WASHINGTON (AFP) — An Oklahoma judge on Monday ordered US health care giant Johnson & Johnson to pay $572 million in damages for its role in fostering the state’s opioid addiction crisis.
In the first civil trial of a drugmaker over an epidemic that has caused hundreds of thousands of overdose deaths, Judge Thad Balkman said prosecutors had demonstrated that J&J contributed to a “public nuisance” in its deceptive promotion of highly addictive prescription painkillers.
“Those actions compromised the health and safety of thousands of Oklahomans,” he said.
According to the ruling, the company and its Janssen pharmaceuticals division will fund an “abatement plan” for care for addicts, families and communities ravaged by the crisis.
“The defendants Janssen and Johnson & Johnson’s misleading marketing and promotion of opioids created a nuisance,” Balkman said.
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Those actions compromised the health and safety of thousands of Oklahomans.
J&J was the first pharmaceutical company tried over the US opioid crisis, which fueled over 70,000 overdose deaths in 2017 alone.
But there are some 2,000 outstanding lawsuits against many drugmakers and distributors filed by state and local governments, many overwhelmed by the costs of an epidemic that has only slightly abated.
