In a deal to help inoculate them from liability for an opioid crisis that has killed roughly half a million Americans, some of the health industry’s biggest companies—Johnson & Johnson, Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen and McKesson—settled with a group of state attorneys general. ...
If they accept the funds, cities and states would be forced to drop any legal action against the companies in return, though the deal only covers the four companies and not other firms involved in the opioid industry. Johnson & Johnson will pitch in $5 billion to the fund over 9 years, while the drug distributors will pitch in $21 billion over double that time frame.
States part of the deal include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas.The deal is the result of two years of back-and-forth over whether the four companies helped fuel the epidemic by profiting off opioid painkillers even as thousands of Americans died, and will settle thousands of lawsuits against the firms if accepted.
over the previous year. The surge was driven by synthetic opioids like fentanyl, according to the CDC.
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