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AN OKLAHOMA JUDGE today ordered US healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson to pay $572 million for its role in fostering the state’s opioid addiction crisis.
In a landmark trial, Judge Thad Balkman said prosecutors had demonstrated that the company contributed to a “public nuisance” in its deceptive promotion of highly addictive prescription painkillers.
“Those actions compromised the health and safety of thousands of Oklahomans,” he said.
In the first civil trial of a drugmaker over an epidemic that has caused hundreds of thousands of overdose deaths, Judge Thad Balkman said prosecutors had demonstrated that Johnson & Johnson contributed to a “public nuisance” in its deceptive promotion of highly addictive prescription painkillers.
“Those actions compromised the health and safety of thousands of Oklahomans,” he said.
According to the ruling, which also cites the company’s former Janssen pharmaceuticals division, the cash will go towards care for a generation of addicts, families and communities affected by the crisis.
“The defendants Janssen and Johnson & Johnson’s misleading marketing and promotion of opioids created a nuisance,” Balkman said.
“Specifically, defendants caused an opioid crisis that is evidenced by increased rates of addiction, overdose deaths and neonatal abstinence syndrome in Oklahoma.”
Johnson & Johnson was the first pharmaceutical company tried over the US opioid crisis, which fueled over 70,000 overdose deaths in 2017 alone.
Prosecutors had sought $17 billion in damages.
Johnson & Johnson argued that the law was being inappropriately applied and that its products had a very small role in the addiction epidemic in Oklahoma and nationally.
Balkman said Johnson & Johnson had promoted its drugs telling doctors and patients that pain was not being treated enough and that “there was a low risk of abuse and a low danger” in the drugs themselves.
“The defendants used the phrase ‘pseudoaddiction’ to convince doctors that patients who exhibited signs of addiction… were not actually suffering from addiction, but from the undertreatment of pain,” he said in his decision.
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Almost twice the numbers dying from suicide as die on the roads. This is at national crisis level at this stage and needs to be tackled with the same amount of resources that have been put at the disposal of the road safety campaigns.
I have to agree. This is a national emergency.
Every life lost is a tragedy.
No surprise here. One other issue is that you cannot even do voluntary work because you’ll lose your social welfare if you do as “you are not available for interview or to take up full time employment”. Just goes to show the idiocy of the Political Institutions / Department Of Social Welfare. If you were doing voluntary work and living on the €188 a week, would you continue to that if offered a full time job? I know that if I was called to an interview I would tell the voluntary organisation that I cannot make it in as I have an interview and if I got the job I would take it and leave the voluntary work.
Voluntary work will help keep people sane and motivated to look for work, otherwise people will stay at home get demoralised and think what’s the point in even looking for a job. People think that there are a lot of people are on welfare because they “like it”. RUBBISH! I’d like the politicians to live on social welfare benefits for a month and to carry out all the strings that go with it and then justify how they can say it is a “comfortable lifestyle”
There is a form to complete, and if approved ie a reputable voluntary organisation is essential, you can do voluntary work – I do :).
Voluntary work is just that and if you volunteer and at the start explain if an interview comes up you are attending then that is appreciated and understood. And your skills will be much appreciated and you will keep your work skills up to date, motivate yourself and give back to the community – go for it CSEC Bio? If you want to volunteer for Sea Shepherd just let me know, happy to have you on board.
who on earth keeps thumbing comments down?. if I find out who they are they will be terminated.
Just ignore them.
Even if every banker & politician was made to read that report I wonder just how much they would really care. Peoples lives seem to matter less and less.
I personally know of 5 individuals, young men, who were in construction and were caught where they owed the supplier for materials and the developers refused to pay them anything, they were left with massive bills and lost of pressure from the suppliers. The individuals could not take legal action against the developers because of this NAMA thing ! and every one of the individuals took their own lives, leaving young families, parents, siblings, wives, girlfriends, friends, neightbours and community devestated.
And the Government has just cut spending on Suicide assistance ? WHY ?
sad the people at the top never cared never did nor never will i highllighted this last week in the lenihan article and in it lies some of their decision making bullshit for the ordinary people how much more can a race of people take without revolting something got to give
Lenihan gets a Kings funeral while those driven to suicide rarely even get a mention in the media. Its a tragedy.
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