{"id":93273,"date":"2017-06-05T12:00:41","date_gmt":"2017-06-05T11:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=93273"},"modified":"2017-06-05T13:00:30","modified_gmt":"2017-06-05T12:00:30","slug":"ohio-sues-pharmaceutical-manufacturers-over-role-in-opioid-epidemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/06\/ohio-sues-pharmaceutical-manufacturers-over-role-in-opioid-epidemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Ohio Sues Pharmaceutical Manufacturers over Role in Opioid Epidemic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ohio’s Attorney General described the state\u2019s drug crisis as a \u201cfire stoked by greed, fueled by deceit, and tended by a multi-billion dollar industry.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

Watch Related Video HERE<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine speaks during a news conference at a Kroger store to announce the chain\u2019s decision to offer the opioid overdose reversal medicine Naloxone without a prescription, Feb. 12, 2016, in Cincinnati.
(AP\/John Minchillo)<\/p><\/div>\n

1 Jun 2017 – <\/em>Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine announced Wednesday [31 May] the filing of a lawsuit against numerous prescription pain medication manufacturers, as part of the Buckeye State\u2019s ongoing effort to fight its opioid addiction epidemic.<\/p>\n

In a press conference announcing the lawsuit<\/a>, DeWine described the state\u2019s drug crisis as a \u201cfire stoked by greed, fueled by deceit, and tended by a multi-billion dollar industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

The complaint was filed Wednesday morning in the Ross County Common Pleas Court against five major pharmaceutical manufacturers and several of their subsidiaries.<\/p>\n

The companies include Purdue Pharma, Endo Health Solutions, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Janssen Pharmaceuticals and Allergan.<\/p>\n

The suit says the manufacturers used sales reps and advertising to downplay the risks associated with opiates, which has led to a rapid increase in prescription drug and heroin addiction across the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe result of Ohio\u2019s opioid crisis has been catastrophic. Opioids have become the main source of unintentional drug overdose in the state and, due to the vast supply of opioids, the number of annual deaths attributable to unintentional drug overdoses has rapidly increased in recent years,\u201d the complaint states. \u201c2016 saw a 36 percent increase in unintentional fatal overdoses in the state of Ohio from the previous year when Ohio led the nation in the total number of fatal overdoses. This total is expected to go higher as coroners in six smaller counties update their numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Opioid Oxycontin (Photo by John Moore\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

In his press conference, DeWine said Ohio wants to \u201cclean up\u201d the mess caused by prescription pain meds.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to hold these companies accountable for the undeniable harm they have inflicted on our families and on our state,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The 107-page complaint seeks a declaration that the pharmaceutical companies\u2019 persistent push to get doctors to prescribe their opioid painkillers was illegal, as well as punitive damages and restitution for the state and families of those who paid for unnecessary prescriptions.<\/p>\n

\u201cDefendants\u2019 deceptive marketing campaign deprived Ohio patients and their doctors of the ability to make informed medical decisions and, instead, caused important, sometimes life-or-death decisions to be made based not on science, but on hype,\u201d the lawsuit states. \u201cDefendants deprived patients, their doctors, and health care payors of the chance to exercise informed judgment and subjected them to enormous costs and suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n

The state asserts claims of public nuisance, Medicaid fraud, common law fraud, and violations of the Ohio Consumer Sales Practices Act.<\/p>\n

\u201cSouthern Ohio was likely the first and hardest hit area in the United States,\u201d DeWine said. \u201cSmall towns were rocked as men, women, and children succumbed to addiction. From there, the fire spread out across Ohio. It was a fire stoked by greed, fueled by deceit, and tended by a multi-billion dollar industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters, the AG said he had contemplated a lawsuit of this nature for some time.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuite candidly,\u201d he said, \u201cI think it\u2019s my moral obligation to do this. I don\u2019t want to look back 10 years from now and say, \u2018we should have had the guts to file it; to call a spade a spade.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark Troutman of Isaac, Wiles, Burkholder, and Teetor LLC in Columbus, Ohio, is the lead attorney on the case.<\/p>\n

Purdue Pharma said in a statement Wednesday, \u201cWe share the attorney general\u2019s concerns about the opioid crisis and we are committed to working collaboratively to find solutions. OxyContin accounts for less than 2 percent of the opioid analgesic prescription market nationally, but we are an industry leader in the development of abuse-deterrent technology, advocating for the use of prescription drug monitoring programs and supporting access to Naloxone \u2014 all important components for combating the opioid crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jessica Castles Smith, the spokesperson for Janssen Pharmaceuticals, said the company believes the allegations in DeWine\u2019s lawsuit \u201care both legally and factually unfounded.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJanssen has acted appropriately, responsibly and in the best interests of patients regarding our opioid pain medications, which are FDA-approved and carry FDA-mandated warnings about the known risks of the medications on every product label,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

Teva Pharmaceuticals said it has not finished reviewing the complaint and cannot comment on it yet.<\/p>\n

Endo and Allergan did not immediately respond Wednesday to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 mintpressnews.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine announced Wednesday [31 May] the filing of a lawsuit against numerous prescription pain medication manufacturers, as part of the ongoing effort to fight its opioid addiction epidemic. He described the state\u2019s drug crisis as a \u201cfire stoked by greed, fueled by deceit, and tended by a multi-billion dollar industry.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93273\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}