County sues drug-makers, distributors over opioid crisis

Federal case charges companies with nuisance, racketeering

Milwaukee County sued several pharmaceutical drug-makers and distributors Wednesday in federal district court in

Milwaukee for creating a public nuisance and violating federal racketeering laws while contributing to a local opioid epidemic of addiction and overdose deaths.

“We will show in court that their intentional lies and misdeeds are the primary driver of one of the worst addiction epidemics this country has ever seen,” County Corporation Counsel Margaret

Daun said in a statement.

“It doesn’t matter if you are a drug dealer spreading product on the street or a publicly traded Fortune 500 company.

“If you are complicit in taking the lives of the people of Milwaukee County, then we are coming after you. It is time to go on offense and force these drug companies to pay for the damages that we have incurred as a result of their conduct.”

The lawsuit attempts to eliminate the threat to public health by halting the dumping of prescription

“It doesn’t matter if you are a drug dealer spreading product on the street or a publicly traded Fortune 500 company. If you are complicit in taking the lives of the people of Milwaukee County, then we are coming after you.” Margaret Daun, Milwaukee County corporation counsel

painkillers into the community and seeks to recover millions of dollars the county has spent on treating addictions, law enforcement and other services aimed at curbing the opioid crisis, county officials said Wednesday at a courthouse news conference.

“These corporations have made billions of dollars off the sale and distribution of opioids and have done so in part by destroying lives and ripping communities apart,” County Executive Chris Abele said.

An average of just under eight opioid prescriptions were handed out for every 10 residents of the Milwaukee area in 2016, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

Studies show that 30% of patients who are prescribed an opioid for a month become addicted to the painkiller, Abele said.

There were 401 drug-related deaths in Milwaukee County in 2017, and most of those involved opioids, according to the county medical examiner’s office.

More than five times that number of people, at least 2,016, received emergency treatment for an opioid overdose last year in the county.

“Lives hang in the balance every single day, and as we fight this fight in the street, we must also fight it in the courtroom,” County Board Chairman Theodore Lipscomb Sr. said.

Six of the largest prescription drug manufacturers in the U.S. aggressively marketed opioids as a safe treatment for pain and lied about the risks of longterm use and addiction, Daun said.

The three largest wholesale drug distributors violated federal law by failing to monitor, report and halt suspicious activity in the size and frequency of opioid shipments to pharmacies and hospitals, Daun said. The companies were obligated under federal law to detect and warn authorities of dangerous drugs for non-medical purposes.

“They turned a blind eye while millions of highly addictive opioid pills flooded our community,” she said.

Drug manufacturers named in the lawsuit: Purdue Pharma of Delaware and New York; Cephalon Inc. and Teva Pharmaceuticals USA of Delaware and Pennsylvania; Janssen Pharmaceuticals of Pennsylvania and New Jersey; Endo Health Solutions and Endo Pharmaceuticals of Delaware and Pennsylvania; Allergan and Actavis of Ireland, California, Delaware and New Jersey; and Mallinckrodt of Ireland, Missouri and Delaware.

Purdue Pharma is the maker of OxyContin and Dilaudid. OxyContin is its best-selling opioid and makes up around 30% of the market for prescription painkillers with sales of up to $2.99 billion a year, the lawsuit says.

Endo Pharmaceuticals is the maker of Percocet and Percodan.

Mallinckrodt makes and markets generic oxycodone. In July 2017, the company agreed to pay $35 million to settle a series of allegations by the U.S. Justice Department that it failed to detect and notify federal authorities of suspicious orders of controlled substances.

Janssen Pharmaceuticals makes a fentanyl skin patch. Cephalon makes a fentanyl lozenge. Fentanyl is a pain medication 50 times more powerful than heroin.

Wholesale drug distributors named in the lawsuit: McKesson Corp. of Delaware and California with a distribution center in Windsor, Wis.; Cardinal Health Inc., of Ohio with a distribution center in Hudson, Wis.; and AmerisourceBergen Drug Corp. of Delaware and Pennsylvania.

In this lawsuit, Milwaukee County is represented by a consortium of state and national law firms. The firms will be paid only if the county receives a financial settlement as a result of the claims.

Separately, 60 of Wisconsin’s other 71 counties have filed lawsuits in federal district court in Milwaukee against the makers of prescription opioid painkillers.

Those counties are represented by Crueger Dickinson LLC in Whitefish Bay and Simmons Hanly Conroy LLC in New York City.