Report typos and corrections to: corrections@rawstory.com.
Stories Chosen For You
Pharmacy giant Walgreens "substantially contributed" to San Francisco's opioid crisis by shipping hundreds of thousands of "suspicious orders" of highly addictive prescription drugs as part of a profit-driven "fill, fill, fill culture," a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
"Walgreens pharmacies in San Francisco dispensed hundreds of thousands of red-flag opioid prescriptions without performing adequate due diligence."
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in the non-jury trial means that Walgreens can be held liable for much of the California city's opioid epidemic. Breyer said he will hold another trial to determine Walgreens' liability, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
"Walgreens pharmacies in San Francisco dispensed hundreds of thousands of red-flag opioid prescriptions without performing adequate due diligence," Breyer wrote in his ruling, which stems from the City and County of San Francisco v. Purdue Pharma case—popularly known as the Opioid Trial—which is classified as a "bellwether case" by federal courts due to its potential nationwide implications. Walgreens was the only company that did not reach a settlement with the city.
"The evidence showed that Walgreens did not provide its pharmacists with sufficient time, staffing, or resources to perform due diligence on these prescriptions," wrote Breyer.
Peter Mougey, an attorney representing San Francisco and other municipalities in opioid lawsuits, told The Washington Post that "Walgreens has hidden, covered up, and run from the truth throughout the entirety of this five-year litigation."
"Walgreens knew its system to detect and stop suspicious orders was nonexistent but continued to ship opioids at an alarming pace to increase profits," added Mougey. "San Francisco is now one step closer to starting the healing process."
As the Post notes:
Opioid overdoses, including heroin and fentanyl, have skyrocketed in San Francisco, where there was a 478% increase in those deaths between 2015 and 2020, climbing to 584, according to data from the city. Opioid-related emergency room visits tripled at the same time, at nearly 3,000 in 2020...
During the trial, city officials testified about the extent that the crisis infiltrated everyday life. Needles were removed from the city's parks "like changing out the toilet paper in the restrooms," a park ranger said. When paramedics respond to someone who has no pulse and is not breathing, they assume it's an opioid overdose.
According to the Chronicle:
Between 2006 and 2020, Walgreens distributed more than 100 million prescription opioid pills to pharmacies in San Francisco while failing to take actions to identify suspicious prescriptions or prevent their illegal and harmful use... San Francisco also sued seven drug manufacturers and distributors but settled its claims against them for $120 million. The companies are Allergan, Teva, Endo Pharmaceuticals, and Johnson & Johnson and its three distributors, McKesson, Cardinal, and AmerisourceBergen.
The San Francisco City Attorney's Office hailed Breyer's ruling as "a major victory." San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu, a Democrat, said during a Wednesday press conference that "there is no amount of money that will bring back the lives lost. There's nothing that we're going to be able to do to reverse that tragedy, but our city continues to need resources to adequately address suffering on our streets and the tragedies that continue with that."
In an interview with The San Francisco Standard, Chiu noted that "this is the first bench trial that has found against Walgreens, and I think it's reflective [of] the fact that we put in the significant evidence that demonstrates their liability for creating the incredible public nuisance and tragedy that we're seeing on our city streets, as well as across America when it comes to the opioid crisis."
Paul Geller, who also represented San Francisco in the case, told the Post he hopes Breyer's ruling "is distributed as required reading in Big Pharma boardrooms throughout the country" because it "ought to be a wake-up call for companies [to] help ensure this never happens again."
Walgreens spokesperson Fraser Engerman told the Post the company will appeal the ruling, arguing that "we never manufactured or marketed opioids, nor did we distribute them to the 'pill mills' and internet pharmacies that fueled this crisis."
Wednesday's decision follows a $683 million opioid-related settlement between Walgreens and the state of Florida in May, as well as an Ohio jury's November 2021 conclusion that the nation's three largest pharmacy chains—CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart—recklessly distributed a deluge of pills in two of the state's counties.
CONTINUE READING
Show less
A court case brought by Kobe Bryant’s widow over graphic photographs taken by first responders at the site of the helicopter crash that killed him got under way in the US on Wednesday.
The basketball superstar and his teenage daughter were among nine people who died when their chopper smashed into a hillside near Los Angeles in January 2020.
Vanessa Bryant alleges she suffered emotional distress because personnel from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and firefighters snapped pictures of the scene, which they later shared with friends and first responders.
“At least 11 (sheriff’s) personnel and a dozen firefighters shared the photos within 24 hours of the crash,” Bryant’s attorneys wrote in court papers.
“In the following weeks, one (sheriff’s) deputy flaunted photos of remains at a bar, another texted photos to a group of video game buddies, and (county fire) personnel displayed photos at an awards gala.”
Lawyers for Los Angeles County do not dispute that the photos were taken, but insist they have never been made public and have now been deleted.
Mira Hashmall, representing the county in the civil litigation, said the case hinged on this issue of public dissemination.
“From the time of the crash to now, the county has worked tirelessly to prevent its crash site photos from getting into the public domain,” she said.
“Over two and a half years later, no county photos have appeared in the media, none can be found online, and the plaintiffs admit they’ve never seen them.”
Vanessa Bryant’s case has been combined with a similar case brought by Chris Chester, whose wife and 13-year-old daughter also died in the crash.
A jury of six women and four men were selected Wednesday, CNN reported.
Relatives of several other victims were last year granted $2.5 million in compensation over the photo-taking.
An investigation into the crash found the pilot had probably become disorientated after flying the Sikorsky S-76 into fog.
Bryant is widely recognized as one of the greatest basketball players ever, a figure who became the face of his sport during a glittering two decades with the Los Angeles Lakers.
He was a five-time NBA champion in a career that began in 1996 straight out of high school and lasted until his retirement in 2016, after which he began building a lucrative business portfolio.
He was also a two-time Olympic gold medalist, helping the US squad of NBA stars to titles in 2008 in Beijing and 2012 in London.
CONTINUE READING
Show less
‘The walls are closing in’: George Conway says Trump is finally learning 'nobody is above the law'
August 11, 2022
George Conway assessed the quickly gathering legal challenges Donald Trump is facing after FBI agents searched Mar-A-Lago two days before he was forced to testify in a New York investigation of his business practices.
The former president pleaded the Fifth Amendment more than 400 times Wednesday in his deposition before New York's attorney general, as his allies fanned out across the media suggesting that FBI agents planted unspecified evidence during the hours-long search of his home, and Conway told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that Trump's situation was grim.
"I think the walls are closing in on him," Conway said. "There are so many different investigations. There's also civil suits that are chasing him down. I think, bit by bit, we're finally going to see the processes apply to him. He had his deposition taken yesterday by the New York attorney general. There are some civil depositions coming up, and he is being forced, essentially, to put up or shut up in these investigations. Yesterday, he, you know, took the Fifth 440 times, which is basically the most respect I think he's ever shown for the Constitution of the United States."
"But the Georgia case, I think, is particularly one to keep looking out for," Conway continued. "It's the one that sort of seems to be moving ahead the most quickly, but I think this documents investigation is one that we haven't heard the last of. I mean, [Washington Post columnist] David [Ignatius] is absolutely right about the innate cautious and by-the-book nature of Merrick Garland. I think that he is handling this absolutely perfectly. I don't think the Justice Department should be saying anything more than it already has said, which is basically nothing about this, because that's what the rule of law requires. That is what grand jury secrecy requires."
READ MORE: 'Paranoia is gripping parts of Trump world' after insider apparently squealed to FBI: report
"The whole point of this exercise is that nobody is above the law," he added. "The law applies equally to you and I, to the rich and the poor, to ex-presidents and just regular citizens. One of those protection people have is grand jury secrecy and the presumption of innocence. The reason why the Justice Department does not say anything about ongoing investigations, except in unusual circumstances or when indictments are there, is to protect the reputations of those that are the subject of investigation. If he really thinks that there is a witch hunt going on with these documents that were at Mar-A-Lago, he should tell us exactly what happened. Show us the search warrant. What was the government looking for? What did they take? He has a list of what they took, or should have a list, and that would tell us a great deal. But he doesn't want to say anything because he knows it's not going to be helpful to him, I'm sure. Just as actually answering questions from Letitia James yesterday wasn't going to be helpful to him."
Watch the video below or at this link.
08 11 2022 06 06 57 www.youtube.com
CONTINUE READING
Show less
Copyright © 2022 Raw Story Media, Inc. PO Box 21050, Washington, D.C. 20009 | Masthead | Privacy Policy | For corrections or concerns, please email corrections@rawstory.com.
{{ post.roar_specific_data.api_data.analytics }}