Counties take aim at drug manufacturers

It’s a long shot, but, hey, it’s worth a try — Carbon County is joining with other counties, communities and states across the nation in bringing suit against the big pharmaceutical and drug companies charging them with complicity in our out-of-control opioid epidemic.

These contingency-type cases, where a law firm gets a sizable percentage of any settlement, rarely live up to their potential billing, but sometimes the stars conjoin to result in a big payday for the litigants and, particularly, the law firms.

Carbon and the others have entered into an agreement with Marc J. Bern & Partners of New York City in which the law firm would get 25 percent of any settlement funds.

“We’re reacting to a national epidemic on a local scale, so we know a lot of eyes will be on us, and we are prepared for what will likely be a long legal battle,” founding partner Marc J. Bern said.

This effort is not unprecedented. Think of the huge settlement with four big tobacco companies in 1997 totaling a whopping $206 billion over the first 25-year period of the agreement.

In the Carbon case, it is joining with at least 17 other counties in Pennsylvania in identifying companies they say have engaged in misleading marketing tactics that have been partially responsible for the surging number of deaths and overdoses attributed to the use of opioids.

Our five-county area has been ravaged by the use of opioids for the past several years, and, despite all of the dire warnings, counseling and interventions, the problem continues to grow. Over the past 10 years, opioid usage has increased significantly nationwide among adults, driven in large part by the long-term use of prescription painkillers.

This opioid crisis has become a major public health concern which has affected hundreds of thousands of individuals and their families and has cost our economy millions of dollars.

It has left counties such as Carbon to pick up the financial pieces, so the county commissioners are searching for ways to help mitigate the costs to deal with this crisis.

Communities all over the country are seizing on the idea of making the drug companies, which have aggressively marketed these painkillers, to be held responsible for mitigating some of the costs the counties have encountered.

Drug overdoses are the leading cause of death among Americans under the age of 50; two-thirds of these come from opioids. Pennsylvania ranks sixth in the nation with 27.4 deaths per 100,000 population. West Virginia has the highest rate with 41.5 deaths per 100,000, while Nebraska has the lowest rate at 6.9.

In 2016, the last year for which figures are available, more than 64,000 Americans died from overdoses, a staggering 21 percent increase from the previous year. It was 4,000 in 1999.

Nearly 80 percent of heroin users surveyed reported misusing prescription opioids before their heroin addiction.

Among the five counties in the Times News area, Schuylkill and Northampton are below the statewide average, according to figures released by the Pennsylvania State Coroners’ Association. Schuylkill recorded 16.6 deaths per 100,000 population, while Northampton’s rate was 23.6. The highest local rate is in Lehigh County, 31.9; followed by Carbon, 28.1; and Monroe, 27.6.

The Pennsylvania counties that are part of the suit will seek to implicate 11 pharmaceutical companies and several consulting physicians who they allege used promotional campaigns to encourage widespread and prolonged use of powerful painkillers despite knowing that these products could cause addiction and damaging health complications.

Drugmakers have earned more than $10 billion in the sale of such products as Vicodin, OxyContin, Percocet and other potent painkillers. According to government statistics, nearly half of the deaths attributed to opioid overdoses are caused by the abuse of these products.

Vicodin is made by Abbott Laboratories, Percocet by Endo Pharmacies and OxyContin by Purdue Laboratories. In 2007, the Purdue drug firm paid $634.5 million, one of the largest fines ever levied against a pharmaceutical company, for mislabeling OxyContin. Three of its executives were found guilty of criminal charges. Although the company has shifted to abuse-deterrent products, Purdue continues to sell and market opioids and is still involved in numerous lawsuits surrounding the opioid crisis.

Last year, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro joined 40 other attorneys general in announcing that they had served subpoenas on companies that make painkillers and also are seeking information from several major distributors. All of this is with the backdrop of the recent declaration of a statewide opioid addiction emergency by Gov. Tom Wolf. This is the first time that a governor has declared an emergency of this type for other than a natural disaster such as floods or major snowstorms.

So, we say to Carbon and other interested counties, go for it. There is much to gain if this quest is successful.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com