Kentucky Attorney General Files Law Suit Against Drug Manufacturer
It’s become more apparent in recent years that pharmaceutical companies have played a major role in setting up the current opioid crisis. Drug manufacturers took part in unethical marketing practices, giving doctors various incentives to prescribe their drugs and getting as many people onto their medications as possible.
Over the last few years, many cities, politicians, and lawyers have filed lawsuits against these drug companies for their roles in the current drug epidemic. Most recently, Attorney General Andy Beshear lodged a complaint against a leading pharmaceutical manufacturer, alleging the company convinced doctors to inappropriately prescribe two of their drugs used only for cancer patients. The lawsuit claims that some doctors were coaxed into giving these drugs for chronic pain instead, being considered an “off-label” use of the medication.
Some data suggests that sales reps were told to zero-in on physicians other than those who treat cancer. An anonymous sales rep alleged that close to 100% of the physicians she dealt with were pain management doctors, not oncologists.
The lawsuit filed by AG Beshear claims that the company was able to grow its customer base in states like Kentucky and get a lot of people hooked on very strong opioids.
It appears that there were also direct violations to an order from the FDA not to market one of their drugs for anything other than pain attributed to cancer, while the other drug in question was disapproved by the FDA for its high risk of causing serious harm to the patient.
We’ve got a serious issue here. More drug manufacturers beyond Purdue Pharma are now being found to have gotten involved in unethical and shady marketing and sales tactics, helping to catalyze the current drug crisis.
The unfortunate thing is that a lot of the damage caused by these companies are still being felt years later and the effects are still rippling through our society. Now that painkillers aren’t as readily available as they used to be more, more and more heroin addicts are turning into fentanyl addicts as the problem continues to perpetuate through nearly every town in the U.S.
Where would we be if the drug companies never flooded our communities with painkillers? What would have happened if heroin addiction wasn’t ever a thing and families didn’t have to endure years of heartache after the loss of a loved one to fatal overdose?
We might never know the answer to that question, but what is known is that we have to fight this crisis every day. We have to use all our available resources to keep anyone from unnecessarily losing their lives to this monster. We have to keep moving on. We have to persist and rise above drugs.
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