On Friday, Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter voluntarily dismissed the opioid lawsuit against three distributors that have been moved to federal court and will refile new lawsuits in state court against each company individually.
Opioids are on the market for ages and have been used basically for pain relief for post-surgical pain, cancer-related pain, chronic or persistent pain. Opioids when used in proper dosage and along with a combination of other pain treatments, work in relieving pain successfully, unless there is a misuse or abuse of the drug.
Companies manufacturing opioids convinced the medical community that these medications were not addictive and were purely beneficial. This belief raised the number of prescriptions and sales unwarrantedly, resulting in a mass misuse of these drugs, to the extent that this was identified by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a public issue and named it an opioid crisis.
The companies McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health, and AmerisourceBergen were sued in mid-January for allegedly fueling the opioid crisis in the state by ignoring suspicious orders of painkillers.
The notice came three weeks after the case was removed from Cleveland County District Court to the Oklahoma federal court.
In recent months, Oklahoma reaped some massive settlements, beginning with Purdue Pharma LP and Teva Pharmaceuticals, which made a settlement of $270 million and $85 million, respectively, followed by a $572 million verdict against Johnson & Johnson by an Oklahoma state judge, which was later cut to $465 million. Lastly, Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc. made an $8.75 million out-of-court deal with the state to avoid legal action.
