Category Archives: Opioids crisis

‘We need prison time’: Purdue’s belated guilty plea gets skeptical reaction

Posted on by

While the guilty plea was welcomed, there was also anger over the US justice department’s failure to prosecute executives

Lawyers and public relations firms for the Sackler family who own Purdue Pharma have spent months pushing an aggressive campaign to deny that the company’s powerful painkiller, OxyContin, unleashed the devastating US opioid epidemic.

They manipulated statistics and attacked critics to paint the company and the Sacklers as victims of an unwarranted smear campaign driven by a sensationalist media and grasping addicts trying to lay their hands on the billions of dollars of profits generated by a legitimate drug.

Continue reading...

2019: the year in US protests – in pictures

Posted on by

Tens of thousands of teachers walked off the job in Los Angeles, American women gathered for their third annual march in Washington, Iowans protested abortion bans, Texans declared Donald Trump ‘not welcome’ in El Paso and students in New York City rallied around Greta Thunberg in calling for action on climate change

Continue reading...

Purdue payments to Sackler family surged after OxyContin fine

Posted on by

Family started taking far more money out of firm after it was fined for misleading marketing of drug

The wealthy owners of OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma started taking far more money out of the company after it was fined for misleading marketing of the powerful prescription painkiller.

Purdue made payments for the benefit of members of the Sackler family totalling $10.7bn (£8bn) from 2008 through to 2017, a court filing made by the company on Monday evening shows.

Continue reading...

US states fight back against Purdue Pharma’s bid to stop opioid lawsuits

Posted on by

Twenty-four states and DC say Purdue and Sackler members should not be allowed to use bankruptcy filing to shield assets

US state officials launched a legal counter-attack on Friday against Purdue Pharma’s attempt to shield itself and its controlling Sackler family members from thousands of lawsuits claiming the maker of the OxyContin prescription painkiller helped fuel the opioid epidemic.

Related: Top universities in US and UK took millions from Sackler family

Continue reading...

Doctor gets 40 years in prison for prescribing over 500,000 opioid doses

Posted on by

Virginia doctor Joel Smithers was convicted in May of more than 800 counts of illegally distributing opioids

A doctor who prosecutors said ran a medical practice in Virginia like an interstate drug distribution ring was sentenced on Wednesday to 40 years in prison for illegally prescribing opioids.

Dr Joel Smithers was sentenced in US district court in Abingdon. Judge James Jones sentenced Smithers to 40 years. He faced a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years and a maximum of life.

Continue reading...

US attack on WHO ‘hindering morphine drive in poor countries’

Posted on by

Claims have hurt efforts to help people around world in acute pain, say palliative care experts

An attack on the World Health Organization (WHO) by US politicians accusing it of being corrupted by drug companies is making it even more difficult to get morphine to millions of people dying in acute pain in poor countries, say experts in the field.

Representatives of the hospice and palliative care community said they were stunned by the Congress members’ report, which they said made false accusations and would affect people suffering in countries where almost no opioids were available.

Continue reading...

OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma files for bankruptcy

Posted on by

Move is partly aimed at halting more than 2,000 lawsuits filed against drug firm

US drug-maker Purdue Pharma has filed for bankruptcy and announced a $10bn (£8bn) plan to settle thousands of lawsuits that accuse the company’s prescription painkiller, OxyContin, of fuelling the deadly opioids crisis.

The company, owned by the billionaire Sackler family, faces more than 2,000 lawsuits, including actions from nearly all US states and many local governments, which allege Purdue falsely promoted OxyContin by downplaying the risk of addiction. The public health crisis claimed the lives of nearly 400,000 people between 1999 and 2017, according to the latest US data.

Continue reading...

US opioid crisis: experts say payouts from drug makers ‘highly questionable’

Posted on by

Two potential payouts from Johnson & Johnson and Purdue Pharma have provoked varied responses

Efforts to get compensation for the US opioid crisis with two multimillion-dollar drug manufacturer payouts have been met by leading activists and addiction experts with a range of responses from incredulity to cautious optimism.

On Tuesday, the wealthy Sackler family and their embattled drugmaker, Purdue Pharma, makers of two opioids that triggered the crisis, Oxycontin and MSContin, reportedly backed a proposal to resolve all opioid lawsuits against themselves and the company for more than $11bn.

Continue reading...

Opioids addiction rising in India as US drugmakers push painkillers

Posted on by

As the Indian government loosens its prescription opioid laws after decades of lobbying by palliative care advocates, the cash-fed healthcare system is ripe for misuse

In the crowded waiting room of Dr Sunil Sagar’s clinic, in the working-class neighborhood of Bhagwanpur Khera, a toddler breathes from a nebulizer. The patients sit, motionless, but there is somehow tremendous noise. The clinic is a squat cement building draped in wires, a red cross on the door. Sagar sits behind a desk in a small, open room, as a squad of assistants escort patients to him.

Continue reading...

Purdue Pharma and Sacklers offer up to $12bn to settle opioid claims, report says

Posted on by
  • Maker of Oxycontin accused of fueling US opioid epidemic
  • Hundreds of cities and counties have sued drug company

Purdue Pharma and members of the multi-billionaire Sackler family, who own the company that makes the prescription painkiller OxyContin, have offered to settle more than 2,000 lawsuits from US states and cities for between $10bn and $12bn, according to a media report on Tuesday.

Related: How big pharma is targeting India's booming opioid market

Continue reading...

Johnson & Johnson responsible for fueling opioid crisis in Oklahoma, judge rules

Posted on by

In landmark case, Oklahoma is first state to sue an opioid manufacturer all the way to trial as judge orders orders company to pay $572m

An Oklahoma judge has found Johnson & Johnson liable in a lawsuit claiming the giant drug maker helped fuel the deadly opioid epidemic in the state.

Oklahoma is the first state to sue an opioid manufacturer in court all the way to trial.

Continue reading...

Capitalism gone wrong: how big pharma created America’s opioid carnage

Posted on by

A web of firms ramped up narcotic painkiller sales, creating the biggest drug epidemic in American history as profits surged

As Oklahoma’s attorney general, Mike Hunter laid out his indictment against one of the biggest corporations in America, he made a point of saying that he was not hostile to big business.

“The fact that I am a Republican, a conservative and a believer in capitalism and the marketplace does not require me to turn a blind eye when corporations hurt people,” Hunter told a state court.

Continue reading...

Drug makers flooded US with billions of opioid pills as epidemic surged, data shows

Posted on by

Statistics are a blow to country’s biggest pharmaceuticals that paid millions of dollars in out of court settlements

Drug makers and distributors flooded the US with more than 75bn opioid pills in the crucial years when the country’s epidemic of painkiller addiction and deaths surged to record levels, according to previously secret data released by an American court.

The publication of the Drug Enforcement Administration statistics is a blow to some of the country’s biggest pharmaceutical firms that have paid hundreds of millions of dollars in out of court settlements in part to keep sealed evidence that they profiteered from escalating demand for opioids even as public health officials were declaring an epidemic.

Continue reading...

Synthetic opioid use booms worldwide amid Africa ‘crisis’, UN says

Posted on by

Death in US are still rising due to fentanyl addiction, but report highlights alarming take-up of painkiller tramadol in Africa

Synthetic opioid use is booming around the world, acccording to a United Nations report that showed deaths in the United States from overdoses are still rising and a “crisis” of tramadol use is emerging in parts of Africa.

The estimated number of people using opioids – an umbrella term for drugs ranging from opium and derivatives such as heroin to synthetics like fentanyl and tramadol – in 2017 was 56% higher than in 2016, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said in the report published on Wednesday.

Continue reading...

Sackler family want to settle opioids lawsuits, lawyer says

Posted on by

Owners of Purdue Pharma face more than 2,000 lawsuits by officials who blame prescription opioids for sparking drug crisis

The members of the multi-billionaire Sackler family who own a painkiller manufacturer and are being sued by hundreds of state and local officials as part of the opioids litigation want to settle, a leading lawyer for the family said this week.

The attorney Mary Jo White represents four members of the family that controls Purdue Pharma, the company that developed and marketed the painkiller OxyContin. Purdue, along with other opioid makers, wholesalers and distributors, is facing more than 2,000 lawsuits by state, city and county officials who blame prescription opiates for sparking an unprecedented epidemic of drug abuse.

Continue reading...

Purdue’s opioid settlement set to herald barrage of lawsuits against big pharma

Posted on by

Oklahoma chooses to settle for $270m over Purdue’s criminal marketing of OxyContin – but more lawsuits are likely to come

Oklahoma’s attorney general, Mike Hunter, thought it best to take the money and run.

Just weeks from the start of a much-anticipated trial against the company at the heart of the US opioid epidemic, Hunter was unnerved when Purdue Pharma began making noises about declaring bankruptcy in the face of mounting lawsuits over its powerful narcotic prescription painkiller, OxyContin.

Continue reading...

‘This is blood money’: Tate shuns Sacklers – and others urged to follow

Posted on by

Pressure builds on other institutions to disavow Sackler family over OxyContin, powerful painkiller linked to opioid deaths

Earlier this year at the Guggenheim in New York, activists objecting to donations from the Sackler family draped protest banners from the museum’s famous spiraling balconies, dropped flyers down through the atrium and pretended to die all over the floor. A gobsmacked public looked on.

Tate Modern has just escaped a similar fate.

Continue reading...

Nan Goldin threatens London gallery boycott over £1m gift from Sackler fund

Posted on by

Artist brands planned donation from pharmaceutical family to National Portrait Gallery unethical over OxyContin link

The National Portrait Gallery will be forced to turn down a gift of £1m from members of the multibillionaire Sackler family if it goes ahead with a prestigious new exhibition of the work of US artist Nan Goldin.

The photographer and activist is threatening to boycott the gallery if it accepts the donation from the owners of the American pharmaceutical company that makes the addictive painkiller OxyContin, the Observer has learned.

Continue reading...

Anti-opioid protesters target New York’s Guggenheim over Sackler family link

Posted on by

Demonstrators call on museum to refuse donations from the owners of OxyContin

US art photographer and activist Nan Goldin brought the Guggenheim Museum in New York to a standstill on Saturday night as thousands of fake prescriptions were dropped into the atrium to protest against the institution’s acceptance of donations from the family who owns the maker of OxyContin – the prescription painkiller at the root of America’s opioids crisis.

Tourists and locals gawped in confusion as Goldin and fellow demonstrators began chanting criticism of the Sackler family, who owns Purdue Pharma. The activists handed out fake pill bottles as sheets of paper fluttered down inside the landmark building.

Continue reading...

Opioid strong enough to sedate elephants on rise in Ohio, coroners warn

Posted on by

Carfentanil, described as ‘extremely potent’ and often undetectable, involved in multiple overdose deaths

Coroners in two of Ohio’s largest counties have issued drug abuse warnings following the reappearance of an opioid so powerful it’s sometimes used to sedate elephants.

Dr Anahi Ortiz is coroner in Franklin county in central Ohio. She said Friday that the county which calls Columbus home had at least three carfentanil-related overdose deaths in January.

Continue reading...