigned to the posts nationwide.
The work is time-intensive. Shipments must be tested in a lab and put through a legal review before they can be destroyed.
At the facility at New York’s Kennedy Airport, the FDA’s five inspectors open and process about 75 packages per day, according to Gottlieb.
Gottlieb visited the New York hub Monday with members of Congress and their staff. He’s hoping lawmakers will approve increased spending for his agency.
“The reason why we had members of Congress here today is because we’re looking at trying to step up our footprint in those facilities even more,” Gottlieb said.
Members of Congress have been debating new measures aimed at stemming the flow of opioids in the mail.
Earlier this year, Senate investigators said incomplete tracking data used by the U.S. postal service allows Chinese sellers to ship fentanyl to U.S. buyers. Legislation introduced in Congress would require the postal service to collect tracking data for all shipments to the U.S., but it’s not clear that foreign mail authorities would comply.
The opioid epidemic was initially driven by prescription painkillers like OxyContin and Vicodin. But prescribing of those drugs has been falling since 2011 due to policies by government, medical and law enforcement officials designed to reverse years of overprescribing.
The majority of opioid deaths now involve illegal drugs, especially the ultra-potent fentanyl. Deaths tied to fentanyl and related drugs doubled in 2016, to more than 19,000, dragging down Americans’ life expectancy for the second year in a row.
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This Ohio Judge May Have the Key to Curbing the Nationwide Opioid Crisis
Mar 6, 2018 | Brit & Co
By Kat Armstrong
The ongoing opioid crisis has put to tragic rest any notion that class, race, or age mitigate the effects of addiction. Opioid deaths are not slowing down in the US and the center of the battle seems to be the Midwest — where hundreds of people overdose every day.
But one judge in Ohio may singlehandedly be shifting the outcome simply by using his own brand of cautious optimism and true diplomacy with one massive case that could resolve the crisis once and for all.
Since late 2017, Ohio judge Dan Polster has been in charge of resolving more than 400 federal lawsuits brought by cities, counties, and indigenous groups against drug companies, pharmacies, and distributors over the pedaling of drugs like OxyContin to the masses, which has created a large-scale public health emergency that causes over 100 deaths per day in the US.
The New York Times reports that Judge Polster was given the 400+ suits by a judicial panel after a discussion to create a multidistrict legislation, or MDL. MDLs are fairly common when cases are linked, and Polster has presided over MDLs in the past. With multiple defendants and plaintiffs and varying levels of both the public and private sector at play, Judge Polster has his work cut out for him. But, the judge insists that he won’t allow these cases to languish in the courts, and has already advised lawyers that he expects a speedy resolution — or, he warns, they’ll end up in a juried courtroom, which will be bad for everyone involved.
“The stakes, in this case, are incredibly high,” he said. And while the courts can’t usually fix social problems, the judge suggests that this may be an exception. Though the MDL is just getting started, Judge Polster is already floating actionable resolutions to the defendants, something that’s already caused a major shift in how opioids are distributed throughout the country.
Just 10 days after first sitting down in his Ohio courtroom, one of the defendants, drug manufacturer Purdue Pharma, announced they would no longer promote OxyContin to those who prescribe medicine — a surprising (and welcome) change coming from a company that had, for years, denied that their drug was harmful.
With a new session on the horizon, Judge Polster wants to see a resolution quickly and without much of a fight — and he may get it. The plaintiffs want help resolve the flow of drugs, while the defendants want to stay in business. So, maybe an off-beat judge whose goal is a speedy and fair resolution might be just what the doctor ordered.
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DOJ Will Share Prescription Sales Data in Opioid Lawsuits
Mar 6, 2018 | Legalscoops
By Jacob Maslow
The U.S. Department of Justice will share some data on prescription painkiller sales. The data will aid in settlement talks between local governments and drug companies targeted by hundreds of lawsuits over the opioid epidemic.
The DOJ has agreed to share some data on the grounds that the judge require it not be circulated publicly and that the data be returned or destroyed when the litigation is through.
The department will also require that the data not be used for commercial purposes. Certain information will only be allowed to be viewed by attorneys.
The data will include a year-by-year breakdown of the drug companies that manufactured and distributed the majority of the opioids in each state between 2006 and 2014. The data will also include information on how many pills were sold each year in each state and how much of the market share each company holds.
News of the data sharing comes as North Carolina’s Winston-Salem joins the lawsuit against opioid manufacturers. The City Council approved the joining of the lawsuit during its meeting on Monday.
Winston-Salem follows 24 other counties and four cities in North Carolina that have joined the lawsuit.
The lawsuits are demanding that opioid manufacturers carry out a ten-year plan that includes enhancements to law enforcement.
The premise of the lawsuit is that drug manufacturers may have violated federal and state laws that prevent the diversion of prescription medication into the illicit drug market.
Dan Besse, Council Member, stated that his own research on the opioid epidemic has led him to believe that drug makers have incentivized the “over-prescription” trend.
The lawsuit alleges that drug manufacturers downplayed the risks of opioid addiction and overstated the benefits of the drugs. The suit also claims that distributers failed to properly monitor suspicious orders of the prescription medication.
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Scott County files suit against prescription opioid manufacturers, distributors
Mar 6, 2018 | Lebanon Democrat (TN)
By Staff
Scott County recently filed a lawsuit against prescription opioid manufacturers and distributors to recover taxpayer money spent to combat the opioid epidemic wreaking havoc on the Scott County community.
The complaint, which was filed in Tennessee federal court, alleges the named opioid drug manufacturers and distributors and their agents deliberately and repeatedly violated state and federal laws by widely and falsely promoting highly addictive opioids as safe and necessary, all the while concealing the true risks of the drugs.
The complaint also alleges defendants conspired to manufacture and distribute millions of doses of highly addictive opioids, knowing they were trafficked and used for illicit purposes, and recklessly disregarded their devastating effect on the taxpayers and government of Scott County.
As a result of the manufacturers’ and distributors’ conduct, Scott County taxpayers spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight the opioid crisis and to address the devastating effects on their community.
“Taxpayers in Tennessee have paid more than their fair share to fight the opioids catastrophe created by the multi-billion dollar opioids industry; it’s time the industry paid its fair share,” said attorney Mark Chalos, managing partner with Lieff Cabraser Heimann and Bernstein. “Seeking to hold wrongdoers accountable in federal court is the most effective way to make sure that Scott County has a seat at the table for the discussion about recovering tax payer money and finding long-term solutions to the opioids crisis.”
Scott County Mayor Dale Perdue said, “Like so many other cities and communities across the country, the opioid epidemic has been devastating on Scott County. I am hopeful that this lawsuit will allow us to recover the public funds that we have been forced to spend to combat the problems that the opioid manufacturers and distributors are responsible for in our community.”
The named defendants include Purdue Pharma, Cephalon, Teva Pharmaceutical, Johnson & Johnson, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Noramco, Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Endo Health Solutions, Mallinckrodt, Allergan, Actavis, Watson Pharmaceuticals, Insys Therapeutics, AmerisourceBergen Drug Corp., Cardinal Health, McKesson Corp. and additional affiliated businesses and entities.
“The time has come for the manufacturers and distributors of these pernicious opioid pills to face full responsibility for their destructive and predatory conduct,” said attorney Jonathan Taylor with Taylor and Knight. “Their actions – and their knowing inactions – have destroyed lives and families across all of Scott County and indeed, across the entirety of the U.S.”
Formed in 1849, Scott County has a long history of contributions to America. The County is best known for having seceded from Tennessee in protest of the state’s decision to join the Confederacy during the Civil War, and subsequently forming the Free and Independent State of Scott in 1861. The late U.S. Sen. Howard Baker Jr. is Scott County’s most famous citizen. Known as the “Great Conciliator” in Washington, D.C., Baker was the first Republican senator from Tennessee since Reconstruction and became the standard-bearer for moderate Republicans. Scott County currently finds itself at the center of an endless battle to protect all its residents, including its next generation of leaders and citizens, from the opioid epidemic that takes a daily deadly toll in it and counties across the nation.
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Scott, Campbell counties hop on board Big Pharma racketeering lawsuit train
Mar 6, 2018 | Knox News (TN)
By Jamie Satterfield
Two East Tennessee counties are now on board to join a growing and fast-moving national effort to use federal racketeering laws to hold drug makers, distributors and dispensers accountable for creating and fostering the opioid epidemic in the United States, records show.
Government leaders in Campbell and Scott Counties have authorized the filing of lawsuits in U.S. District Court against the firms that make, distribute and dispense opiate prescription painkillers.
The law firm Jessee & Jessee filed the first such legal action in the federal Eastern District of Tennessee on behalf of Campbell County earlier this year. The law firms Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein and Taylor & Knight filed a similar action on behalf of Scott County late last week. Racketeering laws
Scott County has logged more opioid prescriptions than people – 170 prescriptions for every 100 residents – since 2008. Campbell County’s rate of opioid prescriptions per population is even higher – 195 for every 100 citizens. In 2016, Campbell County ranked among the nation’s top 10 counties for prescription rates.
The lawsuits each use federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization, or RICO, laws as the legal framework to show that drug makers, dubbed Big Pharma, such as Purdue Pharma and Johnson & Johnson, aggressively marketed opiates as safe, lied about the addictive properties, lobbied under false pretenses for looser laws and regulations, and doled out money to politicians to stymie efforts to police them.
Big Pharma, the lawsuits alleged, worked hand-in-hand with distributors, such as McKesson Corporation and Cardinal Health, to use political donations and lobbying to water down regulations on how much of the drug can be shipped to individual communities and intentionally deceived the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
Dispensers, such as pharmacies, are also labeled in similar lawsuits as key to the operation of the RICO enterprise through a failure to notify the DEA when the rate of prescriptions in a community is out of line with its population.
The two lawsuits filed on behalf of Scott and Campbell Counties put those two communities on board what the New York Times recently described as a fast-moving legal train to force a settlement intended both to curb the flow of opiates and force those responsible to pay the costs of the epidemic.Federal judge at the helm
That train is stationed in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Ohio, where a federal judicial panel is sending all federal prescription opioid cases for consolidation. It is known as a multidistrict litigation, or MDL.
The train’s engineer is U.S. District Judge Dan Aaron Polster, who the New York Times said has already held a summit – in which Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery’s office participated – in which he is urging a speedy, tough settlement of the more than 200 lawsuits that have been filed on behalf of local governments and hospitals and other groups across the nation in the past two years.
Just last week, the Department of Justice filed notice it, too, may join the MDL. The Justice Department has been stepping up criminal enforcement efforts and recently authorized the filing of criminal RICO charges against the owners of what authorities have billed as the largest pill-mill operation in East Tennessee.
Knoxville attorney Jonathan Taylor of Taylor & Knight said in a release on the Scott County lawsuit, “The time has come for the manufacturers and distributors of these pernicious opioid pills to face full responsibility for their destructive and predatory conduct. Their actions — and their knowing inactions — have destroyed lives and families across all of Scott County and indeed, across the entirety of the U.S.”State vs federal
Such lawsuits borrow a page from the playbook state attorneys general used to hit Big Tobacco with the financial cost of its addictive products in 1998. States made billions and still are, money that was supposed to go to help people quit smoking and cover the government’s medical bills for the physical toll cigarettes caused. The big cigarette makers agreed to pay out $206 billion in the first 25 years, and they’ll keep paying indefinitely after that.
It hasn't stopped people from smoking, or the tobacco makers from making money. But public awareness of the addictive properties of tobacco and the stew of chemicals used in cigarettes has lowered the number of smokers over time.
State prosecutors for eight judicial districts encompassing more than a dozen East Tennessee counties, including Knox County, have filed their own lawsuits against Big Pharma, but those rely upon an obscure state law dubbed the “crack tax” because it allows the state to seek to collect taxes from drug dealers.
Polster made clear in comments cited by the New York Times that any such state lawsuits will take a back seat to the federal litigation. The prosecutors did not seek authorization from the governing bodies of the counties within their district to pursue the state lawsuits, and it’s not clear who is funding the prosecutors’ lawsuits.
Big Pharma has been donating to local governments, including Campbell County and Knox County, monthly doses of a drug that is supposed to block the high opiate addicts experience. It costs roughly $1,500 every month, and the same company that makes opiates also makes that drug.
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Into the fight: Scott County joins opioid legal battle
Mar 7, 2018 | Independent Herald Oneida (TN)
By Staff
Scott County has officially joined the growing legal battle that is centered around America’s opioid epidemic.
At the recommendation of the county’s attorney, John Beaty, and the approval of Scott County Commission, the county last week filed a federal lawsuit against a number of prescription opioid manufacturers and distributors, seeking to recover taxpayer money spent combating the opioid epidemic.
Mark Chalos, managing partner of the Nashville office of Leiff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, and Jonathan Taylor of Taylor & Knight, announced Friday that their firms had filed the lawsuit on Scott County’s behalf.
Naming Purdue Pharma and a host of others as defendants, the lawsuit alleges that the drug manufacturers deliberately and repeatedly violated state and federal laws by widely and falsely promoting highly addictive opioids as safe and necessary, while concealing the drugs’ true risks.
The remainder of this article is under paywall: http://ihoneida.com/2018/03/06/into-the-fight-scott-county-joins-opioid-legal-battle/
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Spartanburg County opioid suit: ‘Blockbuster profits’ at public’s expense
Mar 6, 2018 | GoUpstate (SC)
By Bob Montgomery
A lawsuit filed by Spartanburg County against drug makers, pharmacies, distributors and doctors claims the county spends millions of dollars each year in healthcare costs and services related to deceptive practices and addictive effects of opioid painkillers like OxyContin and Percocet.
It claims the county has incurred excessive costs related to diagnosis, treatment and cure of addiction or risk of addiction to opioids by having to provide resources such as treatment facilities, law enforcement and first responder services, along with child and family services.
Thirty-seven defendants are named in the 132-page suit that was filed Monday in Spartanburg County Court of Common Pleas, including such big names as Walmart, Rite Aid, CVS, Johnson & Johnson, Purdue Pharma and McKesson.
Spartanburg County Council voted two weeks ago to move forward with the action. It’s similar to the first such suit filed earlier in February on behalf of Beaufort County against pharmaceutical companies, accusing them of failing to inform consumers about the dangers of prescription painkillers. Several other counties are pursuing similar lawsuits.
The Spartanburg County suit claims those named violate state and federal laws, including the South Carolina Unfair Trade Practices Act. The county is seeking unspecified actual and punitive damages.
“Without defendants’ actions, opioid use would not have become so widespread in Spartanburg County, and the opioid epidemic that now exists would have been averted or would be much less severe,” the suit states.
The Spartanburg County lawsuit claims the drug companies knowingly began “a highly deceptive marketing campaign” in the late 1990s that became more aggressive in 2006 and continues today by convincing doctors and patients that the benefits of using opioids to treat chronic pain outweighed the risks.
The motive, the suit claims, was “blockbuster profits.”
“In 2012 alone, opioids generated $8 billion in revenue for drug companies. Of that amount $3.1 billion went to Purdue for its OxyContin sales,” the suit states.
While the companies were raking in huge profits, the suit claims opioid addiction and overdoses “have reached epidemic levels over the past decade.”
In 2016, an estimated 64,000 people died from drug overdoses in the United States, and 66 percent of those involved opioids, the suit states.
Also that year, South Carolina ranked ninth in the nation in opioid prescribing rates, and 876 overdose deaths occurred — 616 of which involved opioids, the suit states.
“Overall sales of opioids in South Carolina have skyrocketed,” the suit states, noting that in 2016 nearly 5 million opioid prescriptions were dispensed.
Several of the larger companies did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.
A spokeswoman for Rite Aid, one of the defendants, said it is Rite Aid’s policy not to comment on pending legislation. But Rite Aid and others have posted statements about opioids on their websites, some warning of the associated risks and proper ways to dispose of unused medicines.
In addition to deaths, addiction and misuse have resulted in more emergency room visits, emergency responses and administration of naloxone in the cases of opioid overdose, the suit states.
Further, because heroin is cheaper than prescription painkillers, many prescription opioid addicts in South Carolina have migrated to heroin, the suit states.
Statewide, heroin overdoses increased by 57 percent from 2014 to 2015, the suit states.
In Spartanburg County, there were 30 reported opioid-involved overdose deaths in 2014, 35 in 2015 and 36 in 2016, the suit states.
“There have been substantially more incidences of opioid-involved overdoses where the individual has survived, and many individuals have multiple overdoses,” the suit states.
County emergency personnel administered naloxone 311 times in 2015 and 454 times in 2016, the suit states.
“Defendants knew that their goal of increasing profits by promoting the prescription of opioids for chronic pain would lead directly to an increase in healthcare costs for patients, healthcare insurers and healthcare payors such as the plaintiff,” the suit states.
Further, the suit claims, “Defendants expected and intended that their misrepresentations would induce doctors to prescribe, patients to use and payors to pay for their opioids for chronic pain.”
As a result, the suit states, Spartanburg County “has been required to spend millions of dollars each year in its efforts to combat the public nuisance created by defendants’ deceptive marketing campaign.”
The suit claims pharmacies failed to report suspicious orders of prescription opiates to the appropriate authorities and filled prescriptions “in quantities significantly higher than medically necessary to residents of Spartanburg County.”
It also claims that distributors were supplying “levels of opioid medications that far exceeded the legitimate needs of Spartanburg County” and “made substantial profits from the opioids sold in Spartanburg County and elsewhere.”
None of the doctors listed in the suit practice in Spartanburg County, but it states that one in Hilton Head operated a “pill mill” and wrote thousands of opioid prescriptions without a medical need, “causing diversion of opioid medications throughout South Carolina and Spartanburg County.”
Another doctor, the suit alleges, participated in a “prescription drug ring” in which opioids were also prescribed without need. Patients traveled from across the state to obtain prescriptions, the suit states.
The suit claims one defendant, a Purdue salesperson, trained sales staff to use deceptive sales tactics and misleading marketing materials.
“We were the first company to introduce an opioid pain medication with abuse-deterrent properties and labeling claims, and we are investing in research to develop non-opioid pain medications,” Purdue Pharma’s website states. “We are committed to being part of the solution by partnering with local law enforcement, state and local government agencies and community groups across the country.”
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Greenville Co. sues pharmaceutical companies over drug epidemic
Mar 7, 2018 | WSPA (SC)
By Eryn Rogers
Greenville County filed a lawsuit Monday targeting big pharmaceutical companies in an effort to hold them accountable for their role in the growing drug epidemic.
On Tuesday, the Center for Disease Control released statistics stating that opioid overdoses have increased by 30 percent across the country.
The Greenville County Sheriff's Office responded to three overdose deaths over the weekend.
It's those tragedies that spurred Greenville County to take action.
"We couldn't be passive in seeing this crisis expand in the community with all the ripple effects it's causing when we had something available that council could do," Greenville County Council Chairman Butch Kirven said.
Kirven says it's a problem that's adding up for taxpayers.
"It's a human travesty of enormous proportions," Kirven said. "It's also a very costly one for citizens."
The lawsuit asserts Greenville County employees administered 721 doses of Narcan in 2016 which was up from 709 times in 2015.
The county is seeking damages for:
(1) costs for providing medical care, additional therapeutic, and prescription drug purchases, and other treatments for patients sufferingfrom opioid-related addiction or disease, including overdoses and deaths; (2) costs for providing treatment, counseling, and rehabilitation services; (3) costs for providing treatment to infants born with opioid-related medical conditions; (4) costs associated with law enforcement and public safety relating to the opioid epidemic; (5) and costs associated with providing care for children whose parents suffer from opioid-related disability or incapacitation.
Greenville County leaders say they're targeting pharmaceutical companies for deceptive marketing.
"You can't deny the fact that this marketing to doctors and this pushing the over-prescribing of pain medication contributed mightily to the problem we're faced with," said Rich Jones, the CEO of FAVOR Greenville, a drug recovery center.
They say the money they're suing for could be used to help stop this epidemic.
"If there's a settlement then Greenville County will use its proceeds to treat and prevent similar types of issues that individuals have going forward," Kirven said.
Spartanburg County has filed a similar lawsuit and is being represented by the same law firm that's representing Greenville County. The law firm is charging both counties on a contingency fee basis.
The Greenville County Sheriff's Office says so far in 2018, there have been 22 overdoses with four resulting in death, and deputies have administered Narcan in eight cases.
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2 South Carolina counties sue over opioid abuse
Mar 7, 2018 | Associated Press
By Staff
Two more South Carolina counties have sued major drug companies because of opioid abuse cases.
Media outlets reported that Greenville and Spartanburg counties have sued drugmakers, pharmacies, distributors and doctors.
The lawsuits say the counties spend millions of dollars each year in health care costs and services because of deceptive practices and addictive effects of opioid painkillers like OxyContin and Percocet.
The counties say they have paid excessively for diagnosis, treatment and cure of addiction or risk of addiction to opioids by having to provide resources such as treatment facilities, law enforcement and first responder services, along with child and family services.
There are 37 defendants in the lawsuit Spartanburg County filed Monday.
Media report that several of the larger companies did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.
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Richmond County joins legal fight against opioid manufacturers
Mar 6, 2018 | Richmond County Daily Journal (NC)
By Gavin Stone
The Richmond County Board of Commissioners voted to join a wide-reaching lawsuit against the manufacturers of prescription opiates Tuesday, seeking damages relating to the increased opioid addiction and mortality rates associated with over-prescribing the drugs.
The judge presiding over the case is based in Ohio, where settlement discussions with other local governments will likely begin this year, but it could be as late as 2020 before any lawsuit in North Carolina goes to court, according to Paul Coates, local counsel for McHugh Fuller Law Group which is representing Richmond County in the lawsuit.
“This litigation focuses on the manufacturers and wholesale distributors and their role in the diversion of millions of prescription opiates into the illicit market which has resulted in opioid addiction, abuse, morbidity and mortality,” reads the contract between the county and McHugh Fuller. “There is no easy solution and no precedent for such an action against this sector of the industry.”
Richmond County is currently ranked fourth in the state in opioid pills per resident at 132.2 — well above the state average of 78.3 — according to statistics from the County Leadership Forum on Opioid Abuse. The county’s rate of unintentional medication and drug overdose rates are also significantly higher than the state average at 18.8 deaths per 100,000 residents compared to 12.2 statewide, according to the N.C. State Center for Health Statistics.
The lawsuit will seek reimbursement for “the costs incurred in the past fighting the opioid epidemic and/or to recover the funds necessary to abate the health and safety crisis caused by the unlawful conduct of the manufacturers and the wholesale distributors.”
The board also approved the donation of the McLaurin Center property to the county, though the donation has not been formally approved by the Center’s governing board. The donation includes 21 parcels and eight warehouses, which County Manager Bryan Land called a “great opportunity.”
Commissioners also voted to:
• demolish two condemned buildings;
• approve an interlocal agreement extension between the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office and the town Ellerbe;
• approve a resolution for local water-supply plan;
• re-appoint Economic Developer Martie Butler to the Southeastern Economic Development Commission;
• approve dates for the Equalization and Review Board meeting to hear any 2018 tax appeals;
• approve a Tobacco Trust Fund application for a $16,636 grant to purchase equipment;
• appoint Shelia McInnis to the Agriculture Advisory Board; and
• approve a hazard mitigation plan.
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Piedmont City Council agrees to enter opioid lawsuit
Mar 6, 2018 | The Anniston Star (AL)
By Patric MCCreless
City leaders agreed on Tuesday to enter a cross-jurisdictional lawsuit filed to fight the nationwide opioid epidemic.
The lawsuit is similar to ones cities and counties across the U.S. have joined since last year against nationwide opioid distributors. The goal of such lawsuits is to hold drug distributors accountable and recover money spent dealing with the repercussions of prescription opioid abuse, which has risen sharply nationally over the last decade.
The remainder of this article is under paywall: https://www.annistonstar.com/news/piedmont/piedmont-city-council-agrees-to-enter-opioid-lawsuit/article_0bf5749e-21a9-11e8-b5d4-5f0ab5071ef5.html
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Whitfield County, other north Georgia governments file lawsuit against makers of opioid painkillers
Mar 6, 2018 | Union-Recorder (GA)
By Charles Oliver
Claiming that "manufacturers aggressively promoted and pushed highly addictive, dangerous opioids, falsely representing to doctors that patients would rarely succumb to drug addiction," Whitfield County has joined Chattooga County, Floyd County and the cities of Cartersville and Rome in a federal lawsuit against approximately 20 makers of opioid painkillers.
Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia in Rome, the lawsuit is a class action lawsuit that seeks to represent all the cities and counties in Georgia.
The goal of the lawsuit, according to a press release from attorneys in the case, is "to eliminate the hazard to public health and safety caused by the opioid epidemic and to recoup monies that have been spent, or will be spent, because of false, deceptive and unfair marketing and/or unlawful diversion of prescription opioids by manufacturers and distributors."
"This is a significant national crisis, and it has touched us here as well," said Whitfield County Attorney Robert Smalley. "This is just an effort by our local government to recoup some of the costs it has incurred if possible."
Smalley says those costs are "significant."
"We don't know the level of proof the courts are going to require or how far back the court will allow us to go back or go forward," he said. "There's a lot of that that's going to have to be determined. But we know the costs are significant both in human costs and in dollars."
Smalley says the costs to the county include costs incurred by the health care system and social services as well as public safety and the legal system.
Whitfield County Board of Commissioners Chairman Lynn Laughter said the county owes it to its residents and taxpayers to try to recoup some of those costs.
"We don't know exactly what they are at this point or what we might be able to recover," she said.
More than 250 lawsuits have been filed nationwide by state and local governments against opioid makers and distributors. Almost all of them have consolidated. They are being heard by Judge Dan Polster, a U.S. District Court judge in Cleveland, Ohio, who was appointed by a federal commission.
Smalley said it is likely that the Georgia lawsuit will be consolidated with those other lawsuits.
According to press accounts, Polster seems to be trying to get the governments and drugmakers to agree to some sort of settlement.
"That does seem to be the push, and that's one of the reasons for the urgency to go ahead and file now," Smalley said. "Because these matters across the country do seem to be on a faster track, we wanted to make sure cities and counties here would be protected as well."
Several drugmakers named in the lawsuit did not immediately respond to emails or phone messages left at their corporate headquarters Monday afternoon.
Dalton City Administrator Jason Parker said Monday night that City Council members were aware that other local governments were thinking about suing opioid makers but it isn't something the council members have discussed.
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PBC to select legal team for possible lawsuit in opioid fight
Mar 6, 2018 | Palm Beach Post (FL)
By Wayne Washington
Three teams of law firms have emerged as the finalists to represent Palm Beach County if the county files suit against drug makers or sellers as part of its fight against the opioid epidemic.
Commissioners are expected to choose one of those teams when they meet on March 13.
The firms have all agreed to work on a contingency basis, meaning they would keep a portion of whatever money they help the county win in a court battle. Taxpayer money would only be used to pay the firms if the county was successful in court.
No final decision has been made to file suit, but commissioners have expressed support for a suit aimed at recovering some of the money the county has spent responding to the crisis.
County Mayor Melissa McKinlay, whose former aide lost a daughter in the opioid epidemic, asked County Attorney Denise Nieman to get proposals from firms that would serve as outside counsel if the county filed suit. Nieman has said her office does not have the specific expertise or resources necessary to do battle with deep-pocketed and politically well-connected drug manufacturers or distributors.
More than a dozen firms initially expressed interest in representing the county if it decided to file suit.
Ultimately, the county’s request for proposals generated nine formal responses, and from those a three-person selection committee picked three teams of finalists:
- Motley Rice LLC of South Carolina, Gelber Schachter & Greenberg, P.A. of Miami and Colson Hicks Eidson of Coral Gables.
- The Ferraro Law Firm, P.A. of Miami, Napoli Shkolnik, PLLC of New York and Stull, Stull & Brody, also of New York.
- Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein LLP of California, Robbins, Geller, Rudman & Dowd LLP of California, Weiss, Handler & Cornwell, P.A. of Boca Raton and The Ryles Firm, LLC of West Palm Beach.
Delray Beach has hired Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd, a national firm with an office in Boca Raton, to represent it in a lawsuit against at least eight pharmaceutical makers and distributors, including Purdue Pharma and McKesson Corp.
A report from Nieman’s office found that governments across the country have begun to file suit against drug manufacturers and distributors, blamed by some for not doing enough to limit the availability of their potent products.
“To date, over 80 governmental entities nationwide have filed suit against opioid manufacturers, distributors, pharmacies, and/or doctors in both state and federal courts,” the report states. “Currently, no Florida government entities have filed suit and, to the best of our knowledge, the City of Delray is the only public entity in Florida that has retained a firm.”
The Palm Beach Post has reported extensively on the opioid epidemic, which has devastated families and strained government budgets.
McKinlay has pushed for state and national efforts to combat the epidemic.
Gov. Rick Scott has declared the opioid crisis to be a public health epidemic and has sought additional state resources to combat it.
McKinlay is in Washington, D.C., this week providing fellow National Association of County members with an update on what Florida has done to address the opioid crisis.
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For all their risks, opioids had no pain-relieving advantage in a yearlong clinical trial
Mar 7, 2018 | Los Angeles Times
By Karen Kaplan
For years, doctors turned to opioid painkillers as a first-line treatment for chronic back pain and aches in the joints. Even as the dangers of addiction and overdoses became more clear, the drugs' pain-relieving benefits were still thought to justify their risks.
Now researchers have hard data that challenges this view.
In the first randomized clinical trial to make a head-to-head comparison between opioids and other kinds of pain medications, patients who took opioids fared no better over the long term than patients who used safer alternatives.
"There was no significant difference in pain-related function between the 2 groups over 12 months," researchers reported Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.
By some measures, the people using non-opioid drugs such as Tylenol, ibuprofen and lidocaine experienced more pain relief than people using medications like morphine, Vicodin and oxycodone — though the differences weren't large enough to be considered statistically significant. Patients in both groups saw similar improvements in their quality of life.
The findings cast doubt on the medical community's "standard approach" of using opioids to manage chronic musculoskeletal pain, the researchers found.
"Overall, opioids did not demonstrate any advantage over nonopioid medications that could potentially outweigh their greater risk of harms," wrote the team led by Dr. Erin Krebs of the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Health Care System's Center for Chronic Disease Outcomes Research.
Krebs and her co-authors said the impetus for their clinical trial was the escalating opioid crisis, which now claims about 115 American lives each day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number of overdose deaths linked to prescription drugs like oxycodone and hydrocodone has increased by a factor of four since 1999, the CDC says.
The trial — Strategies for Prescribing Analgesics Comparative Effectiveness, or SPACE — enrolled patients who were treated by the Minneapolis VA. All of the patients had pain in their backs, hips or knees for at least six months, and that pain was bad enough to interfere with their daily activities and enjoyment of life.
A total of 240 patients were randomly assigned to either the opioid or nonopioid group. About two-thirds of them had back pain, and the rest had osteoarthritis pain in their knees and hips. The average age of these patients was 58; 87% were men and 86% were white.
All patients started with lower levels of pain medications and were able to "step up" their treatment as necessary. First-line medications for the opioid group included morphine and oxycodone; patients in the nonopioid group started out with acetaminophen and NSAIDs, a group that includes aspirin and ibuprofen.
After a year of pain treatment, the researchers saw no evidence that opioids were better than the alternatives.
Using a scale that rated pain severity from 0 to 10, patients in the opioid group reported an average score of 4.0 and patients in the nonopioid group had an average score of 3.5. Over the course of a year, 41% of those taking opioids saw at least a 30% improvement in their pain severity, as did 54% of those who weren't on opioids.
Measures of how pain interfered with things like work, sleep, mood and general enjoyment of life were nearly identical in both groups. On a scale of 0 to 10, the average score was 3.4 for those on opioids and 3.3 for those who weren't. After 12 months, 59% of those in the opioid group and 61% of those in the nonopioid group reported an improvement of at least 30%.
Other measures of health-related quality of life — including general fatigue, headaches, symptoms of depression and sexual function — were not significantly different between the two groups of patients. The one exception was anxiety, which improved more for those taking opioids.
Patients in the opioid group had significantly more trouble with medication-related symptoms. However, hospitalizations and emergency room visits to deal with pain medications were similar in both groups, as were rates of drug misuse.
The study authors cautioned that these results might not apply to pain patients in general, since VA patients aren't representative of the country as a whole.
However, the findings should prompt doctors to reconsider the use of opioids as a first-line treatment for chronic musculoskeletal pain, they wrote.
"Treatment with opioids compared with non-opioid medications did not result in significantly better pain-related function over 12 months," Krebs and her colleagues concluded. "Results do not support initiation of opioid therapy for moderate to severe chronic back pain or hip or knee osteoarthritis pain."
The study was funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
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Pittsburgh, Allegheny County to hire law firm to study suing opioid makers
Mar 6, 2018 | Trib Live (PA)
By Theresa Clift
Allegheny County has hired a South Carolina law firm to explore whether the county should file a lawsuit against prescription opioid manufacturers, distributors and prescribers to recoup public money spent as a result of the opioid crisis.
The city of Pittsburgh also plans to hire the firm for the same purpose, pending City Council approval, officials said Tuesday.
The firm, Motley Rice, has offices in nine states, including one in Morgantown, W.Va.
The county will pay the firm 20 percent of whatever recovery the county receives after the firm's costs are deducted, said Allegheny County solicitor Andrew Szefi, via spokeswoman Amie Downs.
“If we get zero, they get zero,” Szefi said.
If no suit is filed, the county will not pay the firm.
Motley Rice is representing the states of Alaska, Kentucky, New Hampshire and South Carolina, and 13 municipalities in opioid-related litigation, according to its website .
Chicago; Erie County, Pa.; Newark, N.J.; and Akron, Ohio, are among the municipalities represented.
Allegheny County had 650 drug overdose deaths in 2016, up from 424 in 2015, records show.
Since 2008, more than 3,500 overdose deaths have been reported in the county, a news release from the city and county said.
The county pays to address the issue via its departments of health, human services, medical examiner, jail and police, the release said.
“This epidemic is not only tearing apart families across Pittsburgh but greatly tapping the resources of first responders in our medic, fire and police bureaus,” Mayor Bill Peduto said. “Pharmaceutical companies that have made billions off painkillers need to start paying governments that are on the front lines addressing the havoc they have created.”
Motley Rice will determine the costs incurred as a result of the manufacture, distribution, prescription and use/abuse of opioids, and what the damages might be.
Beaver, Westmoreland and Washington counties filed similar lawsuits last year.
The county issued a Request for Proposals seeking firms for the service Dec. 8, after former Allegheny County Councilman Ed Kress introduced legislation Nov. 21.
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Amherst Sues Big Pharma Over Opioid Epidemic
Mar 7, 2018 | WBEN (NY)
By Tom Puckett
The Town of Amherst has filed its lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies over the opioid epidemic. The town's attorney says marketing changes have contributed to the crisis around the country.
The Town of Amherst has filed its lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies over the opioid epidemic. The town's attorney says marketing changes have contributed to the crisis around the country.
Sliwa says there were 80 overdose calls last year, which required emergency and police personnel to respond and deliver Narcan. There have been 14 deaths as well. "They must be investigated as homicides, and dealt with fairly," says Sliwa, and that too takes away from police dealing with other crimes and issues.
Sliwa says the amount sought in damages is still being calculated.
The suit was filed Tuesday in Erie County Clerk's Office.
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Hartford City to join in on class action lawsuit
Mar 7, 2018 | The News Times (IN)
By Pat Hughes
Members of the Hartford City Common Council agreed last month to join in a class action lawsuit against drug makers and distributors of opioids.
At the recommendation of Council President Bill Hess, the council asked the City Attorney James Forcum take the necessary steps to include the city in the lawsuit that is being pursued by the Indianapolis law firm of Cohen & Malad, LLP.
Cohen & Malad has been working on similar efforts with other government entities in the state of Indiana. According to Hess, if the suit is successful, the law firm would retain 30 percent of any award, leaving 70 percent to the other parties involved.
Hess told the council that the city could utilize any monies resulting from the lawsuit to purchase Narcan or other supplies needed in the fight against the opioid drug abuse.
There is no cost to the city for joining in on the class action lawsuit.
The Indianapolis law firm has filed complaints on behalf of more than 13 local governments across Indiana against more than 20 pharmaceutical companies seeking compensation for the nation’s opioid epidemic.
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Cleveland files lawsuit against drug companies over opioid epidemic
Mar 7, 2018 | Cleveland.com (OH)
By Eric Heisig
Following the lead of almost all of Ohio's large cities, the city of Cleveland on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against drug manufacturers and distributors in an attempt to recover the costs the city incurred a result of the nation's opioid epidemic.
The lawsuit seeks to have drug companies such as AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and Purdue Pharma pay an unnamed amount in damages to pay for the public safety and social services costs the city accumulated as a result of the opioid scourge in recent years.
While the epidemic has affected cities and counties nationwide, Cleveland and Cuyahoga County have seen record numbers of overdose deaths as prescription painkiller addiction gave way to addicts finding cheaper and harder drugs such as heroin and fentanyl on the street.
Cleveland has hired the law firm Taft Stettinius & Hollister to represent the city in the litigation.
Cleveland's lawsuit joins litigation already filed by the cities of Akron, Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton and Toledo. The state of Ohio and numerous other cities -- including Lakewood on Monday -- and counties have also filed suit.
Cuyahoga County filed its suit last year.
The city's lawsuit will be heard, along with hundreds of others filed by local governments nationwide, by U.S. District Judge Dan Polster in Cleveland.
A judicial panel in Washington, D.C. appointed Polster in December to hear the cases, which is known as multidistrict litigation. The panel cited the judge's work on other multidistrict litigation and noted that Ohio is relatively close to the headquarters of the companies being sued.
The lawsuits say the drug manufacturers overstated the benefits and downplayed the risks of addiction when treating pain with opioids, and that distributors failed to properly monitor suspicious orders of prescription painkillers.
The judge has made it clear he would like to see the drug companies and the governments reach a settlement. Private talks resumed in his courtroom on Tuesday.
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Mar 7, 2018 | Seattle, WA
By KCPQ (Fox)
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/33375086?token=95b328c6-e080-4243-806e-05d7aee49f57
Rough Transcript: three local tried suing gun companies and distributors over the opioid crisis claiming the companies have flooded reservations with these drugs with a kiss at sun reporting the lawsuit filed this week in u.s. district court in tacoma naming purdue pharma, teva pharmaceuticals, johnson & johnson and others, as well from misleading healthcare providers and consumers about the dangers of opioids and name several distributors for failing to account for and control over the -- opioids. the tribes right now looking to join a series of cases filed by cities. they have been consolidated into a federal lawsuit in ohio and the drug companies have disputed those allegations.
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Mar 7, 2018 | Charlotte, NC
By WSOC (ABC)
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/33375105?token=95b328c6-e080-4243-806e-05d7aee49f57
Rough Transcript: the opioid crisis is a problem across the nation and the carolinas. now, a local county is suing manufacturers. caldwell county filed a lawsuityesterday claiming there were 42 opiate related deaths between 2015 and 2016. several counties are suing to recover money they spent fighting the opioid cris.
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Mar 6, 2018 | Augusta-Aiken, GA
By WFXG (Fox)
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/33375119?token=95b328c6-e080-4243-806e-05d7aee49f57
Rough Transcript: a growing number of children are landing in the hospital for opioid abuse. and as a new study found - abuse among 10:30 PMteens is increasing at an alarming rate. lauren blanchard has more from washington. parsons says: "kids wil experiment and they will potentially get their hands on them and its poison."" from prescription painkillers, to heroin and methadone... children heading to the hospital due to opioid overdoses nearly doubling in the last decade. that's according to a new shocking survey published in the journal pediatrics froberg says: "they explore their environment. if they find something they don't understand the danger sometimes, and can get into one of these medications." an estimated two-point-four million americans have an opioid addiction. and, the number of children going to the emergency room for opioid overdoses increasing from just under 800 over a decade ago... to more than 15-hundred today. teens the hardest hit, experimenting after discovering their parents 10:31 PMmedications. froberg says: "yo don't want to get overwhelmed with your emotion because then its harder to focus and take care of the patient, to do your job." the advice from medical professionals... if you discover your child's suffered an overdose. call for medical help right away. doctors and first responders are prepared to administer the drug naloxone , which in most cases can reverse an overdose. froberg says: "those patients can come in very sick because theyve gone for a long period of time without oxygen." and, even as the study shows opioid overdoses among children are increasing. thanks to awareness and treatment methods ...thnumber of those who die is on the decline. in washington, lauren blanchard, fox news. another georgia county is joining a large class action lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies that make pain killers. irwin county commission voted unanimously to join the national class action lawsuit against big drug companies and health care suppliers. a number of municipalities and counties across georgia are joing in the litigation, saying they want big pharma to pay for the scourge that the opioid epidemic has led to in georgia.
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Mar 7, 2018 | Pittsburgh, PA
By WTAE (ABC)
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/33375128?token=95b328c6-e080-4243-806e-05d7aee49f57
Rough Transcript: allegany city and the city of pittsburgh looking into a filing a possible lawsuit over the opioid epidemic. they say allegany is experiencing opioid-related overdose rates higher than the state and in the u.s. the potential suit could target prescribers and manufacturers who the county and city say have caused significant harm.
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Mar 7, 2018 | Greensboro, NC
By WGHP (Fox)
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/33375134?token=95b328c6-e080-4243-806e-05d7aee49f57
Rough Transcript: winston salem is joing a growing list of cities suing opioid manufacturers. the city council decided last night to join a lawsuit that's already been filed. according to the journal, the lawsuit claims opioid manufacturers broke laws designed to keep prescription drugs from being sold illegally. 24 counties and four cities in north carolina have joined the suit.
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Mar 7, 2018 | Albany, GA
By WALB (NBC)
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/33375146?token=95b328c6-e080-4243-806e-05d7aee49f57
Rough Transcript: the irwin county commission voted unanimously to join a large class action lawsuit against pharmaceutical manufacturers of pain killers. irwin county commission attorney warren mixon said commissioners voted unanimously to join the national class action lawsuit against big drug companies and health care suppliers. a number of municipalities and counties across georgia are joing in the litigation, saying they want big pharma to pay for the scourge that the opioid epidemic has led to in georgia. mixon said irwin county commissioners said joining the lawsuit would cost nothing, and could lead to some financial gain for their county.
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