J&J Pays $99M to Settle Suit for Causing West Virginia's Opioid Crisis. J&J Concealed, Mischaracterized and Failed to Disclose Risks of Addiction and Serious Health Risks, just Like COVID Vax

From [HERE] Johnson & Johnson will pay $99 million to settle a lawsuit in West Virginia that alleges the company helped fuel the state’s opioid crisis, removing the company from a trial that began this month.

West Virginia was one of several states that didn’t join a nationwide $5 billion opioid settlement that J&J  completed in February to resolve state and local government lawsuits against the company. 

J&J said Monday that its settlement with the West Virginia attorney general isn’t an admission of wrongdoing and that its marketing and promotion of prescription opioids were appropriate and responsible. The company no longer sells prescription opioids in the U.S.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said the settlement allowed the state to recover more than double the $48 million that the company had offered it in the national settlement.

“It was absolutely the correct decision to proceed to trial,” Mr. Morrisey said. “This settlement will provide significant help to those affected the most by the opioid crisis in West Virginia.”

The trial in Kanawha County is continuing against Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. and AbbVie Inc.’s Allergan and affiliated companies.

In that case, Mr. Morrisey alleges that the companies concealed, mischaracterized and failed to disclose the serious risk of addiction and promoted higher dosage amounts without disclosing inherently greater risks, among other things.

Teva declined to comment. Allergan didn’t respond to a request for comment. 

A separate bench trial was held last summer in federal court in Charleston, W.Va., in which Cabell County and the city of Huntington, W. Va., accused drug wholesalers McKessonCorp., AmerisourceBergen Corp. and Cardinal Health Inc. of creating a public nuisance when they shipped 81 million pills to the city and county between 2006 and 2014.

Defense attorneys argued that physicians prescribed opioids using their medical judgment and pharmacies dispensed medications to patients. They said they followed the law and had systems in place to identify suspicious orders.

The judge has yet to rule on that case.