Hospitals in West Virginia and Kentucky sign onto massive suit aimed at pharma industry

WV MetroNews ^ | April 29, 2019 | Alex Wiederspiel

[buckalfa]

MOUNDSVILLE, W.Va. — Thirty-seven hospitals in two states have filed a lawsuit in Marshall County against numerous opioid manufacturers, distributors, and several individuals.

Stephen Farmer of law firm Farmer, Cline, and Campbell announced the suit, calling it the first of its kind in the United States, Tuesday afternoon.

The complaint filed in court Tuesday claims evidence of a criminal conspiracy that has devastated West Virginia and “tens of thousands of its families.”

West Virginia University Hospitals, United Hospital Center, and Charleston Area Medical Center Health System are among three of the largest hospitals to attach their name to the suit — featuring 27 West Virginia hospitals and 10 Kentucky hospitals in total.

The complaint names 22 defendants across the spectrum of pharmaceutical marketing, distribution, retail, and one known individual. The complaint also names 100 “John Doe” defendants — whose true names the plaintiffs have yet to identify.

In part, the 341-page complaint claims marketing defendants — 10 of whom are listed — used “key opinion Tleaders” by “funding, assisting, encouraging, and directing doctors” and “creating, funding, assisting, directing, and/or encouraging seemingly neutral and credible professional societies and patient advocacy groups” to “profoundly influence, and at times control, the sources that doctors and patients relied on for ostensibly “neutral guidance.”

The complaint further claims that the marketing defendants pushed to increase opioid sales, while the supply side was sustained by manufacturers and distributors.

On page 20, the complaint claims the defendants “systematically and repatedly disregarded the health and safety of the public.”

“By providing misleading information to doctors about addiction being rare and opioids being safe even in high doses, then pressuring those doctors into prescribing their products by arguing, among other things, that no one should be in pain, especially chronic pain, the Marketing Defendants created a population of addicted patients who sought opioids at never-before-seen rates.”

[jazzlite]

Anyone who looks into big pharma will be astonished at what they have done to enrich themselves and their protectors in government at the expense of sick people. I have been told that they take home 40% of the cost of medical care in the US. That is beyond criminal in my view. They need to be regulated. Remember the Epi-Pen?

[HangnJudge]

I have seen a lot of this, teaching, talking myself blue in the face,
to people who were blinded by addiction, or sometimes just flat criminal.

Now I’m a hospitalist, the nightmares are... less now

[jazzlite]

I wonder how many voters know that most Senators and Representatives have at least 2 big pharma lobbyiests assigned to them who, no doubt, contribute big bucks to those political campaigns. And, we wonder why nothing is done about the high price of drugs, not to mention the problems with the opioids.

[HangnJudge]

My cousin heads up an impaired physician program in WVa
He’s seen first hand the professional destruction

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/05/opioid-epidemic-west-virginia-doctor/586036/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

[LouAvul]

Interesting link. Thanks. The public have no clue as to how widespread this problem is.

Locally, we had a surgeon who was addicted. He had his own little pill mill going with repeat patients who were similarly addicted. The numbers were astounding.

But the kicker was the hundreds of operations he performed while clearly under the influence. Of course, any staff member who blew the whistle would be out of a job, etc.

[DJ MacWoW]

Agreed.

And the kids OD'ing have never been prescribed opiates. They're using heroin and fentanyl and the DNC press doesn't want Americans looking at the border.

[Stonewall1]

Obamacare helped create this by using patient satisfaction surveys as one of the markers for Medicare reimbursement. Hospital ERs were told that they needed to make sure that no one complained about lack of pain meds. Providers at our hospital were threatened with termination if they had complaints from patients despite trying to practice good medicine and limit narcotics to patients who had a demonstrable cause for pain.

[Mom MD]

It is the governments fault. They made pain the “5th vital sign” tied it to patient satisfaction then tied reimbursement for services to patient satisfaction. This lawsuit is another nail in the coffin for nonaddicted parole who really need pain relief. Fall and break a bone? Enjoy your Tylenol cause that’s all your getting for pain relief. Opioids are bad doncha know.

[wally_bert]

The really potent opioid based stuff the quacks have put me on help with pain but tend to make me queasy and nauseated.

[Mom MD]

You forgot tying reimbursement to patient satisfaction...... unhappy patients decreased reimbursement.

[Bob434]

[[The problem is real.]]

The drugs may be a problem, but for many folks with severe chronic pain- pain is a problem too- pain pills give them back at least some semblance of a life- I’m talking about severe crippling pain- where just getting off a couch or out of bed is a process of painful frustration where the person is in tears by the time they get up- There simply is no other pain meds on the market that do what opioids do for pain- people in pain should not be forced to lie in bed all day because they can’t get relief- that’s no life at all- and many are honestly willing to risk the bad effects of opioids just to be able to function well enough to at least take care of themselves-

While there determinately is a problem with addiction- we can’t leave those with chronic pain out to dry- nor those who have gone through operations that have a high pain outcome- many folks calling for opioid ban have never had to suffer from crippling chronic pain-

[yldstrk]

Totally agree.

[HangnJudge]

...You forgot tying reimbursement to patient satisfaction
...... unhappy patients decreased reimbursement

I hadn’t forgotten, I find the subject distasteful
We should be better than this,

Another reason I’m a hospitalist now
Or until my wife lets me retire

[gaijin]

Meet the original billionaire inventer of opiods, the SACKLER FAMILY..!

Now let's take look at opioid deaths in the USA over time:

Wow, that's a lot. I wonder what might help to account for that amazing growth:

Shameful, huh..? In view of such evil ambition, I wonder how profitable opiods are, huh..? The Sackler family owns an incredible 1/3 of the entire legal opiods market and they route all of their profits through Bermuda, where they own a non-descript office building.

I wonder HOW rich you can get...

But that's just ONE of their many houses.

This one goes for $32 million dollars and it's in Bel Air, next to Beverly Hills.

After HOOKING people, you probably won't believe that they were also recently granted a patent for a drug to get people UN-hooked, would you..?

Yes, paid to hook people, then paid to UN-hook them. Nice biz, huh...?

Nice medal, maybe he planted a flag on Mount Suribachi, right...?

Uh-huh, sure...!

If you weren't in the military, could you wear a serious look on your face while you walked around with a MEDAL on your suit jacket..?

That takes real brass.

[Mom MD]

As a Hospitalist you know the pressure. The hourlong weeping wailing conversation with the addict why you won’t give them narcotics then the call from the patient rep and another long conversation when they complain makes doing the right thing very time intensive and exhausting. Then the 5 calls an hour from the poor nurse getting harangued by the patient don’t help either. This in a world where we are pushed to see more very ill patients every day and spend more time documenting. My team does not do it but it is much easier to just give them the narcotic while in the hospital.

On the flip side I have a cancer patient or someone with a painful illness and I am allowed to prescribe 20 pills at discharge. I wish we could get the government and the patient satisfaction scores out of this and let doctors be doctors

[Mom MD]

They did not invent opioids. Morphine and opium had long been known

[Wuli]

I know a man who has not needed any fraudsters for his opioid addiction. He established residency and doctors in more than one state, and got valid opioid prescriptions from each of them. He has gone back and forth between the states to keep getting what each doctor thinks is just a legitimate refill of a legitimate prescription. It is an isn’t working. It is working on a technical level, but typical of opioid prescription drug use he still needs to try to get bigger doses; the effectiveness of lower doses keeps wearing off.

In his situation it began with what is still legitimate need for pain killers. He has post-polio syndrome (the problems encountered with polio as a child that sometimes begin to recur in older age), and is in need of multiple surgeries he has been unable to obtain so far.

The easiest part of not acknowledging the opioid addiction is the real continuance of severe pain, and with that the need for pain relief as in: “I’m not addicted, I just really do need pain relief.” It’s a giant half-truth.

[HangnJudge]

The local hospital administrators are on board with this

I’m in the region in east tenn. with
very high opioid OD associated death rates.
Everyone in the hospital understands,
because it is our own family, neighbors, church members, etc. dying.

The nurses are reinforcing the opioid restrictions,
reducing the calls and administrative pushback

[Redwood71]

You get it. First of all, there is no such thing as a opioid manufacturer. There are only companies that produce drugs for the purpose of health needs and the decisions made by the doctors that request drugs to be dispensed. I am not aware of any drug manufacturing company that has ever ordered, or had the authority to order, the use of any drug approved by the AMA, i.e., the federal government, for any reason. They don’t have the authority by anyone to do so. So we’re back to suing the gun manufacturers because someone shot someone and since it’s finally been determined it can’t be the guns fault, it has to be the people that make it. And it was just as stupid then as it is now.

rwood

[HangnJudge]

...He established residency and doctors in more than one state

Those are being caught now in Tennessee
A lookup engine for schedule drugs now includes most states in our region.
These frauds are being caught here.