The Ohio attorney general has filed a lawsuit against five leading prescription opioid manufacturers, alleging that the companies intentionally misled patients regarding the risks and benefits of opioid use with fraudulent marketing.
Attorney General Mike DeWine accused the companies of leading patients to believe that opioids were not addictive, which the lawsuit says fueled the current opioid epidemic in Ohio.
The five manufacturers listed in the lawsuit, filed in the Ross County Court of Common Pleas, are Purdue Pharma, Endo Health Solutions, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and its subsidiary Cephalon, Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals, and Allergan.
The lawsuit was filed in Ross County since Southern Ohio was the area hit the hardest by the opioid epidemic, the press release states. A record of 3,050 people in Ohio died from drug overdose in 2015, The Associated Press reported. That figure is expected to rise significantly once the 2016 figures have been tallied, according to the AP.
The lawsuit alleges that the drug companies violated the Ohio Consumer Sales Practices Act and created a "public nuisance by disseminating false and misleading statements about the risks and benefits of opioids."
The "false marketing" allegedly included advertising in medical journals, statements by sales representatives and "the use of front groups to deliver information which downplayed the risks and inflated the benefits of certain formulations of opioids," the statement reads.
The drugs the companies are accused of selling are OxyContin, MS Contin, Dilaudid, Butrans, Hyslingla, Targiniq, Percocet, Percodan, Opana, Zydone, Actiq, Fentora, Duragesic, Nucynta, Kadian, Norco, and several generic opioids, according to the press release.
