Tag: Purdue Pharma

PR Group Behind ‘Watchdog’ NewsGuard Hit with $350 Million Settlement over OxyContin Marketing

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French public and advertising giant Publicis Groupe — the lead funder of  “disinformation watchdog” NewsGuard — has agreed to pay $350 million as part of a settlement with state attorneys general over the company’s role in America’s opioid crisis. “Today’s filings describe how Publicis’ work contributed to the crisis by helping Purdue Pharma and other opioid manufacturers market and sell opioids,” said a press release from South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson. “Court documents detail how Publicis acted as Purdue’s agency of record for all its branded opioid drugs, including OxyContin, even developing sales tactics that relied on farming data from recordings of personal health-related in-office conversations between patients and providers.” “The company was also instrumental in Purdue’s decision to market OxyContin to providers on patient’s electronic health records,” said the press release. At the same time it is paying this $350 million settlement over its marketing tactics — Publicis Groupe, headed by CEO and Chairman Arthur Sadoun (pictured above) is also the “largest corporate investor” in NewsGuard, a company whose co-founder said it is a “vaccine against misinformation,” reported Lee Fang in RealClearInvestigations. NewsGuard said it “provides transparent tools to counter misinformation” and in 2021, it announced a partnership with Publicis to “combat…

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Virginia Expects $60 Million in Tentative Opioid Crisis Settlement with Walmart

Eric Burk

Virginia is expected to receive $60 million as part of a tentative $3.1 billion settlement agreement with Walmart after allegations of insufficient oversight of opioid dispensing at the chain’s pharmacies.

“Companies who facilitated the dispensing of opioids contributed to the opioid epidemic that has devastated millions of lives. This significant settlement will help us fight back against the epidemic and provide abatement and rehabilitation resources to suffering Virginians,” Attorney General Jason Miyares said in a press release.

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Connecticut Attorney General William Tong Announces Historic Settlement with Purdue Pharma

Cooper Moran

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong on Thursday announced an historic settlement that will force members of the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma to pay out $6 billion for their role in the opioid epidemic.

The drug company, which distributed OxyContin, must be “dissolved or sold by 2024 and [ban] the Sacklers from the opioid business in the United States.”

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Addiction-Based Mental Health Crisis Still Getting Worse in Virginia

Eric Burk

During the beginning of COVID-19, hospital inpatient volume and emergency department visits decreased, in part due to people postponing treatment. But the same data showed an increase in the number of patients getting treatment for alcohol, drug use, and related mental disorders, the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association (VHHA) reported in April. In a Friday press conference, VHHA Vice President of Data and Analytics David Vaamonde reported that increased treatment for those kinds of disorders continued into the first two quarters of 2021 — one of only two Major Diagnostic Categories (MDCs) that saw growth since the beginning of the pandemic.

“We’re looking at MDCs where volumes actually increased since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. We have alcohol and drug use, and drug induced organic mental health disorders, obviously a very concerning trend there, and then diseases and disorders of the respiratory system and infectious and parasitic diseases,” Vaamonde said, adding that the respiratory, infectious, and parasitic categories line up with what a COVID-19 patient would have.

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Attorney General Ellison Announces $50 Million Settlement with Purdue Pharma

The Center Square
Keith Ellison

Attorney General Keith Ellison announced Minnesota will get $50 million from the settlement of the state’s lawsuit against the Sackler family’s company Purdue Pharma, which manufactured the opioid drug Oxycontin that contributed to the deadly opioid crisis nationwide.

The resolution will make public more than 30 million documents related to Purdue’s role in the opioid crisis and require the Sacklers to pay $4.3 billion for prevention, treatment, and recovery efforts in communities across the country.

Minnesota’s share of those payments is expected to exceed $50 million over nine years, the spending of which will be overseen by the State’s Opioid Epidemic Response Advisory Council.

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15 States Reach Agreement, Pave Way for $4.5 Billion Settlement over Opioid Crisis

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Spilled pill bottle with lid beside bottle

A coalition of 15 states agreed to a deal with drug maker Purdue Pharma, which could soon lead to a $4.5 billion settlement over the company’s role in the U.S. opioid epidemic.

The states agreed to no longer oppose Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy plan while the pharmaceutical company agreed to publicly release a trove of millions of documents, according to a court filing late Wednesday night. The Sackler family, which owns the company, would pay an additional $50 million under the settlement.

The agreement will be tacked onto a broader proposal that is set to be voted on by more than 3,000 plaintiffs, The New York Times reported. In addition to the states, plaintiffs include cities, counties and tribes that sued the company over its role in boosting its painkiller OxyContin, the cause of thousands of opioid deaths.

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2020 Was Record Year for Fatal Drug Overdoses in Virginia

Eric Burk

Virginia had another record year for fatal drug overdoses in 2020. In 2019, Virginia had a record 1,627 fatal drug overdoses, but in 2020 that number spiked by 41.2 percent to 2,297, fueled by fentanyl overdoses, according to a fourth-quarter report from the Virginia Department of Health (VDH).

“The pandemic exacerbated drug deaths and last I checked, something like 40-plus states reported big increases in overdose deaths since the pandemic began,” VDH Statewide Forensic Epidemiologist Kathrin Hobron told The Virginia Star.

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Fairfax ‘Pill Mill’ Doctor Gets Seven Years

Eric Burk

U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema sentenced Fairfax doctor Felicia Donald to seven years in prison for operating a “pill mill” at For Women OB/GYN Associates and NOVA Addiction Center. According to a Department of Justice press release, from April 2016 to April 2020 Donald distributed over $1.2 million worth of oxycodone and other controlled substances. Donald pled guilty on May 4, 2020.

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OxyContin Maker Purdue Pharma to Plead to Three Criminal Charges

The Associated Press

Purdue Pharma, the company that makes OxyContin, the powerful prescription painkiller that experts say helped touch off an opioid epidemic, will plead guilty to three federal criminal charges as part of a settlement of more than $8 billion, Justice Department officials announced Wednesday.

The company will plead guilty to three counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and violating federal anti-kickback laws, the officials said. The resolution will be detailed in a bankruptcy court filing in federal court.

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Maker of OxyContin Agrees to $270M Settlement in Oklahoma

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The maker of OxyContin and the company’s controlling family agreed Tuesday to pay a groundbreaking $270 million to Oklahoma to settle allegations they helped create the nation’s deadly opioid crisis with their aggressive marketing of the powerful painkiller. It is the first settlement to come out of the recent coast-to-coast wave of nearly 2,000 lawsuits against Purdue Pharma that threaten to push the company into bankruptcy and have stained the name of the Sackler family, whose members rank among the world’s foremost philanthropists. “The addiction crisis facing our state and nation is a clear and present danger, but we’re doing something about it today,” Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter said. Nearly $200 million will go toward establishing a National Center for Addiction Studies and Treatment at Oklahoma State University in Tulsa, while local governments will get $12.5 million. The Sacklers are responsible for $75 million of the settlement. In settling, the Stamford, Connecticut-based company denied any wrongdoing in connection with what Hunter called “this nightmarish epidemic” and “the worst public health crisis in our state and nation we’ve ever seen.” The deal comes two months before Oklahoma’s 2017 lawsuit against Purdue Pharma and other drug companies was set to become…

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New Info About Opioid-Profiteering Family Pushes Largest Museum in US to Rethink Gift Acceptance Policies

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by Evie Fordham   The Metropolitan Museum of Art is reviewing its gift acceptance policies after information that members of a prominent donor family headed a deceit campaign to push the highly addictive prescription opioid OxyContin, The Met told The Daily Caller News Foundation. Other New York City art museums that have taken money from the Sackler family, which owns Purdue Pharma, refused to comment on the Tuesday court filing with documents showing members of the Sackler family covered up information about the dangers of OxyContin. “The Sackler family has been connected with The Met for more than a half century. The family is a large extended group and their support of The Met began decades before the opioid crisis. The Met is currently engaging in a further review of our detailed gift acceptance policies, and we will have more to report in due course,” Daniel H. Weiss, president and CEO of The Met, told TheDCNF in a statement Thursday. An employee at The Met told TheDCNF news about the Sackler family is what prompted the institution to review its policy, although the employee would not detail any review timeline. Sackler family members gave a whopping $20 million to the…

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