Lawsuit should at least spur warning labels

When it comes to finding fault for the opiate drug epidemic, there’s plenty of blame to spread around.

While those who are prescribed pain medications have an obligation to understand the risks and the addictive nature of the pills they take, more urgent warnings should be provided by doctors and even more so by drugmakers.

The latter group was added to the discussion recently when Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine sued five drug manufacturers for flooding the state with addictive painkillers and putting “profits above the health and well-being of Ohio consumers.”

Many Ohioans who have turned to heroin, fentanyl and other synthetic opioids in recent years first became addicted to prescribed painkillers like OxyContin, Vicodin or Percocet.

DeWine alleged in his suit that manufacturers spent millions of dollars aggressively marketing their addictive products to doctors and then would “deny and trivialize” the impact of addictive opioids on patients.

Because of the manufacturers’ deceptive practices, DeWine says, the companies “helped unleash a health care crisis that has had farreaching financial, social and deadly consequences in the state of Ohio.”

The suit seeks a court injunction to stop the manufacturers, which he also accused of Medicaid fraud and violating the Ohio Consumer Sales Practices Act. It seeks damages on behalf of the state and repayment to consumers.

Ohio has already done much to close “pill mills” and to control and monitor the number of prescription opioids that doctors dispense. But drugmakers should shoulder some of the responsibility, too . ...

DeWine’s action may not lead to the kind of financial settlement reached after tobacco companies were sued by states in the 1990s. But it should at least result in improved consumer education of opioid dangers. Bold warning labels, like those now attached to cigarette packs, should appear on bottles of prescribed painkillers.

Here’s one we would recommend: This medication is addictive and can lead to death.

Read the full editorial from the Findlay Courier at bit.ly/2qZ6tNi