Opioids and Addiction – What Did Manufacturers Know?

On May 31, 2017, the state of Ohio filed a lawsuit against five manufacturers of opioid medications, alleging the companies played a key role in helping to create an opioid epidemic that has affected an estimated 200,000 Ohioans. Ohio is one of many states that have sued drug companies, alleging that their marketing campaigns downplayed the risks of opioids while exaggerating their benefits.

Serious Allegations

The Ohio lawsuit alleges that five opioid manufacturers – Allergan, Endo Health Solutions, Johnson & Johnson (and its subsidiary, Janssen Pharmaceuticals) and Purdue Pharma – helped “unleash a healthcare crisis” that has not only had severe social and financial consequences but deadly consequences as well.

The state believes that these companies misled physicians on purpose regarding the dangers of opioid medications, and did so for only one reason – to increase sales. The suit states that all of the defendants hatched a scheme to persuade doctors that opioids were, in fact, not addictive. Rather than targeting doctors for over-prescribing opioids, the suit goes after the pharmaceutical companies for trying to convince physicians that they should prescribe opioids in order to provide the most compassionate care possible.

More than 16,000 people died from opioid overdoses in 2014 alone, according to the Centers for Disease Control – a number that has tripled since 1990.