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New York City, the largest city in the US, on Tuesday sued big drug companies that make or distribute prescription opioids, blaming them for their part in the city's ongoing deadly opioid epidemic.
The lawsuit aims to recover 500 million US dollars in current and future costs that New York City will incur to combat this epidemic.
"More New Yorkers have died from opioid overdoses than car crashes and homicides combined in recent years. Big Pharma helped to fuel this epidemic by deceptively peddling these dangerous drugs and hooking millions of Americans in exchange for profit," said New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio in a statement Tuesday.
Over 1,000 people in New York City died from opioid-related overdoses in 2016, the highest year on record, the statement said.
The charges said that manufacturers' misrepresentations of the safety and efficacy of long-term opioid use and distributors' oversupply of opioids that enable diversion to the illegal market continue to fuel the crisis and significantly contributed to creating and maintaining a public nuisance in the city.
The lawsuit alleges that the opioid crisis caused by manufacturers' deceptive marketing, and distributors' flooding of prescription painkillers into New York City has placed a substantial burden on the city through increased substance use treatment services, ambulatory services, emergency department services, inpatient hospital services, medical examiner costs, criminal justice costs, and law enforcement costs.
Many defendants, including Allergan Plc, Endo International Plc and Johnson & Johnson, argued in separate statements the importance of using opioids safely.
(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)
