The amount is historic, but it is up to the scourge that has ravaged the United States since the early 2000s. Accused of having fueled the opioid crisis, these powerful painkillers that create dependence and drug overdose, four American pharmaceutical groups are prepared to pay $ 26 billion in total to settle the thousands of lawsuits brought against them.
The Johnson & Johnson laboratory has agreed to pay 5 billion over nine years, and distributors McKesson, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen - suppliers of some 90% of American drugs - 21 billion over 18 years.
Accused of turning a blind eye to abnormally high opiate orders, distributors also undertake to monitor them.
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After almost two years of an epic battle, this amicable settlement proposal should make it possible to put an end to nearly 4,000 civil actions brought against these laboratories by dozens of American states and local communities.
"These four companies not only helped spark the crisis, they continued to fuel it for more than two decades
," Letitia James, New York State Attorney General, said Wednesday evening.
Today we hold them accountable and inject billions of dollars into communities across the country. ”
The 26 billion that the companies propose to pay must allow the States and communities to finance the treatments made necessary by what is compared to an epidemic on the other side of the Atlantic.
"More than 40 states"
should ratify it within 30 days, said the prosecutor.
If confirmed, this agreement will be the most important in the epic legal battle waged by American states to make pay the companies accused of having produced and promoted opiate drugs.
500,000 deaths in twenty years
Johnson & Johnson, which has given up producing or selling any opiate substance, had already announced at the end of June an amicable agreement with New York State alone, providing for $ 230 million. Initially reserved for patients with severe pain, "opioids", these powerful painkillers, have since the early 2000s become almost as common as aspirin in the United States. Driven by the laboratories, these analgesics quickly generated problems of dependence, affecting all categories of the population. In twenty years, they have killed more than 500,000 overdose in the United States and reduced the life expectancy of Americans between 2014 and 2018. The pandemic and lockdowns have worsened the situation and more than 93,000 Americans have lost their minds. life by overdose in 2020 because of the products,never seen.
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Even if it is accepted by many states, the agreement announced on Wednesday will not settle all the disputes: other laboratories attacked in court are not associated with it, such as Teva, Allergan, or Endo.
The same goes for large American drugstore chains - Walgreens, CVS - or pharmacies in Walmart stores.
The ongoing battle is often compared to that waged by states against tobacco companies in the 1980s: in 1998 it led to an amicable settlement weighing nearly $ 250 billion.