The county attorney of Pulaski County, Il. has filed an opioid epidemic lawsuit against a variety of pharmaceutical companies.

Among other claims, the complaint alleges drug companies have committed violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), the Illinois Narcotic Profit Forfeiture Act, and the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act.

The drug manufacturers named as defendants are:

• Amerisourcebergen Drug Corporation
• Cardinal Health
• McKesson Corporation
• Purdue Pharma, Inc.
• The Purdue Frederick Company, Inc.
• Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Ltd.
• Cephalon, Inc
• Johnson & Johnson
• Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
• Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
• Noramco, Inc.
• Endo Health Solutions Inc.
• Allergan PLC
• Actavis PLS
• Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
• Mallinckrodt PLC

According to this opioid epidemic lawsuit, these drug companies “worked together, through Front Groups, to spread their deceptive messages about the risks and benefits of long-term opioid therapy.”

The opioid epidemic complaint says the defendants formed the Pain Care Forum in 2004, a group of drug company representatives that worked to make sure that FDA-mandated information on opioids “was not unacceptably negative and did not require mandatory participation by prescribers,” which the drug companies feared would reduce the number of prescriptions.

Opioid Epidemic Lawsuit Alleges Drug Companies Lied

The Pulaski County government claims the drug companies allegedly made false assurances to doctors and patients that opioids were safe, falsely trivialized the risks of addiction, and falsely stated that addiction was linked to unauthorized dose increases. The plaintiff claims the drug company representatives gave the dangerously misleading impression that most patients would never become addicted to narcotics, and those who were susceptible to addiction could be easily identified and brought under control.

Janssen Pharmaceuticals allegedly said it’s only a “myth” that opioids are addictive, in a 2009 pamphlet titled Finding Relief: Pain Management for Older Adults.

Purdue allegedly claimed that fewer than 1 percent of children who receive prescriptions for opioids become addicted and that pain is typically under-treated because of “misconceptions about opioid addiction” in a publication called A Policymaker’s Guide to Understanding Pain & Its Management, which was produced for its front group American Pain Foundation.

These purported statements trivializing the risks of opioid addiction are contradicted by the Centers for Disease Control, which in 2016 issued a guideline saying that “opioid pain medication use presents serious risks, including overdose and opioid use disorder” and that taking opioids for three months increases the risks of addiction.

In 2013, the FDA found that the majority of opioid drugs have a “high potential for abuse,” which can lead to addiction, overdose and death.

The county claims the drug companies not only minimized the addictive and dangerous nature of the drugs involved in the opioid epidemic, but also instructed doctors to keep increasing the prescribed doses of the opioids. The drug companies allegedly misled doctors to see signs of addiction as signs of undertreating the patients’ pain.

A doctor working for Purdue allegedly came up with a name for this supposed undertreatment: pseudoaddiction. In 2016, the CDC said “pseudoaddiction” is non-existent and was created by the Purdue employee as a way to increase the use of opioids.

The Opioid Epidemic Lawsuit is Case No. 3:17-cv-01255 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois.

In general, opioid addiction lawsuits are filed individually by each plaintiff and are not class actions.

Do YOU have a legal claim? Fill out the form on this page now for a free, immediate, and confidential case evaluation. The attorneys who work with Top Class Actions will contact you if you qualify to let you know if an individual opioid addictino lawsuit or opioid addiction class action lawsuit is best for you. Hurry — statutes of limitations may apply.

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