New York City sues ’Big Pharma’ for $500m for fueling opioid epidemic | US news | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/23/new-york-city-sues-big-pharma-for-500m-for-fueling-opioid-epidemic
New York City on Tuesday sued the makers of prescription painkillers such as OxyContin, Percocet and fentanyl that have played a central role in the opioid crisis killing tens of thousands across the nation.
The mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, and his wife Chirlane McCray, who leads the city’s efforts on mental health and drug addiction, announced a $500m lawsuit “to hold manufacturers and distributors to account”, filed in New York state supreme court.
“More New Yorkers have died from opioid overdoses than car crashes and homicides combined in recent years. ‘Big Pharma’ helped to fuel this epidemic by deceptively peddling these dangerous drugs and hooking millions,” De Blasio said. A record 1,000-plus people died in New York from opioid-related overdoses in 2016, the mayor reported.
New York City on Tuesday sued several companies, led by Purdue Pharma, the family-owned creator of OxyContin the original brand of slow-release, powerful prescription narcotics that ushered in the crisis 20 years ago with aggressive marketing campaigns and insufficient warnings about addiction and abuse.
Additional defendants include Endo, which makes the painkiller Percocet; Cephalon, which makes the fentanyl lollipop-type lozenge Actiq; Janssen, which makes fentanyl patches; and other opioid makers, including Johnson & Johnson, Watson, Teva and Allergan.
