Posted on 04/30/2019 4:47:24 AM PDT by buckalfa
MOUNDSVILLE, W.Va. Thirty-seven hospitals in two states have filed a lawsuit in Marshall County against numerous opioid manufacturers, distributors, and several individuals.
Stephen Farmer of law firm Farmer, Cline, and Campbell announced the suit, calling it the first of its kind in the United States, Tuesday afternoon.
The complaint filed in court Tuesday claims evidence of a criminal conspiracy that has devastated West Virginia and tens of thousands of its families.
West Virginia University Hospitals, United Hospital Center, and Charleston Area Medical Center Health System are among three of the largest hospitals to attach their name to the suit featuring 27 West Virginia hospitals and 10 Kentucky hospitals in total.
The complaint names 22 defendants across the spectrum of pharmaceutical marketing, distribution, retail, and one known individual. The complaint also names 100 John Doe defendants whose true names the plaintiffs have yet to identify.
In part, the 341-page complaint claims marketing defendants 10 of whom are listed used key opinion Tleaders by funding, assisting, encouraging, and directing doctors and creating, funding, assisting, directing, and/or encouraging seemingly neutral and credible professional societies and patient advocacy groups to profoundly influence, and at times control, the sources that doctors and patients relied on for ostensibly neutral guidance.
The complaint further claims that the marketing defendants pushed to increase opioid sales, while the supply side was sustained by manufacturers and distributors.
On page 20, the complaint claims the defendants systematically and repatedly disregarded the health and safety of the public.
By providing misleading information to doctors about addiction being rare and opioids being safe even in high doses, then pressuring those doctors into prescribing their products by arguing, among other things, that no one should be in pain, especially chronic pain, the Marketing Defendants created a population of addicted patients who sought opioids at never-before-seen rates.
Absolutely. They could not have “not known” exactly what was going on. People need to go to prison.
I think there is definitely blame to be thrown at both sides of this. The hospitals better be careful or they could see action taken against them as well.
I don’t think the pharma companies MAKE the hospitals buy, and more importantly, distribute their products.
It isn’t like the doctors are forced to prescribe opioids.
“Stop me before I kill again”
The Doctors were being lied to by the marketing people and paid shills
Pain, the fifth vital sign, was elevated in regulations, and pushed by the AMA
The Doctors suspended disbelief, and turned a blind eye to basic neuropharmacology
instead, falling into codependency and greed
I watched this rolling disaster develop in real time
Shaking my head in disbelief (Im a clinical neurologist)
The Paid Shills were often hired gun physicians doing “consultation” meetings in offices, conferences in fancy restaurants, and other marketing maneuvers to make other physicians believe the legitimacy of the message that narcotics, used just for pain control, were not addictive. It was nauseating to watch the primary care docs fall for it hook, line, and sinker. Even worse, watching those who should have high level understanding of psychopharmacology suspend a lifetime of caution. I work in southern Appalachia and the problems here have been egregious.
And then just to be sure they shoved a bunch of pills in the patients throat and held that same gun to the patients head to make them swallow them. Heck, they may have massaged their throat to make them swallow them.
I am not a doctor. I have no medical training. I have known that opiates, like cigarettes, are addictive since I was a kid. Now these hospitals are claiming they were hornswoggled? They are either telling us that they're dumber than a teenager or it's just another money grab from deep pockets.
This reminds me of something that happened years ago.Huge fire at a RI nightclub.A hundred people,mainly kids,died.After it was discovered that the owners of the club had no insurance and no assets it was announced that Shell Oil Company (yup,the multi billion dollar one) would be sued because they had sponsored the the tour of the band ("Great White") that was playing when the fire broke out (it was determined that the bands pyrotechnics caused the fire).
Filthy lawyers...deep pockets.That's what it's all about.
And yet lawyers wonder why they're as despised as they are.
Hospital “if there is pain, press the button”
I worked in health care for 30+ years.I've had four major (or relatively major) surgical procedures done on me,all at a world famous Boston hospital.I was prescribed oxys after each one.
On all four occasions I took the oxys for 2 to 3 days and then switched to Motrin.Flushed the remaining pills down the toilet so the fish could get a good buzz.
I got no buzz from the oxys...nor was I hoping for one.And I had no trouble stopping them.
I believe such suits apportion blame through the court process. But yeah, hospitals and doctors should be codefendents. They just don’t have the really big dollars.
And when I say demanded, I'm talking smelly self-pay (= no pay) "homeless" dregs who get in your face with an "or else" attitude.
Many doctors have gotten stuck in the middle of the struggle between big pharma pushing addictive drugs (which guarantee an unlimited revenue stream) and idiot lawmakers ("idiot" because if they didn't have a career in politics they'd be homeless) and drug seeking patients.
I dont think the pharma companies MAKE the hospitals buy, and more importantly, distribute their products.
Maybe not “make” but it is rumored that Pharma companies pay doctors to prescribe their drugs.
In early days of radio that was called payola and was made illegal. Perhaps if it isn’t illegal it should be for the drug companies to pay hospitals and or doctors for prescribing their drugs.
I put it to you that,as a Neurologist,you should recognize that the AMA,JAMA,NEJM (and others) bear a huge portion,the largest portion,of the responsibility here.
And then there are the patients.Do they bear no portion of blame here? I refer you to my earlier post (can't recall the post number) regarding *my* experiences with oxys.
you must not have the chemical makeup that addicts have. I know I don’t. Pain meds just plain old either do not work on me, or they make me vomit. I will never be an addict because of that. I am like you. Operations, babies born, sinus infections—I am off the pain meds after a day or so. They don’t help me as much as ibuprofen and/or they make me throw up. We are the lucky ones.
Plenty of people do get addicted. Back pain, hip replacements, knee replacements, cancer, you name it. The problem is real.
Good. Go after the evil bastards.
Expressed concerned about the codeine and the doc kinda smiled and assured me he wasn't giving me enough to cause any kind of addiction. But if I was still having pain problems after they were gone that the Naproxin wasn't hitting to come back in because something was wrong.
And this was a zillion years ago.
Funny but I didn't much care of the effects either. Felt like it took 30 points off my IQ and it's not like I have any extra points to spare. If I had to guess I'd say that any epidemic we have is illegal drugs. Oh, yeah, I'm sure there are "script writing docs". Heard all about them when I was driving a truck back in the 60s, but I expect they're the exception. And they sure know what they're doing.
I’m the same way. Anything stronger than ibuprofen makes me queasy. I got my wisdom teeth out, all four at once, and they gave me I-don’t-know-what, but I took one. ONE. Felt utterly freaky, wouldn’t take anymore, switched to Tylenol. Like you say, I guess we’re lucky.
...I put it to you that,as a Neurologist,you should recognize that the AMA,JAMA,NEJM
The regulatory organizations pushed the Fifth Vital Sign meme
With implied penalties for undertreating pain, pushing indirectly the
aggressive use of schedule II narcotics, with the resultant
rapid increase in narcotic resistance,
accelerating dosing, addiction and associated addictive behavior
JAMA, and other periodicals, accepted advertising money
reinforcing this behavior
A lot of greed and codependent behavior
Very few clean hands out there, other that some
prophets in the wilderness railing against behavior,
perceived to be tilting at windmills
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