A New Mexico lawsuit against several drug makers and distributors regarding the effects of opioid abuse was revised to include Insys Therapeutics Inc. and Mallinckrodt PLC.

New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas made the announcement that he amended the lawsuit that he originally filed in September.

“The entire pharmaceutical opioid industry, including both manufacturers and distributors together, has been in on the scheme to illegally market and sell opioids to New Mexicans, and we’ve modified our complaint to show that,” said Balderas in a prepared statement.

The initial lawsuit focused on the effects of opioid abuse included defendants Purdue Pharma LP, Johnson & Johnson, Allergan PLC, Endo International PLC and Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd., saying the companies participated in deceptive marketing to increase sales of painkillers.

Wholesale distributors McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health Inc. and AmerisourceBergen Corp. also are named defendants, accused of failing to determine and report unscrupulous opioid prescriptions.

The U.S. Justice Department is investigating Insys and Mallinckrodt as well.

Insys founder John Kapoor and six other former management figures are facing charges in Boston that the managers bribed doctors to prescribe the company’s cancer pain spray that contained fentanyl. Talks with federal prosecutors indicate Insys could settle for a minimum of $150 million.

Mallinckrodt agreed to pay $35 million in July to settle allegations the company failed to report unsubstantiated orders of the generic pain killer oxycodone.

Life Expectancy Lowered Due to Effects of Opioid Abuse

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that the life expectancy for U.S. citizens fell to 78.6 years in 2016. This is the second consecutive year that the life expectancy has declined. During the same two years, the annual increase of opioid overdose deaths rose approximately 20 percent. In 2016 alone, 42,249 U.S. citizens died of opioid overdose deaths.

According to the CDC, the effects of opioid abuse affect men the most. Middle-aged, blue-collar working men are twice as likely to die of opioid overdose deaths than women.

West Virginia has an opioid overdose death rate of 36 out of every 100,000 people, the highest rate recorded by the CDC in 2015.

According to a Dec. 28^th article from U.S. News and World Report, the White House Council of Economic Advisers estimates the effects of opioid abuse cost the country more than $500 billion in 2015 alone.

A number of states, counties and cities are holding drug makers accountable for the crisis. Counties say their health departments and police departments have been stretched too thin because of the large number of emergencies and overdoses from the effects of opioid abuse.

Individual states are suing drug makers for understating the possibility of drug addiction and for advertising opioids as a safe and effective way to treat long-term pain such as arthritis or back pain. Opioids originally were designed to treat short-term pain only, such as those suffering from acute surgery or cancer treatments.

Pain clinics and their staff also are facing lawsuits over their alleged roles in the drug addiction crisis.

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

If your loved died from an opioid overdose in the last three years from an addiction that began as a legal opioid prescription from his or her doctor, you may have a legal claim. Get help now by filling out the form on this page for a FREE case evaluation.

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