The painkiller manufacturers, Johnson & Johnson must pay millions to Oklahoma – the group rates with the Marketing of its products to high Dependency and Overdose deaths contributed.
Ambulance service staff treat in Boston, a patient with Opioid Overdose
One of the worst drug crises in the history of America goes back on the pills, to help people actually: Strong painkillers, which Doctors prescribe to their patients, for example after an accident or surgery. These opioids can be highly addictive – sometimes, the prescribed amount is no longer sufficient after a short period of time. The men and women who go through the day, you need to find other, more dangerous ways to get the pills. Others to rise to illegal drugs. Overall, the Opioid has cost epidemic in the past two decades, approximately 400,000 people in the United States, the life, to 2017, the US President, Donald Trump declared the crisis a public health emergency.
In the state of Oklahoma, which lies in the middle of the country North of Texas since 2000, according to official figures, around 6,000 people to the consequences of the Opioid crisis died. Now a judge in Oklahoma has made a Responsible for the epidemic: The pharmaceutical giants that manufacture the painkiller market, and the man, or the doctor, bring.
On Monday sentenced judge Thad Balkman of the pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson to make a payment of 572 million dollars. The company have set to be “false, misleading and dangerous PR-campaigns” in the world, which would have led to “exponentially increased Rates of addiction [and] cases of death by Overdose,” wrote Balkman in his judgment.
In October 2017, US President, Donald Trump declared the Opioid epidemic a national health emergency
The case was brought by lawyers of the Federal government in court. They had demanded a sentence of more than 17 billion dollars. 2018 Johnson & Johnson recorded sales of almost 81.6 billion US dollars. Sentenced as a reaction to the relatively small amount of Johnson & Johnson was, the share price of the company after the delivery of the judgment by 5 percent.
Risks of the painkillers played down
For Oklahoma’s attorney General, Mike Hunter, the judgment, despite the lower-than-expected sum of money a profit. “Today is an important victory for Oklahoma, the Nation, and for anyone who has lost a loved one to an Opioid Overdose,” said Hunter on Monday. Johnson & Johnson is part of the “most deadly man-made epidemic, our country has seen ever.”
Oklahoma prosecutors had sued the pharmaceutical company because he recognized over the years, the effectiveness of his pain medication is too high and the risks to be dependent, down-played. Representatives of the company should have encouraged Doctors to prescribe more and more opioids. In material such as flyers and Online advertising Spots should not have been made consumers sufficiently about the possible consequences of the strong painkillers carefully. Instead, the opioids were presented as simple solutions.
With two other pharmaceutical companies that had sued Oklahoma for the same reasons, it was already come to a settlement out of court. Teva Pharmaceutical Industries paid the state of 85 million US dollars, of Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of the widely used painkiller Oxycontin, came to 270 million US dollars.
Video 05 view:58 Share
The children of the addicts in the United States
Facebook Twitter google+ send Tumblr VZ Xing Newsvine Digg
Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/2r2NW
The children of the addicts in the United States
Pharmaceutical group is the Doctors responsibility
Sabrina Strong, a legal representative of the company, said on Tuesday that the Marketing of Johnson & Johnson is regulated by the rules of the US Agency for food and drug (FDA), to which the company think carefully. With the drugs they wanted to help patients whose needs could not otherwise be covered.
For the Opioid epidemic, “a serious health crisis,” the pharmaceutical manufacturers have no responsibility, said Strong in an Interview with radio station NPR. “The only way you can legally get these drugs, if a doctor you to waste”, – said the lawyer. “The Doctors have to decide who is a suitable Patient.”
The procedure of Oklahoma, was observed throughout the country with voltage. It is regarded as a Signal for more than 2,000 similar cases in which the manufacturer, wholesaler, or seller of painkillers because of their role in the Opioid crisis in court. The case of Johnson & Johnson in Oklahoma could drag on even longer: The lawyers of the group have already announced their intention to appeal.