Opioids The other epidemic that came out of Wuhan
Fentanyl The drug 40 times more powerful than heroin that is spread throughout the world
The three largest
drug distributors in the
United States and the pharmaceutical company
Johnson & Johnson
(J&J) have agreed to pay some
26,000 million dollars in compensation
for their alleged role in the opioid crisis, authorities announced Wednesday.
The historic agreement will put an end to the
lawsuits brought by many states and cities in the country
against the four companies and will offer significant funds to support the communities most affected by addiction and drug overdoses.
"
Johnson & Johnson
,
McKesson
,
Cardinal Health
and
Amerisource Bergen
not only lit the fuse, but fueled the fire of opioid addictions for more than two decades. Today, we are holding these companies accountable and injecting tens of billions of dollars in communities across the country, "New York State Attorney General
Letitia James
said in a statement
.
James and prosecutors from several states confirmed the pact, already advanced this Monday by some media, and which for the moment is tentative, since now it
is up to each state and locality to pronounce
on it.
If a sufficient number of them support it, it will be effective and the signatories will begin to receive payments from the companies.
New York
, which on Monday already closed its part of the deal on its own, will receive more than $ 1 billion and, in return,
will withdraw the three distributors from a trial
currently taking place on Long Island, the first with a jury to be held. takes place in the United States because of the opioid crisis.
Johnson & Johnson, which was also among the defendants, had already escaped the trial after agreeing with the prosecution to pay 230 million dollars and abandon this business.
The agreement announced today will resolve
lawsuits from almost 4,000 entities
that have sued J&J, McKesson, Cardinal Health and Amerisource Bergen in federal and state courts.
The three distributors agree to pay up to $ 21 billion over 18 years, while the pharmaceutical company will pay up to $ 5 billion over the next nine years.
The agreement covers only the four companies in question
, so the thousands of actions underway against other companies, including manufacturers or large pharmacy chains, will continue.
In recent years, several companies have already agreed to pay compensation for their responsibility in the crisis.
Currently, there are ongoing lawsuits in New York and California that include companies such as
Teva
or
Allergan
, while the large
pharmacy chains
are awaiting the initiation of proceedings against them in the coming months.
Meanwhile, other companies, such as
Purdue Pharma
, considered one of the biggest culprits in the opioid problem as the manufacturer of the popular OxyContin product,
have filed
for
bankruptcy
to deal with the huge amounts of money being claimed from them.
According to authorities,
between 1999 and 2019 nearly half a million people died in the United States from opioid overdoses
.
In 2020, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics, more than 93,000 people died from drug overdoses, an increase of 30% over the previous year, which had already been a record.
Of those deaths, 69,710 were attributed to opioid overdoses.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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