A corner of West Virginia wrenched by opioid addiction is getting the chance to argue in a courtroom that some of the corporate giants it blames for a public health crisis that left hundreds of people dead deserve to be held accountable.
The city of Huntington and surrounding Cabell County sued the nationâs three largest opioid distributors No matter the outcome of the federal court trial that opened this month, the verdict is expected to resonate well beyond the industrial region.
The trial in West Virginia, as well as legal proceedings underway in California, could set the stage for resolutions to similar lawsuits brought by thousands of local governments across the United States. Opioid overdoses have been linked to the deaths of nearly 500,000 Americans since 2000 and reached a record of nearly 50,000 in 2019.
West Virginia trial puts spotlight on sprawling opioid cases
By Geoff Mulvihill - Associated Press
A corner of West Virginia wrenched by opioid addiction is getting the chance to argue in a courtroom that some of the corporate giants it blames for a public health crisis that left hundreds of people dead deserve to be held accountable.
The city of Huntington and surrounding Cabell County sued the nation’s three largest opioid distributors No matter the outcome of the federal court trial that opened this month, the verdict is expected to resonate well beyond the industrial region.
The trial in West Virginia, as well as legal proceedings underway in California, could set the stage for resolutions to similar lawsuits brought by thousands of local governments across the United States. Opioid overdoses have been linked to the deaths of nearly 500,000 Americans since 2000 and reached a record of nearly 50,000 in 2019.
InnovationRx: Pfizer Covid Vaccine For Teens; Plus Partisan Opioid Politics
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While the Biden administration recently reversed the longstanding U.S. objection to waiving patent rights to increase global access to Covid-19 vaccines, domestic legislation to help treat addiction is getting caught in a partisan political fight. Forbes reporter Andrew Solender reports from D.C. that House Republicans voted down a relatively uncontroversial bill that would close a loophole allowing some drug manufacturers to reduce competition for drugs to fight opioid use disorder. Rep. Madeleine Dean, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, refused to let Rep. Buddy Carter, a Republican from Georgia, co-lead the bill due to his vote to object to Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election.
Massachusetts Sues Marketing Firm for Role in Opioid Crisis May 11, 2021
Massachusetts’ top prosecutor on Thursday sued a global marketing company that she alleges played a role in fueling the opioid epidemic.
State Attorney General Maura Healey said Publicis Health designed and deployed unfair and deceptive marketing schemes to help Purdue Pharma, a Connecticut drug maker, sell OxyContin, a powerful and addictive prescription painkiller.
In a suit filed in Boston, she alleges that the New York-based firm was paid more than $50 million to develop marketing strategies to get doctors to prescribe Purdue Pharma’s opioids to more patients, in higher doses and for longer periods of time while the epidemic was raging.
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