THURSDAY, July 22, 2021 (HealthDay News) – A proposed $ 26 billion settlement in opioid-related lawsuits has been reached with four major drug companies, a group of attorneys general said on Wednesday.
If enough states sign the deal with the country’s three major drug distributors – Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen and McKesson – and pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson, companies could be relieved of legal liability in the country’s opioid crisis, which killed hundreds of people will be thousands of people, the New York Times reported.
If states and cities accept the deal, which lasted two years, they would drop thousands of lawsuits against the companies and promise not to take any further legal action against them, the Times said. The company’s money would be used by communities for addiction treatment, prevention services, and other significant costs related to the epidemic.
“We recognize that the opioid crisis is a hugely complex public health issue and we have deep compassion for all of us. This settlement will directly support state and local efforts to make significant strides in addressing the opioid crisis in the United States, “said Michael Ullmann, executive vice president and general counsel of Johnson & Johnson, told the Times.
“While the companies strongly deny the allegations made in these lawsuits, they believe the proposed settlement agreement and settlement process are important steps in achieving a comprehensive settlement of state opioid claims and providing meaningful relief to communities in the United States.” who have favourited three drugs distributed distributors in a joint statement, the Times reported.
The states now have 30 days to review the agreement, including the amount anybody over 17 years would pay. While many allow their attorneys general to sign such deals, others require that lawmakers be consulted. An unspecified number of states must sign up for the deal to hold, the Times reported. If this threshold is not reached, the pharmaceutical companies could go away.
Only these four companies would be bound by the comparison. Thousands of other lawsuits against other defendants, including drug manufacturers and drugstore chains, remain unresolved, the Times reported.
The lawsuits alleged that the three drug dealers did nothing for two decades while pharmacies across the country ordered millions of pills for their communities. Johnson & Johnson has been accused of making fentanyl patches for pain sufferers and then downplaying the addictive effects of opioid pain relievers on doctors and patients.
Between 1999 and 2019, there were 500,000 overdoses from prescription and street opioids in the United States, federal data shows. Deaths from opioid overdoses hit a record high in 2020, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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