A bold breakthrough against Big Pharma

Compared with the landmark US$27.5 billion settlement states made in 1998 with Big Tobacco, Oklahoma’s court victory and $572 million judgment against opioid maker Johnson & Johnson might seem a bit paltry. But it marks a giant step toward holding big pharmaceutical companies to the same standard that cigarette makers ultimately embraced: that they bear responsibility for the addictions and 400,000 overdose deaths their products caused.

Predictably, the company denies responsibility, offering thoughts-and-prayers hollow empathy for the thousands of lives destroyed by their opioids while insisting that the company’s hands are clean. If doctors overprescribed, that’s their problem.

Oklahoma’s Republican attorney-general, Mike Hunter, argued that, in fact, the company downplayed the addictive nature of its products, giving doctors a false sense of security that they could prescribe the pills and patches with minimal fear of endangering patient health. Marketing campaigns were tailored to encourage prescribing the drugs for women, teenagers and veterans. Former patients were engaged to give testimonials about opioids’ safety. Diabolical and malicious is how Hunter described the company’s actions.

It is now up to other states to build on his bold breakthrough and force the kind of multibilliondollar mass settlement that will make Big Pharma pay for the damage it has inflicted across America.