Kentucky sues Johnson & Johnson over opioid marketing

[Julian Englis]

Source: The Hill

The state of Kentucky is suing Johnson & Johnson and two of its subsidiaries over what the state's attorney general alleges was a deceptive marketing campaign that caused widespread addiction to opioid-based prescription painkillers.

In the lawsuit, Kentucky's Attorney General Andy Beshear (D) argued that Johnson & Johnson, as well as Janssen Pharmaceuticals and Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals, sought to deceive doctors and patients to increase prescriptions of opioid-based medications, including Duragesic, Nucynta and Nucynta ER.

"To make that happen, Janssen and other opioid makers had to turn the standard of care on its head – persuading doctors that drugs they had been unwilling to prescribe because of their risk of addiction were more effective and safe enough to use widely and long-term for relatively minor pain conditions," the lawsuit, filed in McCracken County Circuit Court, reads. "Patients were exposed to the same reassuring messages."

The lawsuit seeks repayment for Kentucky's "Medicaid, workers’ compensation, and other spending on opioids, disgorgement of Janssen’s unjust profits, civil penalties for its egregious violations of law, compensatory and punitive damages, injunctive relief, and abatement of the public nuisance Janssen has helped create."



Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/383838-kentucky-sues-johnson-johnson-over-opioid-marketing-practices

[mark67]

1. The irony of course...

...is that the pharmaceutical industry made millions addicting thousands of people and now the American taxpayer will be charged with cleaning up the mess. Color me cynical.

[RobinA]

2. I Guess It's Me

but I have a problem holding pharmaceutical companies responsible for opiate addition. They make a drug. Opiates have been known to be addictive since literally forever. They also have a very essential place in the pharmacy. Doctors, boo hoo they told us it wasn't additive? Look, you get the big money to know some things. What SHOULD have been and now should be in place is a researched way of helping people who needed strong pain relief to get off it in a controlled way when they no longer need it. Street use? Again, not on the manufacturer. Harm reduction and solve the Fentanyl problem, which is what is behind a large percentage of ODs at this time.

I worry so much about people who need strong pain relief to live any sort of normal life. Opium and opiates have been used and causing addiction forever. Unfortunately, it works for a lot of things that ail people. Maybe they should just let us grow poppies. Less addictive ways of ingesting and no one to blame.