Lorain County files suit against drug companies, doctors

Lorain County has followed the lead of the cities of Lorain and Elyria and filed its own lawsuit against opioid pill manufacturers and distributors.

The voluminous suit was filed Dec. 13 in Lorain County Common Pleas Court and names Purdue Pharma L.P., Purdue Pharma Inc., The Purdue Frederick Company Inc., Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc., Cephalon Inc., Johnson & Johnson, Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc., Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Inc., Endo Pharmaceuticals, Allergan PLC, Actavis Inc., Watson Laboratories Inc., Actavis LLC, Actavis Pharma Inc., Endo Health Solutions Inc., Insys Therapeutics Inc., McKesson Corporation, Cardinal Health Inc. Amerisourcebergen Drug Corporation, Miami-Luken Inc., Russell Portenoy, Perry Fine, Scott Fishman and Lynn Webster as defendants.

Lorain filed suit June 29 and Elyria on Nov. 28.

All three suits claim the various companies’ “corporate greed” has directly and negatively impacted the communities by creating and exacerbating the opioid crisis.

The county suit takes the laying of blame a step further though, as Portenoy, Fine, Fishman and Webster are physicians.

The Elyria suits only named manufacturers and distributors as defendants.

Specifically, the county’s complaint cites the money it expends on health care for those affected by the opioids, law enforcement to combat the opioid epidemic and services provided to the families of addicts.

According to the filing, the defendants were and are aware of the dangers of the opioids they produce, but underwent a campaign in the late-1990s to today to make them seem safe.

It said the defendants did so by spending “hundreds of millions of dollars” creating materials that misrepresented the risks and benefits of opioid use, sending sales representatives who presented the misleading information directly to doctors and hospitals and recruiting physicians as paid spokespeople.

“These efforts, executed, developed, supported and directed by defendants, were designed not to present a fair view of how and when opioids could be safely and effectively used, but rather to convince doctors and patients that the benefits of using opioids to treat chronic pain outweighed the risks and that opioids could be used safely by most patients,” the suit says.

According to the suit, these efforts were successful with doctors writing 259 million prescriptions for opioids in 2012; “enough to medicate every adult in America around the clock for a month.”

That same year, opioids brought in $8 billion in revenue, the suit says.

The county is seeking compensatory damages, treble damage, punitive damages, interest, imposition of an award of actual and triple the actual damages to the county, an order to abate the public nuisance and other relief.

The suit demands a jury trial to be heard by Common Pleas Judge Raymond J. Ewers.