Johnson & Johnson Ordered to Pay $572 Million for Role in State’s Opioid Epidemic
An Oklahoma judge on Monday ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $572 million for its role in fueling the state’s opioid abuse crisis.
Cleveland County District Judge Thad Balkman’s ruling concluded the first state opioid case to make it to trial.
In handing it down, he said “the opioid crisis has ravaged the state of Oklahoma. It must be abated immediately.”
“For this reason, I’m entering an abatement plan that consists of costs totaling $572,102,028 to immediately remediate the nuisance,” he said.
Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiaries are expected to appeal the ruling to the Oklahoma Supreme Court.
The outcome is expected to have broad implications for the more than 1,500 similar lawsuits filed by local, state and tribal governments that have been consolidated before a federal judge in Ohio.
With Balkman’s ruling, a judge, for the first time has said drug companies can be held liable for the national health crisis of opioid addiction.
Prior to the start of the Johnson & Johnson trial in late May, Oklahoma had reached settlements with two other defendants, with Oxycontin maker Purdue Parma agreeing to pay the state $270 million and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. agreeing to pay $85 million.
In the underlying lawsuit, Oklahoma claimed the drug makers overstated how effective their products were for treating chronic pain and understated the risk of addiction.
According to the state Attorney General’s office, 4,653 residents of the state were killed by opioid overdoses between 2007 and 2017.
Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter said on Twitter Monday morning that the state’s case revealed how “corporate greed got in the way of responsible practices at Johnson & Johnson.”
Attorneys for the company countered by arguing their clients did nothing illegal and that they are part of a heavily-regulated industry subject to strict oversight by a number of federal agencies.
In The News
Health
Voting
Opioids
WASHINGTON -- Drug control experts urged Congress Tuesday to take quick action to prevent drugs created by clandestine chemists that mimic the effects of opioids from entering legal and illegal marketplaces. They suggested that Congress turn a temporary order on the chemicals into a permanent prohibition... Read More
WASHINGTON -- A U.S. Senate committee sought answers again Tuesday on how to stop a nationwide crisis of opioid addictions while acknowledging their previous efforts have largely failed. A record 61,300 people died from drug overdoses in 2017 in the U.S., up from 54,800 a year... Read More
HAMBURG, Germany — In 2016, 10 times as many Americans as Germans died as a result of drug overdoses, mostly opiates. Three times as many Americans as Germans experienced opioid addiction. Even as the rates of addiction in the U.S. have risen dramatically in the past... Read More
CHICAGO — An opioid overdose can be a lonely death. People who use drugs often do so in private, and should they get a dose stronger than they can tolerate, no one will be there to save them with the overdose-reversing medication naloxone. But now, a... Read More
The largest civil trial in U.S. history is scheduled to begin in a matter of days, putting those who made, marketed, distributed and dispensed prescription painkillers under the legal spotlight. But those on the front lines of the opioid epidemic are already looking beyond the courtroom... Read More
FREDERICK, Md. — Donna Johnson, a working mother of four who lives in a quiet upscale neighborhood in suburban Maryland, is determined to thwart an insidious addiction treatment scam that’s spreading across the country. It ensnared her son, then 21, in Florida five years ago when... Read More
