U.S. Judge Finds For 3 Drug Distributors In W.Va. Opioid Lawsuit

A federal judge has ruled in favor of three major U.S. drug distributors in a landmark lawsuit filed in West Virginia.

A federal judge on Monday ruled in favor of three major U.S. drug distributors in a landmark lawsuit that accused them of causing a health crisis by distributing 81 million pills over eight years in one West Virginia county ravaged by opioid addiction.

The verdict came nearly a year after closing arguments in a bench trial in the lawsuit filed by Cabell County and the city of Huntington against AmerisourceBergen Drug Co., Cardinal Health Inc. and McKesson Corp.

“The opioid crisis has taken a considerable toll on the citizens of Cabell County and the City of Huntington. And while there is a natural tendency to assign blame in such cases, they must be decided not based on sympathy, but on the facts and the law,” U.S. District Judge David Faber wrote in the 184-page ruling. “In view of the court’s findings and conclusions, the court finds that judgment should be entered in defendants’ favor.”

Cabell County attorney Paul Farrell had argued the distributors should be held responsible for sending a “tsunami” of prescription pain pills into the community and that the defendants’ conduct was unreasonable, reckless and disregarded the public’s health and safety in an area ravaged by opioid addiction.

The companies blamed an increase in prescriptions written by doctors along with poor communication and pill quotas set by federal agents.

While the lawsuit alleged the distributors created a public nuisance, Faber said West Virginia’s Supreme Court has only applied public nuisance law in the context of conduct that interferes with public property or resources. He said to extend the law to cover the marketing and sale of opioids “is inconsistent with the history and traditional notions of nuisance.”

Faber noted that the plaintiffs offered no evidence that the defendants distributed controlled substances to any entity that didn’t hold a proper registration from the Drug Enforcement Agency or the state Board of Pharmacy. The defendants also had suspicious monitoring systems in place as required by the Controlled Substances Act, he said.

“Plaintiffs failed to show that the volume of prescription opioids distributed in Cabell/Huntington was because of unreasonable conduct on the part of defendants,” Faber wrote.

In a statement, Cardinal Health said the judge’s ruling “recognizes what we demonstrated in court, which is that we do not manufacture, market, or prescribe prescription medications but instead only provide a secure channel to deliver medications of all kinds from manufacturers to our thousands of hospital and pharmacy customers that dispense them to their patients based on doctor-ordered prescriptions.

“As we continue to fulfill our limited role in the pharmaceutical supply chain, we operate a constantly adaptive and rigorous system to combat controlled substance diversion and remain committed to being part of the solution to the opioid crisis.”

Attorneys for the plaintiffs said they were “deeply disappointed” in the ruling.

“We felt the evidence that emerged from witness statements, company documents, and extensive datasets showed these defendants were responsible for creating and overseeing the infrastructure that flooded West Virginia with opioids. Outcome aside, our appreciation goes out to the first responders, public officials, treatment professionals, researchers, and many others who gave their testimony to bring the truth to light.”

Huntington Mayor Steve Williams said the ruling was “a blow to our city and community, but we remain resilient even in the face of adversity.

“The citizens of our city and county should not have to bear the principal responsibility of ensuring that an epidemic of this magnitude never occurs again.”

The plaintiffs had sought more than $2.5 billion that would have gone toward abatement efforts. The goal of the 15-year abatement plan would have been to reduce overdoses, overdose deaths and the number of people with opioid use disorder.

Last year in Cabell County, an Ohio River county of 93,000 residents, there were 1,067 emergency responses to suspected overdoses — significantly higher than each of the previous three years — with at least 158 deaths. So far this year, suspected overdoses have prompted at least 358 responses and 465 emergency room visits, according to preliminary data from the state Department of Health and Human Resources’ Office of Drug Control Policy.

The U.S. addiction crisis was inflamed by the COVID-19 pandemic with drug overdose deaths surpassing 100,000 in the 12-month period ending in April 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s the highest number of overdose deaths ever recorded in a year.

The Cabell-Huntington lawsuit was the first time allegations involving opioid distribution ended up at federal trial. The result could have huge effects on similar lawsuits. Some have resulted in multimillion-dollar settlements, including a tentative $161.5 million settlement reached in May by the state of West Virginia with Teva Pharmaceuticals Inc., AbbVie’s Allergan and their family of companies.

In all, more than 3,000 lawsuits have been filed by state and local governments, Native American tribes, unions, hospitals and other entities in state and federal courts over the toll of opioids. Most allege that either drug makers, distribution companies or pharmacies created a public nuisance in a crisis that’s been linked to the deaths of 500,000 Americans over the past two decades.

In separate, similar lawsuits, the state of West Virginia reached a $37 million settlement with McKesson in 2019, and $20 million with Cardinal Health and $16 million with AmerisourceBergen in 2017.

WVU Students Want To Educate Classmates About Fentanyl

The new group, called Mountaineer Fentanyl Education Task Force, hopes to educate their peers about fentanyl.

A new student group at West Virginia University hopes to educate their peers about fentanyl.

The new group, called Mountaineer Fentanyl Education Task Force, was announced on Woodburn Circle at WVU’s Morgantown campus Wednesday afternoon.

The group’s mission is to inform classmates about the unique dangers of synthetic opioids like fentanyl, as well as existing resources for students on campus.

Task force chair, junior Azeem Khan, said as a West Virginian, he knows all too well the impacts of the opioid crisis.

“I didn’t want to wait 10 years to start doing my part to help,” Khan said. “I wanted to try and do something right now, as small as it is. If we can save one life, I think that’s worth it.”

Undergraduate leaders were joined by U.S. Attorney for the Northern District William Ihlenfeld.

Khan said it was a focus group on fentanyl facilitated by the U.S. Attorney’s office that opened his eyes to the serious issue of synthetic opioids.

“It motivated us to take that education that we receive, and try to find a way to share that with every single student on our campus,” he said.

WV GameChangers Executive Director Joe Boczek was also on-hand to lend his support to the task force.

“This will not be an overnight fix,” Boczek said. “This will be a time consuming fix, but it will be a fix because we will educate a generation of our kids just how bad these drugs are.”

WV GameChangers, and the larger national GameChangers network, work with the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation to build school environments which prevent student opioid and other drug use before it starts.

Although the Mountaineer Fentanyl Education Task Force is not directly affiliated with the GameChangers program, Boczek said he is happy to support a student-led initiative, and hopes to see many more like it across the state.

“This is going to take tons of people from all walks of life, all professions, corporations, education, business, everything,” Boczek said. “This is a fight this country better take because if not, our communities are going to be decimated.”

White House Renews Push For HIV Treatment, Prevention

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, slightly more than half of West Virginians with HIV are receiving treatment. The national goal is 80 percent.

West Virginia has seen a surge in new HIV cases in the past couple of years. The White House is mounting a campaign to increase awareness of treatment options.

Medication can suppress HIV so that people living with the virus have virtually no risk of transmitting it. Yet according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, slightly more than half of West Virginians with HIV are receiving treatment. The national goal is 80 percent.

Tim Harrison, a senior policy adviser on HIV and AIDS policy at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, says the state is part of a renewed focus by the Biden administration on HIV prevention and treatment.

“What the numbers really tell us is there are not enough people who are virally suppressed,” he said. “Viral suppression is the gold standard if we want individuals with HIV to live healthy lives as well as not being able to transmit the virus to their sexual partners.”

West Virginians who are at the highest risk for HIV might not know there is an effective medication that can prevent them from getting the virus. It’s called PrEP, and only a fraction of the people who fall in that category are taking it.

Needle exchange programs are another effective tool for preventing HIV transmission. But state and local governments have enacted policies to discourage needle exchanges.

Stigma, lack of health insurance and homelessness are factors that can also discourage HIV prevention and treatment.

The opioid epidemic has been a driver of increased HIV infections in a number of states, including West Virginia. Harrison says the problem needs more attention than it’s received.

“I think that West Virginia has gone under the radar, perhaps far too long,” he said. “And I think it’s really important that we’re recognizing the need that exists there.”

Harrison’s goal is to get more people into care and stay in care.

W.Va. Took On J&J Alone And Got $99 Million Settlement

The drugmaker Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, has settled for $99 million with the state of West Virginia for its alleged role in the opioid crisis.

The drugmaker Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, has settled for $99 million with the state of West Virginia for its alleged role in the opioid crisis.

“It’s far higher than what anyone ever expected West Virginia to get,” West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said.

The deal came two weeks into a bench trial naming Janssen and two other drugmakers, Teva and Allergan, as defendants.

A fourth pain pill manufacturer, Endo, was named in the case but settled before the trial began.

Johnson & Johnson said it would settle for billions of dollars to end lawsuits across the nation. But West Virginia did not sign on to that deal. Instead the state with the highest rate of drug overdose deaths said it would take the drug maker on alone. Morrisey said that’s why the state will receive twice as much as it would have from the national settlement.

“That’s because of all the work we’re doing out of this office to argue that settlements should be based on severity not based on population.”

Counties and cities in West Virginia have 45 days to approve the deal. Morrisey’s office put forth a formula earlier this year to decide how opioid settlement funds would be distributed. It says a quarter would go to municipalities and the rest would go to a tax exempt nonprofit organization created by the state to distribute the money. The governor and municipalities would appoint the nonprofit’s board members.

Morrisey said the settlement is a win in part because it would send money to combat the crisis sooner rather than later.

“You reach an agreement because there’s obviously going to be risk for both sides in a trial,” Morrisey said. “We can save lives this year.”

Huntington and Cabell County took three drug distributors to trial about a year ago and a verdict has not yet been issued.

The current opioid trial in Kanawha County will continue for up to six more weeks. Further settlements could be reached before the end of the trial if the state, defendants and judges agree to it.

“We’re only going to settle if there’s a deal on the table that is absolutely in the best interest of West Virginia,” Morrisey said.

Expert: Supply Poured ‘Gasoline’ On Opioid Crisis

Testimony in an ongoing opioid trial in Charleston suggests supply had more to do with the opioid crisis in West Virginia than any other factor.

Testimony in an ongoing opioid trial in Charleston suggests supply had more to do with the opioid crisis in West Virginia than any other factor.

Dr. Katherine Keyes is the director of Columbia University’s Psychiatric Epidemiology Training Program. She said supply made a greater impact on the epidemic than poverty, job loss and other economic stressors.

While economic conditions were the “kindling” of the crisis, she said “the opioid suppliers were the gasoline that was poured directly on that kindling.”

The state of West Virginia is currently suing Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc., Teva Pharmaceuticals Inc., AbbVie Inc.’s Allergan and their family of companies.

Last summer Cabell County and the City of Huntington sued three drug distributors in Federal Court, but there has been no decision in that case.

A trial on whether pharmacy chain Walgreens bears responsibility for the opioid crisis started Monday in Florida. The cases are pressing ahead even as companies have been settling many of the claims filed by state and local governments across the U.S.

Going to trial brings risk for both sides. If the suing governments win, they could get major payments. But rulings for the companies could help bolster their cases that they shouldn’t be held liable for a complicated epidemic linked to the deaths of more than 500,000 Americans over two decades.

W.Va. Overdose Deaths Slow Down As Pandemic Winds Down

Those in recovery have a phrase: the opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety, it’s human connection. That’s why federal and state officials say fatal overdoses rose to new heights during the early, most isolating days of the pandemic.

“There’s a clear correlation with regard to the pandemic and the isolation and the inability to access support services for folks who have [substance use disorder],” said West Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Resources Bill Crouch.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated last November that fatal overdoses nationwide had risen to 100,000 a year, a new record. Data now suggest these deaths may be slowing down.

Provisional data show reported overdose deaths plateaued nationwide, and decreased 15 percent in West Virginia, from April to September of 2021. The CDC says it takes four months to estimate the number of deaths, and up to a year to accurately report these deaths.

Crouch said more treatment and wrap-around services are being offered in recent years with direction from the Governor’s Council on Substance Abuse and Prevention and DHHR’s Office of Drug Control Policy, led by Dr. Matthew Christiansen.

“In 2018, with the efforts we were going forward with, we had a 22 percent reduction in overdose deaths. In 2019, we had a 13 percent reduction in overdose. And then the pandemic hit,” Crouch said. “We ended up with a lot of folks who lost those contacts, lost those resources, lost a lot of the support mechanisms they needed to tackle this.”

Crouch said much of those services returned or even expanded last year. Record numbers of naloxone, an overdose reversal treatment, were distributed by state agencies, local health departments and grassroots volunteers.

“There are hundreds of West Virginians working every day, unpaid and largely unacknowledged, to get naloxone where it needs to be, and hundreds more doing the extremely emotional work of reversing overdoses,” said Dr. Robin Pollini, an infectious disease doctor specializing in substance use disorder. “It’s always good news when we hear fatal overdoses are down. That said, this is a marathon and not a sprint.”

DHHR recommends anyone with substance use disorder looking for help to contact HELP4WV, which offers 24/7 confidential support and resource referrals through call, text, and chat lines. HELP4WV also offers a Children’s Crisis and Referral line. Residents may call HELP4WV at 844-HELP4WV, text at 844-435-7498, or chat at www.help4wv.com.

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