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| Ilene Shapiro (left), executive director of Summit County, Michael O'Malley (center), the Cuyahoga county prosecutor, and Mark Lanier, a lawyer representing Cuyahoga and Summit counties, brief the press in Cleveland, Ohio on October 21, 2019 (AFP Photo/Megan JELINGER) |
Cleveland (AFP) - Three leading American drug distributors and an Israeli drugmaker blamed for a deadly US opioid epidemic settled a bellwether civil lawsuit with two Ohio counties Monday, just hours before they were to go on trial, a federal judge announced.
The $260
million deal set the basis for a broader multi-billion dollar potential payout
to some 2,700 addiction-ravaged communities nationwide who had signed on to the
Cleveland lawsuit, the first in a federal court to address the causes of the
crisis.
The suit by
Ohio's Summit and Cuyahoga counties was set as a model for the rest of the
country, where communities have been seeking funds to address the massive
fallout from the crisis.
The
addiction epidemic has placed huge burdens on hospitals and emergency services,
and on families supporting addicts and caring for children with addicted
parents or parents who have died.
Talks for a
broader $48 billion package for all the plaintiffs broke down Friday amid
differences between some states and smaller communities over the total value
and how the money would be distributed.
The
settlement involved the three leading US drug distributors -- Cardinal Health,
Amerisource Bergen, and McKesson Corp -- and Israel's generic drug manufacturer
Teva.
Pharmacy
chain Walgreens will continue to go to trial at a later date, said Federal
District Judge Dan Polster. A small Ohio distributor also settled in a separate
deal.
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A study
released in October 2019 estimated that the opioid epidemic cost the
US economy
at least $631 billion from 2015 to 2018 (AFP Photo/Eric BARADAT)
|
Hundreds
of thousands of deaths
A trial
would have examined allegations that the makers of the prescription painkillers
and pharmaceutical distributors pushed billions of pills into communities
without due care over two decades, making it excessively easy for patients to
become addicted and creating a permanent demand.
The
companies reaped tens of billions of dollars in profits while overdose deaths
soared above 400,000 over two decades -- more than 70,000 in 2017 alone.
Plaintiffs
had amassed large amounts of evidence showing that the companies knew they were
fomenting an epidemic of addiction.
Lawyers had
brought in addicts and family members of addicts to testify how they had
quickly become addicted to the easy-to-obtain, overprescribed painkillers.
"Cuyahoga
County has seen thousands of people die over the last several years. It's a
tragedy. Summit County is no different," said Cuyahoga prosecutor Michael
O'Malley.
"Our
hearts go out to the families who have been touched by this," said Ilene
Shapiro, the chief executive of Summit County.
"Whatever
we can do to help these families rebuild and get as healthy as they can and
move foreward is what we are trying to do."
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| Chart showing US drug overdose death rates by opioid category, source of opioids, and how they work. (AFP Photo/Gal ROMA) |
Not a
global settlement
Joe Rice,
of the MotleyRice law firm, which represented Summit County, said the
settlement could act as a template for the rest of the communities who signed
onto the suit.
"We
now know how this industry worked," he said. "We still need a global
settlement... I think the model is there," he said.
"But
we're a long way from being through."
Johnson
& Johnson had previously broken away with its own settlement, a $20.4
million deal with the two Ohio counties, which encompass the cities of
Cleveland and Akron.
That came
after Johnson & Johnson was ordered in August to pay $572 million to
compensate Oklahoma state.
Polster,
the judge presiding over the case, had pressured all sides for months to come
to a deal to avoid a grinding, lengthy trial.
But the
parties could not come to an agreement on a proposed settlement valued at $48
billion, including $18 billion in cash, after meetings on Friday.
A study
released this week estimated that the opioid epidemic cost the US economy at
least $631 billion from 2015 to 2018.
The Society
of Actuaries report projects that for this year alone the cost could be
$172-214 billion.
Nearly
one-third of the 2015-2018 costs was in health care spending for addicts and
infants born to addicts.
Some 40
percent was for the costs of early deaths, and the rest was for child and
family care programs, criminal justice and lost productivity.
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