Washington (AFP)
A court on Monday sentenced the Johnson & Johnson group to pay $ 572 million to the state of Oklahoma for its responsibility for the opiate crisis, the first conviction of a laboratory in the United States for a crisis that has made tens of thousands of overdose deaths.
"The opiate crisis ravaged the state of Oklahoma," Judge Thad Balkman told a hearing Monday in Norman, after two months of trial.
The judge said Johnson & Johnson's Janssen laboratory had adopted "misleading marketing and opioid promotion" practices, causing a crisis of dependence on these pain medications, overdose deaths and a rise in drug use. neonatal abstinence syndromes in the state.
"The opiate crisis ravaged the state of Oklahoma and must be contained immediately," said the judge, basing his judgment on a law against "public nuisance."
The half a billion dollars asked to Johnson & Johnson will be used to finance programs in the state to remedy the crisis.
Janssen distributed the Duragesic patch and Nucynta pills, which are not the most popular opiates in the country.
One of the most popular at the peak of the crisis, Oxycontin, belongs to the big Purdue laboratory, which has chosen to settle the lawsuit with Oklahoma instead of going to trial, for a fee of 270 millions of dollars. Israeli laboratory Teva has also negotiated a $ 85 million settlement.
The lawsuit was compared to lawsuits against tobacco companies that resulted in an agreement of more than $ 200 billion in 1998.
The ruling could affect the future of nearly 2,000 other claims filed against opiate drug manufacturers in various jurisdictions in the United States.
© 2019 AFP