County to sue opioid makers and distributors
Board approves request to hire legal experts to prepare lawsuits
Milwaukee County moved closer Thursday to a legal battle with pharmaceutical drug makers and distributors suspected of contributing to the local opioid epidemic of addiction and overdose deaths.
The County Board on Thursday unanimously approved the county attorney’s request to hire legal experts to prepare lawsuits against companies whose bad faith business practices contribute to the epidemic.
Corporation Counsel Margaret Daun said she would file a lawsuit as soon as possible in an attempt to recover some of the millions of dollars the county has spent on programs and services aimed at curbing the opioid crisis.
“This is the right thing to do,” Supervisor Peggy West said. She described widespread addiction to the powerful painkillers as a public health emergency that often starts at the doctor’s office.
“A person’s addiction starts with a prescription from the doctor,” West said.
“Since 1999, the amount of prescription opioids sold in the U.S. nearly quadrupled,” states a resolution approved on an 18-0 vote. In 2015, 12.5 million people misused prescription opioids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has reported.
In 2015, more than 31,000 U.S. residents died from opioid overdoses, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Locally, the Milwaukee County medical examiner estimates there will be more than 325 opioid overdose deaths in the county this year. As of Oct. 27, the medical examiner had confirmed a total of 309 overdose deaths from all drugs including opioids and heroin.
Outside legal counsel would be paid only if the county receives a financial settlement as a result of claims made against the companies, under the resolution approved by the board.
More than two dozen states, cities and counties in the U.S. already have filed lawsuits against drug companies, as well as drugstore chains.
The county corporation counsel’s office is tracking lawsuits in Chicago; Dayton, Ohio; Suffolk County, N.Y.; and other communities and would hire a law firm with experience, Daun said.
Among the companies targeted in those legal actions: Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin and Dilaudid; Endo Pharmaceuticals, maker of Percocet and Percodan; Janssen Pharmaceuticals, maker of a fentanyl skin patch; and Cephalon Inc., maker of a fentanyl lozenge. Fentanyl is a pain medication 50 times more powerful than heroin.
Companies that have repeatedly testified before Congress that these prescription painkillers would not be addictive, as well as distributors that ship such extreme volumes of the drugs into communities that the availability feeds a secondary black market, should be held accountable, Daun said.
Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele’s recommended 2018 county budget includes $1.1 million in new spending targeting the local opioid crisis and addiction.
The plan includes adding two employees — a forensic chemist and forensic pathologist — for the medical examiner’s office to respond to an increased number of autopsies due to overdose deaths.
The medical examiner’s office also would purchase an advanced mass spectrometer instrument to reduce the time required for screening drugs by 80%, and provide that information to law enforcement and public health officials. The county and City of Milwaukee would split the $400,000 cost of the equipment.
In 2018, the Behavioral Health Division would boost spending on the county’s AODA (Alcohol and Other Drug Addiction) residential treatment program by $700,000 under the plan. The division also receives $200,000 to establish a nonmedical, peer-run respite program to help people deal with a short-term crisis in their addiction recovery and connect them to other programs.