WP: As opioid overdoses rise, police officers become counselors, doctors and social workers

[TheGreatBuzz]

I'm still dealing with a spinal cord injury about a year and a half ago.  Lots of associated nerve damage.  The only rule I have set with the doctors is absolutely no narcotics.  Too many horror stories.

[China]

45 minutes ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

I'm still dealing with a spinal cord injury about a year and a half ago.  Lots of associated nerve damage.  The only rule I have set with the doctors is absolutely no narcotics.  Too many horror stories.

 

Good for you.  I hope you have good PT and other avenues for regenerating your physical health without narcotics.

[TheGreatBuzz]

4 minutes ago, China said:

 

Good for you.  I hope you have good PT and other avenues for regenerating your physical health without narcotics.

Haha.  Nope.  But vodka helps.  And a healthy dose of pissing and moaning.

[China]

Judge orders drugmaker to pay $572M over aggressive opioid marketing

 

NORMAN, Okla. — An Oklahoma judge on Monday found Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiaries helped fuel the state's opioid drug crisis and ordered the consumer products giant to pay $572 million to help abate the problem in the coming years.

 

Cleveland County District Judge Thad Balkman's ruling followed the first state opioid case to make it to trial and could help shape negotiations over roughly 1,500 similar lawsuits filed by state, local and tribal governments consolidated before a federal judge in Ohio.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[PokerPacker]

1 hour ago, China said:

Judge orders drugmaker to pay $572M over aggressive opioid marketing

 

NORMAN, Okla. — An Oklahoma judge on Monday found Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiaries helped fuel the state's opioid drug crisis and ordered the consumer products giant to pay $572 million to help abate the problem in the coming years.

 

Cleveland County District Judge Thad Balkman's ruling followed the first state opioid case to make it to trial and could help shape negotiations over roughly 1,500 similar lawsuits filed by state, local and tribal governments consolidated before a federal judge in Ohio.

 

Click on the link for the full article

Hmm, I heard something on the radio about them potentially facing $17 billion in damages.  By contrast, that seems to be a slap on the wrist, unless I misunderstood what I'd heard this morning.

[Cooked Crack]

5 hours ago, PokerPacker said:

Hmm, I heard something on the radio about them potentially facing $17 billion in damages.  By contrast, that seems to be a slap on the wrist, unless I misunderstood what I'd heard this morning.

Quote

Oklahoma pursued the case under the state's public nuisance statute and presented the judge with a plan to abate the crisis that would cost between $12.6 billion for 20 years and $17.5 billion over 30 years. Attorneys for Johnson & Johnson have said that estimate is wildly inflated.

I was hoping they'd get it but this is more in line with the other amounts Oklahoma settled for.

[PeterMP]

Should car companies have to pay for accidents that they know are going to happen because they sell cars.

 

(I'm going to readily admit that I don't know all of the details of the case, but J&J seems to have been in a different category than some of the other companies that knew a lot of their drug was going into illegal markets and did nothing.  And even more general, this looks like case where government messed up and now are looking for somebody to blame/fund their mistake.  Doctors are licensed by states.  The FDA regulates the pharma industry.  Etc.)

 

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/27/opinions/oklahoma-johnson-and-johnson-opioid-verdict-opinion-vox/index.html

 

Edited August 27, 2019 by PeterMP

[PleaseBlitz]

36 minutes ago, PeterMP said:

Should car companies have to pay for accidents that they know are going to happen because they sell cars.

 

First, arguments that compare dangerous things to cars are usually dumb because they, by necessity, are so generalized.  I know that you took the analogy from that CNN piece, I'm not attributing it to you specifically.  

 

Second, this case does not say that J&J broke the law when the manufactured a dangerous product.  This case says that J&J broke the law by aggressively and misleadingly marketing opioids (including fentanyl) and promoting their over-prescription (making claims that pain was undertreated and that the risk of addiction was low) , which lead to increased rates of addiction, overdose deaths and neonatal abstinence syndrome in Oklahoma.  The holding goes on like this for like 10 pages:

 

 

So no, car companies should not have to pay for accidents that they know are going to happen because they sell cars.  They should pay for accidents that occur because they convinced people that cars were totally safe (which they don't do, as far as I know). 

Edited August 27, 2019 by PleaseBlitz

[PleaseBlitz]

My favorite evil marketing practice was when the defendant pharma companies trained doctors to look out for "psuedoaddiction", where patients exhibited signs of addiction like asking for higher dosages and more frequent descriptions and to not be fooled, these people were not actually suffering from addiction but, GET THIS, they were actually suffering from the undertreatment of pain and the solution was to prescribe more drugs.  Classic!

[NoCalMike]

I've seen some chatter (mostly by right wing pundits) trying to shift the focus of opioid addiction away from Big Pharma and onto "Cartels smuggling over pills with super crazy amounts of fentanyl."   Once again ignoring the root of the problem because it involves huge corporations and trying to tie everything to the "evil brown people." And I am not even trying to claim the smuggling of drugs is not a part of the problem as well, but common sense says that most of these people are likely addicted before they ever searching for stuff on the black market in the first place and also, it doesn't make a ton of sense for drug dealers to purposely sell their customer base drugs that they will OD and die on unless they like their income sources disappearing. 

[China]

Sacklers Reject Demand That They Surrender Personal Wealth To Settle Opioid Claims

 

The family that owns Purdue Pharma, maker of Oxycontin, has rejected a demand that they give up $4.5 billion of their personal wealth to settle opioid claims against the company, according to state attorneys general negotiating with the company.

 

As a consequence, talks toward a national settlement with members of the Sackler family reached an impasse over the weekend, according to an email obtained by NPR.

 

Two attorneys general directly involved in the talks predicted in the email that the company will now file for bankruptcy "imminently."

 

"States have already begun preparations for handling the bankruptcy proceedings," wrote Josh Stein, North Carolina's state attorney general, and Herbert Slatery, attorney general for Tennessee.

 

"The Sacklers refused to budge," the email concluded, "and have declined to offer any counterproposal."

 

The email, first reported by The Associated Press, was sent Saturday to other state attorneys general. It details an offer made to the Sacklers that would have forced them to pay billions of dollars to compensate states for their role helping to fuel the prescription opioid epidemic.

 

The deal would also have forced Purdue Pharma into bankruptcy proceedings while dissolving the Sacklers' overseas opioid business.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Destino]

On 8/27/2019 at 7:28 PM, PleaseBlitz said:

My favorite evil marketing practice was when the defendant pharma companies trained doctors to look out for "psuedoaddiction", where patients exhibited signs of addiction like asking for higher dosages and more frequent descriptions and to not be fooled, these people were not actually suffering from addiction but, GET THIS, they were actually suffering from the undertreatment of pain and the solution was to prescribe more drugs.  Classic!

These sorts of investigations would be more effective if we knew who, and I mean the individuals names, came up with and implemented that marketing strategy and others like it.  

 

Companies can’t go to jail.  They can’t feel shame or make decisions.  Going after companies without going after the actual people involved does relatively little.  If we let people get rich and walk away from a company when it folds under public pressure, fines, and lawsuits we do little to curb future behavior.  

 

Its not enough to just go after the rich family that owns the company either.  “It’s my job and my boss asked me to do it” can not be an acceptable reason for causing, or at least worsening, a national drug epidemic. All involved should be held personally responsible, or at the very least identified along with the details of their role in all this.

[PleaseBlitz]

2 hours ago, China said:

"The Sacklers refused to budge," the email concluded, "and have declined to offer any counterproposal."

 

Time to pursue criminal charges.  

 

Edit:  Read @China's post before @Destino's.  

Edited September 9, 2019 by PleaseBlitz

[China]

Purdue Pharma reaches tentative opioid settlement with some: sources

 

NEW YORK (Reuters) - OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP reached a tentative agreement with some plaintiffs to resolve litigation over its alleged role in fueling the U.S. opioid crisis and plans to tussle with states opposing the settlement offer in bankruptcy proceedings as soon as next week, people familiar with the matter said.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Cooked Crack]

 

[Cooked Crack]

 

[Cooked Crack]

 

[China]

Purdue Opioid Deal May Be Worth Less Than Drugmaker Promised

 

Purdue Pharma LP’s deal to escape thousands of lawsuits over its role in the U.S. opioid crisis may provide less than half the $10 billion that the closely held drugmaker projected in its Chapter 11 filing, said three people familiar with details of the proposal.

 

The settlement Purdue filed in bankruptcy court Sunday includes just $4.4 billion in guaranteed cash, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing confidential negotiations. The rest is based on money that’s far from guaranteed -- optimistic assumptions of insurance payments and future sales of its highly addictive OxyContin painkiller over seven years, they said.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[NoCalMike]

So they basically have used offshore accounts to shield money, and also are using bankruptcy law to try and prevent paying out settlement money.  Rules made for the wealthy, by the wealthy.   This is America. 

[China]

Johnson & Johnson reaches $20.4 million settlement in huge opioid case

 

Health-care giant Johnson & Johnson announced Tuesday that it has reached a $20.4 million settlement with two Ohio counties on the eve of a huge federal trial to determine who is responsible for the nation’s opioid epidemic.

 

Johnson & Johnson would pay Cuyahoga and Summit counties $10 million in cash, reimburse $5 million in legal fees and direct $5.4 million to nonprofits for opioid-related programs in those communities.

 

“The settlement allows the company to avoid the resource demands and uncertainty of a trial as it continues to seek meaningful progress in addressing the nation’s opioid crisis,” Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals said in a statement Tuesday night. “The company recognizes the opioid crisis is a complex public health challenge and is working collaboratively to help communities and people in need.”

 

Under the terms, the company resolves all claims by the counties with no admission of liability.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Doctor Gets 40 Years For Illegally Prescribing More Than Half A Million Opioid Doses

 

A Virginia doctor received a 40-year prison sentence on Wednesday for illegally prescribing more than half a million doses of oxycodone, hydromorphone, fentanyl and other opioids to patients for years.

 

Authorities say Dr. Joel Smithers operated a "pill mill" out of Martinsville, Va., located about 15 miles north of the Virginia-North Carolina border and about 175 miles southwest of Richmond.

 

The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia handed down the sentence in a courtroom in Abingdon. The sentence includes 20 years for Smithers' conviction for prescribing opioids that caused the death of a woman in West Virginia.

 

In addition to the prison time, he was assessed an $86,000 fine and will serve three years of supervised release upon the completion of his prison time, according to court documents.

 

The sentence is lighter than it could have been. Smithers was facing up to life in prison and a fine of more than $200 million, according to officials at the U.S. Justice Department.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

What Science Says To Do If Your Loved One Has An Opioid Addiction

 

When a family member, spouse or other loved one develops an opioid addiction — whether to pain relievers like Vicodin or to heroin — few people know what to do. Faced with someone who appears to be driving heedlessly into the abyss, families often fight, freeze or flee, unable to figure out how to help.

 

Families are sometimes overwhelmed with conflicting advice about what should come next. Much of the advice given by treatment groups and programs ignores what the data says in a similar way that anti-vaccination or climate skeptic websites ignore science. The addictions field is neither adequately regulated nor effectively overseen. There are no federal standards for counseling practices or rehab programs. In many states, becoming an addiction counselor doesn’t require a high school degree or any standardized training. “There’s nothing professional about it, and it’s not evidence-based,” said Dr. Mark Willenbring, the former director of treatment research at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, who now runs a clinic that treats addictions.

 

Consequently, families are often given guidance that bears no resemblance to what the research evidence shows — and patients are commonly subjected to treatment that is known to do harm. People who are treated as experts firmly proclaim that they know what they are doing, but often turn out to base their care entirely on their own personal and clinical experience, not data. “Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew,” which many people see as an example of the best care available, for instance, used an approach that is not known to be effective for opioid addiction. More than 13 percent of its participants died after treatment,1 mainly of overdoses that could potentially have been prevented with evidence-based care. Unethical practices such as taking kickbacks for patient referrals are also rampant.

 

For nearly three decades, I’ve been writing about addiction and drug policy. I’ve dived into the data and written several books on the subject, including an exposé of tough love programs for troubled teens. I’ve also had personal experience: What got me interested in the area was my own struggle with heroin and cocaine addiction in the 1980s.

To try to help sort fact from fiction, I’ve put together an evidence-based guide about what the science of opioid addiction recommends for people trying to help a loved one suffering from addiction. This guide is based on the best research data available in the addictions field right now: systematic reviews, clinical trials of medications and talk therapies, and large collections of real-world data from many countries — all using the highest level of evidence available, based on the standards of evidence-based medicine.

 

Accurately assess the problem
If you are concerned that a loved one may be addicted to opioids...

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Teva’s proposed opioid settlement could cost drugmaker pennies on the dollar

 

NEW YORK/BOSTON (Reuters) - Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd’s proposed $23 billion drug giveaway to settle thousands of U.S. opioid lawsuits will likely cost the company a fraction of that figure due to how it has valued those medicines, according to a Reuters review of pricing data and industry analysts.

 

When Teva announced the value of the donated medicine - a generic version of opioid addiction treatment Suboxone - it based the figure on the drug’s list price, which does not account for significant discounts routinely provided by the drugmaker.

 

If based on the estimated cost to manufacture the drugs, the value could be as low as $1.5 billion, drug pricing consultants and industry analysts say. A Teva spokeswoman declined to comment on the cost analysis for generic Suboxone, a combination of buprenorphine and the opioid reversal agent naloxone.

 

In interviews with Reuters, lawyers representing local governments in the opioid litigation said the figure proposed by Teva inflates the real value of the drugs. They said the proposal will not be enough to address a nationwide addiction crisis that has claimed some 400,000 lives over the last two decades. The deal is “overvalued to make the settlement look better,” said Hunter Shkolnik, a lawyer on the plaintiffs executive committee that is managing more than 2,300 federal lawsuits consolidated in the U.S. District Court in Cleveland. “I don’t believe a no-cash payment from Teva, one of the largest generic manufacturers in the world, is appropriate,” he told Reuters. Israel-based Teva is looking to reach a nationwide settlement over its role in selling opioid painkillers, together with drugmaker Johnson & Johnson and the three largest U.S. drug distributors, AmerisourceBergen Corp, Cardinal Health Inc and McKesson Corp.

 

Negotiations between these companies and four state attorneys general leading the talks on behalf of their counterparts have focused on a total settlement value worth about $48 billion, including cash and free medicines.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

The Class of 2000 ‘Could Have Been Anything’

 

The high school yearbook is a staple of teenage life. But for some, it reflects the devastating toll of the opioid crisis.
 

The Minford High School Class of 2000, in rural Minford, Ohio, began its freshman year as a typical class. It had its jocks and its cheerleaders, its slackers and its overachievers.

But by the time the group entered its final year, its members said, painkillers were nearly ubiquitous, found in classrooms, school bathrooms and at weekend parties.

 

Over the next decade, Scioto County, which includes Minford, would become ground zero in the state’s fight against opioids. It would lead Ohio with its rates of fatal drug overdoses, drug-related incarcerations and babies born with neonatal abstinence syndrome.

 

To understand both the scope and the devastating consequences of what is now a public health crisis, we talked to dozens of members of the Class of 2000. Many opened up to us about struggles with addiction, whether their own or their relatives’. They told us about the years lost to getting high and in cycling in and out of jail, prison and rehab. They mourned the three classmates whose addictions killed them.

 

In all of the interviews, one thing was clear: Opioids have spared relatively no one in Scioto County; everyone appears to know someone whose life has been affected by addiction.

 

Purdue Pharma introduced its opioid painkiller, OxyContin, in 1996, when the Class of 2000 entered high school. Some students began experimenting, often combining prescription opiates with alcohol at parties.

 

For many, what started as a weekend dalliance morphed swiftly into an all-consuming dependence. They swallowed opiates before school, snorted painkillers in the bathrooms and crushed up pills with a baseball on desks at the back of classrooms.

 

Over the next decade, many members of the Class of 2000 spent their 20s getting college degrees and starting families. Others did anything they could to avoid withdrawal.

Friends and relatives began overdosing or getting arrested, or both. Some went to prison. Some became drug dealers and said they were now plagued with guilt at having fueled countless addictions.

 

In 2010, Scioto County would lead Ohio in the number of opioid prescriptions, with enough to give 123 pills to each resident.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

[China]

Black Americans Were Prescribed Opioids Less Frequently Because Of Racial Bias, New Analysis Shows

 

Doctors are less likely to prescribe narcotics if a patient is black, and new analysis finds this racial bias has saved thousands of lives.

 

A study published in the journal Epidemiology concludes an estimated 14,000 black Americans would have died from the opioid crisis had they been prescribed the drugs at the same rate as their white counterparts.

 

Dr. Andrew Kolodny, director of opioid policy research at Brandeis University, says doctors prescribe opioids to fewer black patients for a few reasons. Studies show doctors are less sensitive to a black patient’s pain, and some may worry that black patients will become addicted to or sell the medication.

 

A 2010 study found white Americans two times more likely to receive an opioid prescription than black Americans. Since pharmaceutical companies began aggressively marketing new prescription opioids in white rural areas in the 1990s, racial stereotyping has had a “protective effect” on black Americans, he says.

 

“The black patient is less likely to become addicted to opioids because they're less likely to be prescribed,” he says. “And they're also less likely to have opioids in the medicine chest where family members could become opioid-addicted.”

 

Click on the link for the full article