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Tag: opioid epidemic

  • Families, Activists Protest At Opioid Lawsuit Hearing In Massachusetts

    Families, Activists Protest At Opioid Lawsuit Hearing In Massachusetts

    Protestors gathered outside of Suffolk County Superior Court  to bring attention to the personal losses incurred by the opioid crisis.

    Protestors, including family members who lost loved ones to overdoses, gathered outside a courthouse in Boston, Massachusetts, to draw attention to the human toll of the opioid epidemic as a judge weighed a request to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the Bay State against OxyContin manufacturer Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family, which owns the company.

    The suit – one of approximately 2,000 currently pending against Purdue, which manufactured the aforementioned prescription pain medication, and other pharmaceutical companies – alleged that Purdue made false claims about OxyContin’s addictive properties, and targeted prescribers with aggressive sales techniques. 

    Attorneys for Purdue and the Sacklers have alleged that the suit has made distorted and broadly general claims in order to lay blame for the epidemic on a single manufacturer.

    Losing Loved Ones

    Approximately 100 protestors gathered outside of Suffolk County Superior Court on August 2 to bring attention to the personal losses incurred by the opioid crisis.

    “They need to see the families,” said Cheryl Juaire, who lost her 23-year-old son to a fatal overdose in 2011. “They need to be held accountable for the deaths of our children. We need restitution.”

    Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healy has attempted to speak to those needs with the suit, which she filed in 2018 against Purdue, its executives and the Sackler Family. The suit was unique in that it focused only on Purdue and not other manufacturers or wholesalers and was the first to name Sackler family members as defendants. The tactic has since been adopted by other states and cities in their lawsuits against the company.

    As Time noted, the suit cited a statement by former Purdue Pharma president Richard Sackler, who said at a launch party for OxyContin in 1996 that the new medication would be “followed by a blizzard of prescriptions that will bury the competition.” 

    Purdue Pushes Back

    In court filings, the family stated that Sacklers’ remarks had been taken out of context, and actually referred to a real blizzard that had made him late for the event.

    Lawyers for Purdue and the Sackler family have sought to downplay the state’s allegations, which they called a “misguided and very political effort to try to place blame on a single manufacturer,” and noted that federal and state data which showed that Purdue’s drugs accounted for a fraction of drugs distributed in Massachusetts, and that overdose deaths were now largely fueled by heroin and fentanyl.

    But state attorneys countered these claims by alleging that Purdue’s sales representatives targeted Massachusetts-based prescribers and established a pain program at Massachusetts General Hospital to reportedly promote their drugs. 

    Protestors at the Suffolk County court hope that any money recovered by lawsuits like the one in Massachusetts goes to individuals impacted by the opioid crisis and not to other sources. Ryan Hampton, a Los Angeles resident who organized the August 2 rally, pointed to Purdue’s recent settlement in Oklahoma, where $200 million of a $270 million payment by the company will go to a national resource center at Oklahoma State University.

    “We have an opportunity to fund solutions,” said Hampton to Time. “So it’s worrisome that we’ll see this firehose of money from settlements and it’ll just be misspent and all of this work to bring some justice to this will go to waste.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Cities Now Outpace Rural Towns In Overdose Deaths

    Cities Now Outpace Rural Towns In Overdose Deaths

    In 2017, there were a reported 22 overdose deaths per 100,000 people in urban areas, officially surpassing the 20 deaths per 100,000 in rural areas by a slim margin.

    Rural areas have been hardest hit by the opioid crisis, but overdoses in cities are now on the rise.

    As it developed, coverage of the opioid crisis seemed to center on rural white Americans. Now, overdose rates in urban areas of the United States has overtaken rural rates.

    This shift began happening in 2015 and, according to experts like Dr. Daniel Ciccarone, is due to a change in the dynamic of opioid addiction. The exact nature of this shift isn’t precisely known.

    One argument is that the crisis initially began because prescription opioid painkillers were available to virtually anyone in the United States at the discretion of a doctor. This allowed opioid addiction to grip Midwestern and Appalachian areas in a way other drugs could not. 

    Theories

    As awareness of opioids grew, prescription pills became harder to come by. This pushed people who were already hooked to look for heroin and fentanyl–drugs more easily found in urban areas where illicit markets are already in place.

    An alternative theory is that the epidemic has simply expanded to the point where it’s started to affect black and Hispanic populations who tend to live in more urban areas.

    “Early on, this was seen as an epidemic affecting whites more than other groups,” said Dr. Ciccarone. “Increasingly, deaths in urban areas are starting to look brown and black.”

    In 2017, there were a reported 22 overdose deaths per 100,000 people in urban areas, officially surpassing the 20 deaths per 100,000 in rural areas by a narrow margin.

    Overdoses continue to be an epidemic, killing about 68,000 Americans last year. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), overdoses in urban areas are affecting mostly men and are caused mostly by fentanyl and heroin. However, overdoses are killing more women in rural areas. These rural deaths are mostly caused by meth and opioid painkillers.

    This epidemic doesn’t discriminate, not only between race and geography, but wealth and fame as well. Most recently, Saoirse Kennedy Hill, the granddaughter of Robert F. Kennedy, was found dead of an overdose on Thursday at just 22 years old. Other prominent people who lost their lives to overdose include the actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, the legendary musician Prince, and rapper Mac Miller.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Generic Drug Manufacturers Played Huge Role In Opioid Epidemic 

    Generic Drug Manufacturers Played Huge Role In Opioid Epidemic 

    According to new data, the biggest three generic drug manufacturers controlled 88% of the US market for opioids.

    Who is to blame for the opioid epidemic?

    In recent years, as outcry over the epidemic has grown, more attention has been focused on Purdue Pharma, Johnson and Johnson and other well-known companies that manufactured opioids. However, recently-released data shows that generic drug manufacturers played a massive role in the supplying opioids. 

    The biggest three generic drug manufacturers —Mallinckrodt Pharmaceutical’s SpecGx, Actavis Pharma and Par Pharmaceutical — controlled 88% of the U.S. market for opioids. Purdue Pharma, for comparison, controlled 3.3% of the market, according to data from the DEA. 

    Barbara J. Boockholdt was the chief of the regulatory section at DEA’s Office of Diversion Control when she checked a DEA database in 2011 and was stunned with what she learned about which companies were producing and distributing the most opioids. 

    “I was shocked; I couldn’t believe it, Mallinckrodt was the biggest, and then there was Actavis,” she told The Washington Post. “Everyone had been talking about Purdue, but they weren’t even close.”

    Nancy Baran, former head of customer service at Actavis, said that the company knew they were flying under the radar. 

    “We weren’t really a household name — none of us,” she said. “Generics are not advertised on TV. No one ever hears your name. I worked at the company for 10 years, and my friends would still ask, ‘Where?’”

    “We Are Not Responsible”

    Generic drug manufacturers were capitalizing on the profit to be made from opioid pills and patches, but at the same time they were ignoring information from regulatory agencies that they were not following the law when it came to monitoring suspicious orders. In fact, Par Pharmaceutical didn’t even have a system for tracking suspicious orders.

    Douglas S. Boothe, chief executive at Actavis during the height of its manufacturing, said in a recently unsealed deposition from November that his company was merely responsible for filling orders, not for concerning itself with what people did with its products. 

    “Once it goes outside of our chain of custody, we have no capability or responsibility or accountability,” he said. “Once we ship a valid order to a wholesaler or ship a valid order to a distributor . . . our chain of custody is finished at that point.”

    When federal authorities finally approached Actavis about its role in the epidemic, the company’s vice president for ethics and compliance, Michael R. Clarke, felt the company was being treated like “street dealers.”

    He said in a recently unsealed testimony that he thought authorities would take a more laid back approach, saying something like, ‘You know, that’s great, that’s fine, maybe you can do this better.’ 

    “We were looking for that sort of interchange, and it wasn’t that,” Clarke said. “It was pretty clear that they believed that we were one of the manufacturers that led to whatever problem they identified related to diversion of opioids.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Consulting Firm Urged Johnson & Johnson, Purdue To Sell More Opioids 

    Consulting Firm Urged Johnson & Johnson, Purdue To Sell More Opioids 

    The firm urged Johnson & Johnson to “get more patients on higher doses of opioids” and find techniques “for keeping patients on opioids longer.”

    The well-known consulting firm McKinsey & Company urged Johnson & Johnson and Purdue Pharma to sell more of their opioid products, according to recent reports. 

    McKinsey & Company urged Johnson & Johnson to “get more patients on higher doses of opioids” and find techniques “for keeping patients on opioids longer,” according to reporting by The New York Times. High doses of opioids and long-term use are both associated with increased risk of dependency and misuse. 

    The information was revealed as part of opioid trials in Oklahoma, Massachusetts and New Jersey. 

    During the Oklahoma trial, the state argued that Johnson & Johnson used misleading and irresponsible marketing for its fentanyl patch, Duragesic, at the urging of McKinsey & Company consultants.

    Powerpoint Tells All

    The state showed a Powerpoint presentation that McKinsey consultants made for Johnson & Johnson executives in 2002, which questioned whether the company was marketing opioids enough. 

    “Are we properly targeting and influencing prescription behavior in pain clinics?” one slide read. 

    The presentation recommended specifically marketing opioids to doctors who worked with patients in long-term care and those who treated elderly people with back pain. 

    In the Massachusetts case, the state presented documents including a 2013 report from McKinsey with recommendations for Purdue to “turbocharge” sales of OxyContin, which was already linked to opioid addiction at that point. The consulting firm even recommended that Purdue begin a mail order system in order to avoid pharmacies, which were beginning to clamp down on opioid prescriptions at that time. In addition, the firm called on Purdue to target doctors with more sales meetings. 

    Stepping Back

    McKinsey & Company said in a statement that it no longer provides consulting services related to opioids. 

    “Our historical work for clients in this industry was designed to support the legal prescription and use of out clients’ products. Opioids have had a devastating impact on our communities, however, and we are no longer advising clients on any opioid-specific business on a global basis,” the statement said. 

    The consulting firm said that the presentation prepared for Johnson & Johnson was “designed to support the legal use of a patch that was then widely understood to be less susceptible to abuse.”

    Testifying at the Oklahoma trial, Johnson & Johnson representative Kimberly Deem-Eshleman said that the blunt language about marketing was “McKinsey’s words,” not those of Johnson & Johnson. However, she confirmed that the company did not terminate its relationship with McKinsey over the recommendations. In fact, the companies still work together today for “different projects.” 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Walmart, CVS And Walgreens Targeted In Massive Opioid Lawsuit

    Walmart, CVS And Walgreens Targeted In Massive Opioid Lawsuit

    The retailers are accused of violating laws that require pharmacies to alert the DEA of suspicious drug orders.

    Supermarkets and large chain drugstores such as Walmart, CVS, Rite Aid and Walgreens are the subjects of a massive national lawsuit seeking restitution for the harm caused by the U.S. opioid epidemic that killed hundreds of thousands of people in less than 20 years.

    Cities, counties, and Native American tribes across the country have combined nearly 2,000 cases into what is to be the largest civil case in U.S. history. The trial is set to take place this October.

    Plaintiffs will seek billions of dollars in damages from the companies, each of which is accused of violating laws that require pharmacies to alert the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) of suspicious drug orders.

    One such case accused Walgreens of failing to act on a flagged email in 2011 containing an order of 3,271 bottles of the opioid, oxycodone, for a town in Florida with a population of 2,831 people. 

    Walmart Allegations

    Walmart has additionally been accused of failing to properly train its pharmacy employees or “enacting policy to monitor suspicious orders” before 2011 despite the fact that the opioid epidemic was already raging and warnings had been issued about the role of prescription drugs in the crisis.

    All of these alleged failures have resulted in the additional charge of creating a “public nuisance” as part of a system that created and/or fed the opioid crisis.

    According to The New York Times, these companies’ actions worsened a situation “that affects the far reaches of public health, including neonatal intensive care, foster care, emergency services, detox and rehabilitation programs and the criminal justice system.”

    Earlier this month, the trial of Johnson & Johson came to a close in Oklahoma. The company and its subsidiary, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, was the sole defendant in the lawsuit filed by the state of Oklahoma. Prior to the trial, the state reached settlements with two other defendants named in its lawsuit: Purdue Pharma (for $270 million) and Teva Pharmaceuticals (for $85 million).

    During the seven-week trial, state attorneys argued that Johnson & Johnson created a “public nuisance” by causing harm to the public including injury to public health. A ruling is expected in August.

    The Retailers’ Response

    The stores listed in this most recent lawsuit have all denied wrongdoing, with Walmart claiming that the chain “distributed less than 1.3% of the opioids” that were sent to the counties named in the suit and Walgreens claiming that it “has been an industry leader in combating this crisis in the communities where our pharmacists live and work,” according to statements provided to Vox.

    Purdue Pharma and other manufacturers also denied wrongdoing all the way up to reaching a settlement, but ultimately decided that the $270 million bill was worth avoiding a trial.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Government Hospitals Put Native Americans At Higher Risk For Opioid Abuse 

    Government Hospitals Put Native Americans At Higher Risk For Opioid Abuse 

    Native Americans had the second-highest overdose rate of any racial group in 2017.

    Government-run hospitals serving Native Americans put their patients at higher risk for opioid abuse and overdose by not following federal protocols meant to reduce the harm from opioids, according to an audit released this week. 

    The audit reviewed five of the 25 hospitals run by the Indian Health Service hospitals, according to The Associated Press. It found that in all those facilities patients were given opioids in amount that exceeded federal guidelines. Taking opioids in these amounts can increase risk for dependence and overdose.  

    High Overdose Rates

    “There are vulnerabilities with this particular population in the opioid prescribing and dispensing practices,” auditor Carla Lewis said.

    Native Americans had the second-highest overdose rate of any racial group in 2017, the AP reported. Many Native Americans receive their healthcare at facilities run by the Indian Health Services, which provides care to 2.6 million people each year. 

    “[Indian Health Services] has recognized the opioid epidemic facing the [Native American] communities, and over the past 2 years, it has battled the epidemic in numerous ways,” the auditors’ report said. 

    It showed that the agency has released many guidelines and protocols meant to reduce opioid abuse among Native Americans. However, the hospitals that were audited were not following these policies.  

    In addition to prescribing too many opioids, the hospitals failed to have patients undergo urine screenings meant to determine whether they were using illicit drugs in addition to opioids. The hospitals also failed to properly review patients’ prescription histories. 

    “We also found that these IHS hospitals did not fully use the States’ prescription drug monitoring programs when prescribing or dispensing opioids,” the auditors wrote. 

    Dangerous Combos

    In addition, the hospitals had many patients prescribed both opioids and benzodiazepines, a dangerous combination that increases the likelihood of a fatal overdose. 

    New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall, said that the report was “deeply troubling.” Udall is the vice chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.

    “Structural issues at the IHS are potentially worsening the opioid crisis in Indian Country,” he said. 

    The report suggested that disorganization was to blame in part for the overprescribing. In one instance, an auditor found that opioids were kept in a safe in the hospital, but the combination to access the safe was written right on it. 

    The auditor’s suggested that the Indian Health Service update and upgrade its IT systems to better manage patient information, including information about prescription history. It also suggested that Indian Health Services monitor hospitals closely to ensure that existing policies are being followed. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • DEA Database Tracked Every Pain Pill Sold In The US, Here's Where They Went

    DEA Database Tracked Every Pain Pill Sold In The US, Here's Where They Went

    The data depicts a clear “opioid belt” comprised of more than 90 counties across West Virginia, Virginia and Kentucky.

    Where the pills went, death followed.

    This is clear to see in a side by side comparison of recently released data showing exactly where—and to what extent—76 billion oxycodone and hydrocodone pills were distributed between 2006 and 2012, and CDC opioid death data from the same time period.

    Record-Making Civil Action

    The DEA’s database tracked the “path of every single pain pill sold in the United States,” the Washington Post reported. The Post and HD Media (the publisher of the Charleston Gazette-Mail in West Virginia) were granted access to the database last Monday (July 15) after a year-long effort to make the data available, in the largest civil action in U.S. history.

    The Post analyzed millions of transactions from 2006 to 2012, and made the data searchable by state or county. It found that 75% of the pain pills (oxycodone and hydrocodone) were distributed by just six companies in this time period—McKesson Corp., Walgreens, Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen, CVS and Walmart.

    The Post then compared this data alongside CDC opioid death data. This showed a clear correlation between the number of pain pills that were sent to a region and how many people died of opioid-related causes there.

    The data, visualized in two separate maps, depicts a clear “opioid belt” comprised of more than 90 counties covering Webster County, West Virginia, southern Virginia, and Monroe County, Kentucky.

    Rural communities in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia experienced the highest per capita opioid death rate during this time period.

    As the Post reported, the national opioid death rate was 4.6 deaths per 100,000 residents. “But the counties that had the most pills distributed per person experienced more than three times that rate on average.”

    Even more shocking was that “13 of those counties had an opioid death rate more than eight times the national rate… Seven of them were in West Virginia.”

    “What [the drug companies] did legally to my state is criminal,” said U.S. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia. “The companies, the distributors, were unconscionable. This was not a health plan. This was a targeted business plan. I cannot believe that we have not gone after them with criminal charges.”

    So far Rochester Drug Cooperative, a drug distributor based in New York, has been the first and only to be hit with felony criminal charges for the illegal distribution of controlled substances.

    Nearly 2,000 lawsuits against drug companies, including Johnson & Johnson and Purdue Pharma, are pending in federal court. The lawsuits claim that the companies irresponsibly marketed and distributed powerful opioid drugs with little consideration for the risk of patients becoming addicted or dying.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Suboxone Maker To Pay $1.4 Billion In Largest US Opioid Settlement To Date

    Suboxone Maker To Pay $1.4 Billion In Largest US Opioid Settlement To Date

    Reckitt Benckiser denied any wrongdoing in a statement but decided that taking the deal was its best option.

    Suboxone manufacturer and distributor Reckitt Benckiser (RB) Group will pay a total of $1.4 billion to the U.S. government after taking a settlement offer by the Department of Justice. This will end civil and criminal probes into the multinational company and is so far the largest opioid-related settlement in U.S. history.

    RB was under investigation due to alleged misconduct by its former subsidiary company, Indivior. The subsidiary is still under investigation and is set to go to trial over the allegations in May 2020.

    Accusations

    Indivior has been accused of making misleading claims in its marketing materials and of running a program that was supposed to be a resource for people with opioid use disorder but was allegedly used to connect people with doctors who were known to prescribe Suboxone.

    According to a statement by the Department of Justice, these doctors were prescribing the addiction treatment drug and other opioid-based medications “to more patients than allowed by federal law, at high doses, and in a careless and clinically unwarranted manner.”

    Suboxone contains both buprenorphine, a low-intensity opioid that can treat or prevent opioid withdrawal symptoms without getting a patient high, and naloxone, which blocks opioid receptors in the brain and is commonly used to treat opioid overdoses. The naloxone in Suboxone is only activated if the tablets are crushed or dissolved for snorting or injecting the drug, which is meant to prevent its abuse.

    In spite of this precaution, Suboxone still contains an opioid and can be abused, so it remains a controlled substance under the U.S. government. 

    Although Indivior is no longer a part of RB, the former parent company agreed to hand over $647 million in proceeds received from Indivior as well as paying $700 million in civil settlements across six states and to the federal government, plus an additional $50 million to the Federal Trade Commission.

    The Terms

    Under the terms of the settlement, they will also refrain from manufacturing, marketing, or selling Schedule I, II, or III controlled substances in the U.S. for three years.

    RB denied any wrongdoing in a statement but decided that taking the deal was the best option.

    “While RB acted lawfully at all times and expressly denies all allegations that it has engaged in any wrongful conduct, after careful consideration, the board of RB determined that the agreement is in the best interests of the company and its shareholders,” the statement reads.

    Officials of states participating in the lawsuit are pleased by this result.

    “This is a landmark moment in our fight to hold drug companies responsible for their role in the opioid crisis,” said Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring. “We will not allow anyone to put profits over people, or to exacerbate or exploit the opioid crisis for their own benefit.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • How 76 Billion Opioid Pills Flooded The Country

    How 76 Billion Opioid Pills Flooded The Country

    Shocking data from a federal opioid lawsuit has been unsealed and made available to the public.

    Data that was recently unsealed by a panel of federal judges has revealed that drug companies flooded the country with 76 billion opioid pills between 2006 and 2012, enough to supply every American adult and child with 36 pills each year.

    In some rural areas in Appalachia, the rate was more than 300 pills a year for every resident. 

    The data was reported on by The Washington Post. It comes from a database maintained by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Automation of Reports and Consolidated Orders System, or ARCOS. The ARCOS maintains a record of every legal drug sale in the country. 

    The ARCOS data has been instrumental in the federal lawsuits involving opioid manufacturers. However, the data was sealed by federal judge Dan Polster, even though he had said “the vast oversupply of opioid drugs in the United States has caused a plague on its citizens” and that releasing the data “is a reasonable step toward defeating the disease.”

    Making It Public

    The Washington Post and Charleston Gazette-Mail in West Virginia sued for access to the data, and in response the ARCOS was made public this week. 

    “The data provides statistical insights that help pinpoint the origins and spread of the opioid epidemic—an epidemic that thousands of communities across the country argue was both sparked and inflamed by opioid manufacturers, distributors, and pharmacies,” said Paul T. Farrell Jr., a lawyer for the newspapers. 

    The data shows that the distribution of opioid pain pills increased rapidly during that six-year period. In 2006, 8.4 billion pills were distributed, and that rose more than 50% to 12.6 billion pills in 2012. For comparison, morphine doses remained relatively steady during that period, with about 500 million per year. 

    The Culprits

    The ARCOS also showed that the biggest players in the opioid epidemic are not the ones commonly talked about. The three biggest opioid manufacturers controlled the vast majority of sales: SpecGx with 37.7% of the market, Actavis Pharma with 34.6% of the market, and Par Pharmaceutical 15.7% of the market. Purdue Pharma was the fourth-largest manufacturer, but controlled just 3.3% of the market. 

    Likewise, the three largest drug distributors were responsible for distributing more than half of the opioid pills during that time. They were McKesson with 18.4% of the market, Walgreens with 16.5% and Cardinal Health with 14%. The fourth largest manufacturer, AmerisourceBergen, controlled 11.7% of the market. 

    A spokesperson for AmerisourceBergen told The Washington Post that the data “offers a very misleading picture.”

    The database also helps show that the areas that received the most opioid pills were also those with the highest overdose rates. West Virginia, which had the highest death rate between 2006-2012, received an average or 66.5 pills per person during that time period, nearly double the national average.

    Other hard-hit states also had very high opioid sales: Kentucky with 63.3 pills per person, South Carolina with 58, Tennessee with 57.7 and Nevada with 54.7.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Oklahoma Trial Of Alleged Opioid "Kingpin" Johnson & Johnson Ends

    Oklahoma Trial Of Alleged Opioid "Kingpin" Johnson & Johnson Ends

    The judge’s ruling is expected by the end of August. 

    The trial of Johnson & Johnson came to a close on Monday (July 15). The judge’s ruling could be the first to hold a pharmaceutical company responsible for playing a significant role in fueling the opioid epidemic, NPR reported.

    The company and its subsidiary, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, was the sole defendant in the lawsuit filed by the state of Oklahoma. Prior to the trial, the state reached settlements with two other defendants named in its lawsuit: Purdue Pharma (for $270 million) and Teva Pharmaceuticals (for $85 million).

    The Kingpin

    In his closing argument, Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter called Johnson & Johnson the “kingpin” of the opioid crisis. During the seven-week trial, state attorneys argued that the company created a “public nuisance” by causing harm to the public including injury to public health.

    “What is truly unprecedented here is the conduct of these defendants on embarking on a cunning, cynical and deceitful scheme to create the need for opioids,” said Hunter.

    The state’s expert witness, Dr. Andrew Kolodny, testified that the company not only practiced deceptive marketing of its opioid products, but until 2016 also benefited by manufacturing and selling raw ingredients for these drugs to other pharmaceutical companies including Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin.

    “Purdue Pharma and the Sacklers have been stealing the spotlight, but Johnson & Johnson in some ways, has been even worse,” Kolodny said.

    Larry Ottaway, who defended Johnson & Johnson in the trial, argued that the company’s opioid products had just a small market share in Oklahoma compared to competitors. Ottaway further argued that the company made every effort to prevent abuse and that it was providing important medication for people living with debilitating chronic pain.

    Compensation

    Oklahoma wants the company to pay $17.5 billion over a 30-year period to compensate the state for the public health crisis.

    Judge Thad Balkman’s ruling, which is expected by the end of August, may influence the outcome of nearly 2,000 similar opioid lawsuits across the U.S. pending in federal court.

    According to NBC News, both the state and Johnson & Johnson have indicated that, if they lose, they will appeal the judge’s decision.

    View the original article at thefix.com