Ex-opioid users laud Purdue Pharma suit
Survivors recount experiences with doctors, pain meds
HARTFORD – After a minor car crash in 2005, Sarah Howroyd sought medical attention for neck and back pain.
Her primary care doctor gave her a prescription for “an astronomical amount” of OxyContin, reassuring her the drug was not addictive.
Howroyd did not know it at the time but her Massachusetts-based physician was listed on a secret database known as “Region Zero,” maintained by Purdue Pharma, the Stamford-based producer of OxyContin. The doctors on the list were prolific prescribers of the powerful opioid.
This week, Attorney General William Tong filed new charges in the state’s lawsuit against Purdue and the company’s current and former officers, including the wealthy members of the Sackler family.
Tong said the company’s cultivation of high-prescribing physicians was part of a reckless and deceptive marketing campaign that resulted in an epidemic of opioid abuse that has led to thousands of deaths in Connecticut.
“This case fundamentally is not really
about claims and legal arguments and fraudulent conveyances and multistate actions.,” Tong said. “The point of all of these efforts are people, and families that are affected by the misconduct of the defendants. At the end of the day, it’s about the tremendous human toll … the way that Purdue and the individual defendants and others in the addiction industry prioritized their profits over the human cost of this crisis.”
On Tuesday, Howroyd and other survivors of the crisis sat in Tong’s Hartford office and recounted their descent into the hell of opioid addiction.
Brittany Niver of Manchester was a typical 14-year-old when she was involved in a serious bike crash that resulted in the loss of her teeth. To combat the pain, her doctor prescribed OxyContin.
Niver, now 24, didn’t like how the drugs made her feel. “My entire life flipped upside down … I became everything I hated,” she said. “But the doctors told me I needed them.”
Her mother, Paige Niver, also put her trust in the medical experts.
“I thought I was being a dutiful mother, giving her her pain pills as scheduled,” Paige Niver said. At one point, she also contacted the doctor, who reassured her that Brittany needed the pills. “I said maybe I shouldn’t be giving her so many and they said ‘she’s in a lot of pain.’ I was terribly uneducated about opioids.”
Brittany Niver ultimately wound up addicted to heroin; she has been sober for more than three years.
Connecticut is among 36 states suing Purdue; one state, Oklahoma, has settled its case. Thousands of counties and municipalities have also taken legal action against the company.
Connecticut’s case is based on claims that Purdue’s sales representatives made deceptive claims to patients and doctors, including that opioids were safe to treat even minor pain.
“There are … links in the chain from the manufacturer … all the way down to the victim,” Tong said. All those links are peppered with financial incentives.”
Tong praised Howroyd and Niver for taking responsibility for their addictions, “but we expanded this lawsuit because the evidence shows clearly that Purdue … poured gasoline on this fire.”
Howroyd, who now is now a social worker and co-founder of an opioid abuse prevention program in her hometown of Manchester, she is pleased Tong and other officials are seeking to hold Purdue accountable.
“Purdue Pharma took away over a decade of my life,” she said. “They took away my innocence, they took away my dignity … this is the worst man-made public health crisis in American history.”
Howroyd’s then-fiancé was also injured in the car accident and the two started buying heroin when the pills ran out. He later died of a drug overdose.
On Monday, Purdue dismissed the state’s amended complaint as one of many “misleading attacks” against the company. The lawsuit also claims Purdue fraudulently transferred money from the company to the Sacklers to limit its liability.
“The complaint is part of a continuing effort to try these cases through the media rather than the justice system,” the company said. “Such allegations demand clear evidence linking the conduct alleged to the harm described, but we believe the state fails to show such causation to support its sweeping legal claims.”
Daniela Altimari can be reached at dnaltimari@courant.com.