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Trial Against Opioid Distributors Set To Begin In W.Va.
By: Associated Press
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CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A trial is set to start in a lawsuit filed in West Virginia accusing three drug distributors of fueling a local opioid epidemic with excessively large shipments of painkillers over several years. The city of Huntington and Cabell County filed the lawsuit against drug distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson. The… Read More
Purdue Pharma Offers Restructuring Plan, Sackler Family Would Give Up Ownership
By: Brian Mann | NPR
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Under a bankruptcy plan filed late Monday, the OxyContin maker would pay $500 million up front, promising billions in future payments. Twenty-four states rejected the proposal.
Addiction In The Pandemic: The $350M Effort To Heal Communities In Opioid Crisis
By: Corinne Boyer | Ohio Valley ReSource
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MADISON COUNTY, Ky. (OVR) — The Madison County health department in Kentucky has kept its harm reduction program open throughout the COVID-19 pandemic to continue its work against the other epidemic afflicting the region: the addiction crisis. Through the program, people can exchange needles, receive referrals for addiction treatment services, and get training to use… Read More
WATCH: How A Powerful Corporate Consulting Firm Helped Create The Opioid Epidemic
By: PBS Newshour
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WASHINGTON, D.C. (NewsHour) — The opioids crisis that has taken hundreds of thousands of American lives has received less attention in the pandemic, but drug overdoses and deaths have grown during the last year. Now, one of the world’s most powerful corporate consulting firms has agreed to a major settlement for its role in the sale… Read More
Ohio Valley States Will Reap $45M From Opioid Suit Settlement With McKinsey Consulting
By: Jeff Young | Ohio Valley ReSource
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LOUSIVILLE, Ky. (OVR) — Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia will collectively receive roughly $45 million as part of settlement agreements announced Thursday resolving lawsuits against consulting giant McKinsey & Company related to the opioid epidemic. States had sued McKinsey because the company had advised opioid medication makers and distributors for several years during the height… Read More
Consulting Giant McKinsey To Settle Opioid Claims For $573 Million
By: Brian Mann | NPR
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McKinsey is the latest major American corporation to face legal, financial and public relations peril stemming from its role in the nation’s deadly opioid epidemic.
Ohio Saw Record Surge In Opioid Overdose Deaths Last Year
By: WOUB News Team
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(WOUB) — Deaths from opioid overdoses hit a record high in Ohio last year. During the three months of the second quarter, the overdose death rate statewide was 11.01 per 100,000 population, according to an analysis by the state’s Scientific Committee on Opioid Prevention and Education (SCOPE). This was higher than at any point since… Read More
Worsening Opioid Crisis Overshadowed In Presidential Race
By: Farnoush Amiri | Geoff Mulvihill | AP
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COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Like millions of Americans, Diane Urban watched the first presidential debate last month at home with her family. When it was over, she turned off the television and climbed into the bed her 25-year-old son Jordan used to sleep in. It was where she found Jordan’s lifeless body after he overdosed… Read More
Purdue Pharma Reaches $8B Opioid Deal With Justice Department Over Oxycontin Sales
By: Brian Naylor | NPR
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Critics say the settlement doesn’t hold company executives or members of the Sackler family accountable for their aggressive marketing of Oxycontin which helped fuel the nation’s opioid epidemic.
Lawyers Seek To Halt Purdue Pharma Political Contributions
By: Associated Press
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STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) — OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma’s creditors want a federal bankruptcy judge to order the company to request permission before making any more political contributions. The issue arose this week after a report that the company gave to political organizations after declaring bankruptcy. Associations representing Democratic and Republican attorneys general and Republican governors have… Read More
*** POSTPONED***WOUB Presents Drug Court Documentary in Athens***
***THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED DUE TO ANTICIPATED COLD TEMPERATURES.*** __________________ ATHENS, Ohio – Most know that Ohio has drug courts in many counties across the state that are specifically designed for people with substance use disorders. Drug courts offer those individuals the opportunity to enter long-term drug treatment and agree to court supervision rather… Read More
Opioid Negotiations Fail to Produce Deal Just Before Trial
By: Geoff Mulvihill | AP
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Negotiations aimed at reaching a major settlement in the nation’s opioid litigation reached an impasse Friday. Key differences were between state attorneys general and lawyers representing local governments, rather than with the drugmakers and distributors they are suing. One of the negotiators, North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, said late Friday that local governments did… Read More
Several Big Drug Companies Considering Massive Settlements To Resolve Opioid Suits
By: Brian Mann | Colin Dwyer | Nick Castele | NPR
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Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson and other health care giants are discussing potential deals with authorities that could resolve thousands of lawsuits they’re facing over the U.S. opioid epidemic.
Feds: Pharmacy Ignored Red Flags When Filling Prescriptions
By: Associated Press
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CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Federal prosecutors say they’ve suspended a West Virginia pharmacy’s registration for improperly dispensing prescription drugs. U.S. Attorney Mike Stuart announced the suspension against Oak Hill Hometown Pharmacy on Thursday. Stuart says the pharmacy filled about 2,000 prescriptions for a widely-misused drug called Subutex over a three-year period despite red flags that… Read More
Ohio Governor: ‘No Doubt’ Drugmakers Caused Opioid Crisis
By: Associated Press
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COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine says evidence made public over the past two weeks makes clear that drugmakers were responsible for the U.S. opioid crisis. The Republican spoke Friday at a joint appearance with U.S. drug czar Jim Carroll, the president’s chief drug policy adviser. The two were highlighting record usage of… Read More
Ohio-Based Drug Company, 4 People Indicted in US Painkiller Probe
By: Dan Sewell | Associated Press
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CINCINNATI (AP) — A wholesale drug distributor linked to the flood of opioids into Appalachia and two of its former executives were charged with conspiring to illegally distribute millions of painkiller pills, federal authorities said Thursday. The former executives of Ohio-based Miami-Luken — the president and compliance officer — along with two pharmacists in West… Read More
Buried in Opioids, Sickened Community Eyes Drugmakers’ Role
By: Angie Wang | John Minchillo | Associated Press
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JACKSON, Ohio (AP) — The numbers are staggering: An average yearly total of 107 opioid pills per resident were distributed over a seven-year period in this rural Appalachian county. The newly released federal data is shocking even to people who live here in Jackson County, where nearly everyone seems to have known someone who died… Read More
New Data Show Opioid Deaths May Have Peaked, And Reveal Scale Of Past Pain Pill Sales
By: Aaron Payne | Ohio Valley ReSource
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Two newly released sets of government data show that the death toll from the nation’s opioid crisis may finally be dropping and also reveal the scale of the pain pill sales that help set the crisis in motion. The data for the Ohio Valley show how hard the region was hit and how hard people… Read More
Released Data Shows Spread of 76 Billion Opioid Pills
By: Associated Press
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CLEVELAND (AP) — Newly public federal data shows how drug companies increased shipments of opioid painkillers across the U.S. as a national addiction crisis accelerated from 2006 to 2012. The data reported Tuesday by The Washington Post shows that companies distributed 8.4 billion hydrocodone and oxycodone pills to commercial pharmacies in 2006 and 12.6 billion… Read More
Heartland High: Ohio’s First School For Students With Addiction
By: Paige Pfleger | WOSU
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Bouncing on a purple exercise ball, Alyssa talks to her new teacher about what classes she needs to graduate. “There’s a Psychology 1 as an elective, I would take that, but I already took psychology and sociology… And I feel like Heartland in general is a psychology class,” she adds, laughing. Alyssa is one of… Read More
“They Are Invisible.” Rural Homelessness, Made Worse By Opioid Crisis
By: Mary Meehan | Ohio Valley ReSource
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Charles “Country” Bowers takes long, quick strides down a worn dirt path and is soon in front of a thicket of bushes made deep and tall by spring rains. He’s leading me on a tour of camps made by homeless people in wooded corners of Fayette County, Kentucky. He stops and lifts a hand to… Read More
Drug Company Gilead Gives $11M To Halt Hep C Rise In Ohio Valley
By: Lisa Gillespie | Ohio Valley ReSource
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Drug maker Gilead Sciences will give $11.3 million to help prevent and treat hepatitis C in Kentucky, Indiana, West Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina. That money is part of a five-year project aimed at a region that’s been hit hard by the viral disease. About 43,000 people in Kentucky have hepatitis C, according to recent estimates from Emory University. A 2017 report showed… Read More
Drug Distributor And Former Execs Face First Criminal Charges In Opioid Crisis
By: Richard Gonzales I NPR
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A DEA official said the indictments are meant to send “shock waves” through the pharmaceutical industry to remind it of its responsibility to help control prescription medications.
County Jails Struggle With A New Role As America’s Prime Centers For Opioid Detox
By: Eric Westervelt | NPR
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The National Sheriffs’ Association has published a detailed guide to jail-based medication-assisted treatment. States hardest hit by opioids are moving fastest to get inmates the help needed to quit.
Filing: OxyContin Maker Forecast ‘Blizzard Of Prescriptions’
By: Associated Press
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BOSTON (AP) — A member of the family that owns OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma told people at the prescription opioid painkiller’s launch party in the 1990s that it would be “followed by a blizzard of prescriptions that will bury the competition,” according to court documents filed Tuesday. The details were made public in a case… Read More